This is my car. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
In the short months since I have bought it, it has become a second home. A forward operating base; an extension of my apartment from which I project power into the uncivilized regions of my small world. Seasons pass, friends come and go, but my car always remains. Through rain and shine, good times and bad, it stands ready to convey me anywhere at a moment's notice. My wish is its command.
Before I had a car, I was lost. Stranded. Snowbound in the Idaho hills, half-mad with cabin fever, clinging to the corpses of plans that I wasn't ready to acknowledge dead. Accordingly, I did what all good Americans do when they're unhappy—made a risky major purchase. I bought a 2017 Nissan Versa Sedan. The cheapest car in America. I named it Versace as a dumb proletarian joke.
I wanted a modern car, one with good fuel efficiency for the long and frequent trips I planned on making to Oregon, a state I thought at that time would play a much larger role in my life than it in fact has. I also wanted a car that looked anonymous. I had recently been socked with a traffic violation to the tune of dozens of dollars while driving my sisters' car, which is covered with Pollockian spatters of colorful paint that attract the attention of high school girls and highway patrolmen in equal measure.
I was attracted to the Versa because it had a lot of storage space in the trunk. I was an advertising man back then; a high-strung creative type who was infatuated with the so-called "van life." I imagined myself pulling out the back seat, rolling out a foam pad and sleeping in the cavernous trunk, eking out a romantic literary life on the mean side streets of Portland. By day I would wear beanies and write freelance ad copy in off-brand coffee shops. By night I would shower at Planet Fitness and read David Foster Wallace before retiring to the iron fastness of my car boot bedroom. I had it all planned out.
The problem was that the closest Versa for sale was in Billings, Montana—and my girlfriend in Portland was about to dump me, but we'll get to that. I collected my pennies for a down payment and drove the four hours to Billings, only to find that I had no way to prove my address, and that the car salesman was a ruthless bastard who saw me as some kind of human oil deposit capable of yielding limitless cash to the man brave enough to frack.
He generously let me take the car without proof of address after berating and threatening me over it for several hours, and as a final act of magnanimity, without my knowledge, for the low price of only half-again the value of the car, tacked a massive redundant warranty onto the principal of my loan, guaranteeing me a lifetime of crippling debt.
Then my girlfriend in Portland dumped me.
And I had this $14,000 anonymous silver albatross hanging around my neck with a lot of sweet storage room in the back.You'd be forgiven for thinking this put me in a worse position than I was in before, and indeed I worried for a few days that this was the case. But something was different now.
I didn't need to ask to leave the mountain anymore. I could go whenever I wanted. I could come back whenever I wanted. And what I wanted to do was go to Fort Worth for law school and not come back for a long time.
I quickly learned to appreciate the subtle features of my Versa: the way the air conditioner gets cold immediately. The way the bass thumps when I find a good hip-hop playlist. The way I can talk on the phone without using my hands.
I was in my car when I had the breakup talk with my ex. I was in my car when I talked to Texas A&M's admission department and scheduled a tour. I was in my car when I told my parents that I was enrolling. I was in my car when I first met my new roommate, ate my first Whataburger, and got my first grades.
When I had breaks between classes, I found myself walking to the parking lot, getting into my car, and just...staying there. There was no need to drive home. Ensconced in air-conditioned comfort, secure behind soundproof walls of aluminum, serenaded by the music of my choice, I felt like Superman in The Fortress of Solitude.
In his letters, C.S. Lewis wrote about "soaking machines:" quiet benches or overlooks in Oxford where he could sit for a long time and soak in the scenery. My car is a moving soaking machine, and my favorite place to take it is the Taco Bell parking lot. On rainy winter evenings, I buy a few tacos and a Baja Blast and stake out my corner of the car park. I turn Josh Ritter up loud and engage the parking brake and survey through rain-streaked windows that portion of Fort Worth illuminated by my headlamps.
On these nights I float in a tiny sphere of yellow light bobbing in an ocean of darkness. I am a taco astronaut adrift in the vastness of space: the lone Nighthawk in a modern Hopper painting. I eat my tacos slowly, reveling in my anonymity; my complete and total disconnection from the responsible world. It's tough to put a price tag on these nights, but I feel like my car paid for itself after maybe three of them.
Someday, when I'm cashing gigantic legal paychecks and rubbing shoulders with the Teslas and Mercedes of the world, I might buy a more expensive car. But I doubt I'll ever find a better one.