We Can’t Stop Here, this is Bat Country
When life gives you lemons, throw lemons back at life till it gives you something better
5 minutes ago, I was on my way to Mexico to visit my girlfriend and get my car fixed. Cruising along in my little shit box, sipping on tepid red Gatorade. Adjusting the radio to the clearest NPR station every 30 minutes to hear left-leaning news stories.
I was passing through a place with no name on the highway from Los Angeles to Mexicali when my car broke down.
The engine was revving, the transmission was in gear, but the car wasn’t accelerating. A quick glance down showed my temperature gauge pinned above the red H.
“Dammit!” I yelled as I steered my disabled turquoise 1996 Nissan Sentra onto the shoulder. My car was 30 years old with 195k miles on the odometer. Its death was no tragedy.
My car died in a place with no name. I call it bat country. It’s the low desert no man’s land that Hunter Thompson describes in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 9pm and still over 90 degrees.
When people hear Southern California, they think palm trees and beaches. If you’re in the part of Cali, that’s 30 miles from the coast where all the people live, it is. Inland desert Southern California is an inhospitable…
