Tinfoil Butterfly

I swing my body up to the front seat of the van and put my feet on the dashboard. My Doc Martens are filthy, and I wet my forefinger to rub at a particularly offensive patch. It clears a trail that makes the rest of the dust more visible and clods of dirt hit the floor. I roll the window down and release the most offensive chunks into the fresh air.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lowell says. “It’s too fucking cold out there.”

He pushes his foot down hard on the gas pedal, and my sweet Veronica, my name for Lowell’s 1980 Vanagon Westfalia, tries to oblige.

“Time is it?” I stretch my arms up in a casual gesture that ends abruptly when my knuckles hit the bare metal ceiling.

“You fell asleep,” Lowell says.

“I got that part. Where are we?”

He stretches out his arm to rest on my shoulder, then gives my long dark hair a little tug that’s more affectionate than sexual. I don’t like it.