In a Van Down by the River

Photo by John Brantingham

Back when we spent our summers in a van in the High Sierra, the season would stretch out in a way that I thought it would never end, and when it did, it always came as a surprise to me.

Leaving wouldn’t feel real to me until the night before, and I would stay up alone sipping from a bottle of bourbon and watching a fire burn itself down until I doused it with bucket after bucket of water.