A Requiem For My Van
Our big beautiful black baby is gone. Rosalita is dead. Long live Rosie.
“Dude. It’s a fucking van.”
Not so fast, Chief. Rosie was so much more than a van. She was our motherfucking hero. A big, black unicorn that was our home over the last few years. Not our home away from home. Our home.
Rosie was our beacon. She was our protector. She was family. She was the seventh Everyman (or the eighth, ninth or tenth, depending which tour we’re talking about). She was the camel on whose back we strapped our hopeless dream, as she cradled us safely in her belly, hurtling around the country, her dirty, exhausted band of misfits inside, selfishly sleeping off last night’s drinks.
She took care of us and we, in turn, did our best to take care of her.
To the garage we’d rush at the first hiccup of abnormality. A funky engine sound? A rough shimmy in her rear? An electrical blink? No problem was too small for us to pull from any of America’s millions of miles of highway to make sure Rosie was tended to. No issue was put off. We knew that without her we’d be nothing. We’d be stuck at home. Or we’d be unsafe.
She was relentless in her fortitude. In snow, sleet, hail, heat, over mountain ranges and straight through blazing desert she’d roar with nary a complaint. With reliability you could set your watch to, she endured the torture we cast upon her to the tune of nearly a quarter of a million miles over three and a half years. The click, click, boom of her engine rumbling to life was an assurance that wherever we were headed, that whichever club or house show or city was next had better get ready. The Everymen were coming and they were set to fucking destroy.
And like the scorned and dutiful lover, outside she’d wait patiently for her pages to return and whisk her to the whatever exotic locale was on the next night’s agenda.
Spokane!
Youngstown!
Pensacola!
Lubbock!
She’d get filthy and clean and filthy again and when those long and arduous tours would wrap she’d head straight to Hackensack Auto And Spring where all of her nicks, bumps and bruises would find mending posthaste. She’d have a few brief weeks, maybe a month or two of respite before it was back to the grind. There were a hundred more shows that needed to be played.
Fire her motor and she’d start right up.
Until she didn’t.
And now she sits, broken and useless in my driveway, a two ton paper weight, waiting for me to decide whether to drop another new motor in her gut, to part her out or to scrap her completely and focus on the muscle car I’ve always wanted. My wife insists we take a few weeks, if not months, to mull it over. She insists that Rosie will once again rumble to life and take gloriously to the endless American highway.
Whatever the outcome, it can’t possibly do justice to her patience, her strength, her steadfastness, her growl, her toughness, her grace. Whatever the outcome, she deserves better.
We love you, Rosalita. We’d be nothing without you. And we’ll remember you forever. Rosalita is dead. Long live Rosie.
