Chapter 2: Wherein We Prove That No One Can Jump a Dodge Raider Multiple Times Without the Whole Thing Falling Apart Eventually

Nash Photos

Our car, to the credit of Dodge, returned our nightly launches of abuse with nothing but steadfast dependability; it stayed alive and functional the entire time we were in San Felipe. It wasn't until three hours into our trip home when, in the middle of the Mexican desert, something under the hood made a permanent sound and the whole front end erupted in smoke. We pulled over and let the Raider catch its breath, popping the hood and pretending to know what we were looking for. When the steam finally cleared, none of us had to pretend anymore: The engine block we had so callously mistreated was cracked down the middle like a broken heart.

We didn't have much choice but to stand on the side of an empty road, swatting mosquitoes and speculating on whether or not that was the kind of thing a mechanic could hot glue back together. Cellphones weren't nearly as ubiquitous then, and they certainly didn't work in the deserts of foreign countries, so we burned an hour throwing rocks and errant beer bottles and waiting for another car that hopefully wasn't filled with a family of murder rapists or something who were also on vacation.

Chapter 3: Wherein a Family Saves Our Lives (And Murder Rapes None of Us)

mangostock

Just before sunset, a nice man with a dump truck and a 6-year-old pulled over and offered to help. He wrapped hauling straps around the bumper of the Raider before tying them to his own tow hitch. He offered to take us all the way to the border town of Mexicali, but from there we were on our own. He also had an extra seat in his truck, and so I agreed to sit up front with him and his son, even though I spoke the least amount of Spanish and I am famously terrible with children.

Chapter 4: Wherein I Prepare to Start Over and Carve Out a Life in Mexico

Holly Wilmeth

We pulled over and jumped down from the truck to see that the ropes were still secured around the bumper, but that the bumper had given up on the Dodge Raider. It was dragging in the street behind us like a dog that refuses to walk any farther and demands to be carried. Everything I had of importance, including my passport and also my friends, were in the Raider. I was with a stranger in the middle of a border town at night with about seven dollars in my pocket. The little boy looked at the bumper, then he turned to me and laughed in my face.

Thankfully, the kindly man didn't abandon me at my weakest moment. Instead, he tossed the bumper in the bed of the dump truck and we climbed back into the cab and retraced our steps through the city. It took us about 40 minutes to find the Raider pushed drunkenly to the side of the road in a busy intersection. My friends were already pulling everything they owned out of the Raider. "I'm leaving it," my friend Jesse told me. "The whole thing is worth less than a new engine." The gentleman with the terrible son expressed interest in taking it off our hands in exchange for the ride. We consented and piled into the bed of the dump truck so he could drive us the rest of the way to the border.

Chapter 5: Wherein We Bravely Lose Our Way to the Station and Sneak Across the Border by Mistake

Gary Moon

Epilogue: Wherein None of Us Get Shot by Minutemen and We Eat French Fries in a Greyhound Station

Nick Cowie

"I'm glad no one shot us," Jesse said while we waited for our bus. We agreed that was our favorite part, but said nothing, because we were all eating french fries from the fast food restaurant next door.

It took us four hours to get to Los Angeles, and along the way I tried to extract some overall thesis from the experience, because I was a freshman in college and I thought that's what I was supposed to do with everything. I couldn't understand why the dump truck driver had helped us in the first place or why he circled back with me when we lost the car. I certainly never would have done that for anyone, but then again I didn't own a dump truck and maybe there was some code of ethics.

Or perhaps he found himself in a similar situation once. Perhaps he felt the same impulse as I did, an impulse so strong, it doesn't belong to each individual man but to all mankind, binding us together despite our cultural differences and the borders between us: The impulse to jump a car in the air until it breaks.

Or maybe he just felt bad because I almost cried when his son laughed at me. Man, I hated that kid.

Special thanks to Dan Campagna, Sam Bergen, Olly Calleja, and Jesse Johnson.

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