Our most recent visit to the repair shop wasn’t a cheery affair. That’s enough miles to land you on the moon or to make about seventy trips along the perimeter of Texas. At last check, the odometer read 266,195. And on at least two occasions, the two of us have very nearly been sent to that big garage in the sky. We have (sadly, unintentionally) taken the lives of a couple of deer, a turkey vulture, and an armadillo. My truck and I have weathered blizzards, sandstorms, floods, I-35, and four presidencies. I drove it off the lot of a used-car dealership on Valentine’s Day 2007, and we’ve been on the road together ever since. Two years later, after its initial owner had put 30,300 miles on it, that pickup was mine. Gleaming under the arena lights, the truck made a lap in front of thousands of rodeo fans, tires kicking up red dirt like a saddle bronc feeling her oats. My pickup was once an official truck of the San Antonio Rodeo, a luxury vehicle that came fully loaded with a custom color-matched grill guard, a diamond-plated bumper, and an interior that boasted just about every bell and whistle on the market. (Though it’s not really broken if you know the trick.) I’ve fixed it at least three times over the years. The antilock brakes went out three or four years ago. What else? The DVD player hasn’t worked since 2008. (I’ve since replaced the AC blower motor myself, thanks.) When a colleague recently hitched a ride with me, she said it sounded like the Babadook was haunting the dashboard. At 70 miles an hour, the truck vibrates so hard that everything in the rearview goes blurry. The front axle creaks during low-speed turns. Several of the black buttons on the dash have worn to pure white, the lights behind them dimmed or gone completely. I’d like to say that the silver studs add a touch of refinement, reminiscent of the nailhead trim you might find on a Victorian armchair. I keep a small case of them in the dash to deal with any new sags, a game of whac-a-mole that began some years ago and has since become a matter of routine maintenance. The ceiling cloth on my pickup, a 2005 GMC Sierra, is pinned up by thumbtacks.
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