(Editor’s note:
Renowned Western writer Edward Abbey, who died in 1989, would have
celebrated his 76th birthday this Jan. 29, 2003.)
About this time of year, almost 30 years ago, the writer
Ed Abbey and I were laboring through the exurbs of Ajo, in the
south of Arizona. We were driving on a miserable backcountry road
in an old VW van.
There were, of course, paved roads to
Ajo, but Ed had taken the scenic route, as usual. He had the gas
pedal to the floor on this javelina trail, and we were doing 15,
maybe 18 miles per hour due to an imperceptible incline. As nothing
distinguished this particular thoroughfare from anything to the
left or right of it, staying on the road was not easy.
Nor was it scenic. Just the lamentable, searing desert, and us. I
was hungry, hot, annoyed.
I’m thirsty,” I said.
“Have some water,” he replied.
“You brought water?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
Ed thought for a
while and said, “I’m thirsty, too.”
“Well, had you told
me we were going to go this way, why, I suppose I would have
brought some water,” I said, eventually adding, “and food.”
Everything we owned was in the back of the van, as usual.
Whenever Ed heard about a house that had fewer neighbors than ours,
or more property, or a bigger refrigerator, we moved there, as we
were doing this day. It wasn’t very hard to move because we didn’t
own very much: some clothes, one of which was a tie; a typewriter
(manual); a sewing machine (treadle); some pots purchased at J.C.
Penney in St. George largely as a means of cashing an unemployment
check; an ice chest; books maps tools; a bottle of wine; and some
money, not much. As usual.
We spoke only intermittently
in the oppressive heat. When our conversation lapsed entirely, the
only sound we could hear was the low-slung van waging battle with
the rock-strewn road. Kerchunk. Kerchunk. I glanced at the
speedometer. Ten miles per hour.
“Can’t you get this
crate to go any faster?” I asked.
“I’ve got the pedal on
the floor. What do you want me to do? Push?”
“I’m
thirsty,” I said.
“Well, you should have brought some
water. That was stupid.”
“You’re the one who’s stupid.”
“No, you.”
“You.”
I was growing aware
that the rhythmic pitching of the van was corresponding not to our
hitting rocks in the road, but to the sound of the engine.
KERCHUNK. KERCHUNK. It was growing louder. Soon the van was
lurching in sync with the noise. I was holding onto the door handle
to steady myself.
After a time, Ed turned to me and
yelled: “I think something’s wrong with the car.”
“No.
Really?”
“Did you put any oil in it?” he shouted.
“When?” I yelled back.
“Ever.”
“No.
You?”
“No.”
And, so, well, we began to laugh.
Time passed. We were not moving forward anymore, just jerking
violently in place, and, so, we laughed harder.
Then with
a final, violent kerrrrrrCHUNK, the engine seized up. Died. Four
red-hot pistons solidly and finally fused to the cylinders, melted
into the engine block that was now their coffin, never to pump gas
again. Silence everywhere.
“Well, thank God,” Ed said,
glancing at the gas gauge, “we’ve still got half a tank.”
Now we spilled out of the van, eyes tearing, struggling for breath,
collapsing onto the desert sand with aching lungs and throats,
laughing. When our merriment subsided, we crawled over to each
other, and, back-to-back, sat quietly, exhausted. Time to assess
our situation. After awhile, Ed spoke.
“Got any water?”
So, we opened our bottle of hot red wine, and prepared to
die. We had almost finished it when a truck happened by and the
driver gave us some water. Sympathetic to the plight of two
complete idiots, hungry and thirsty, he tied our dead VW to his
back bumper and off we went. We chatted lightly about whether we
could get arrested for drunk driving when our engine wasn’t on.
Our tow ended at a car dealer in Ajo, and there we threw
out the Volkswagen and bought a red-and-white Ford van, an American
car, reliable. Six cylinders, 600 bucks. We loaded our worldly
possessions into our new van, which, before too long, I would back
into a parked car that was, alas, occupied by its owner at the
time. But, that was in the future.
Off we went. Late that
night we pulled into a cheap motel, cashed an unemployment check,
and fell peacefully to sleep. It had been a good day, as usual.
Ingrid Eisenstadter is a contributor to Writers
on the Range, a service of High Country News in
Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). A dancer from the Bronx, she lived in
the Utah-Arizona area for a decade.
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