It climbed like it remembered how, but just wasn’t up to it anymore. My Ford pickup coughed again, started again, stalled again, rolled back down Bishop Street—three times. The truck belonged to my uncle. Not sure where he got it from. It’s old. It tries.

You came out early this summer. I don’t blame you. I wanted to, too. But you took the newly-leased Honda, and here I am struggling with this machine’s out-dated gear shift as the sun thins out across the narrow twilight and a pale moon sits in the corner, dented, like a golf ball lost in tall grass.

The darkening green smothers the bulging horizon and the Ford responds to my wrist-turn of its key like a prizefighter to smelling salts—ready to go. We’re coming for you. I’ve missed the way your back curves like a shoehorn when we kiss.

Over the edge, out there, where the hot air balloon exploded against McArthur’s Cliff three years ago, where the Franklin kid swears he saw a brown bear snoring by the river, we used to park this truck and lay under your grandma’s blanket, inventing constellations—Zodar the Professor, Louis the King of Night-Bowling, Jimmy the Night Clean Up Boy at Target. We always kept an eye out for the old man who walked through the cemetery, looking for love cars.

The air smells like dirt. It's cool, fresh with rain. The Ford is cruising now—downhill in neutral, headlights highlighting six feet ahead. Now, I’ve never seen a brown bear out here, but a guy outside the grocery store talked about shooting groundhogs and raccoons, maybe possum. I can’t remember. All I’ve seen were those two skunks that picked through our garbage early that morning, slopping yogurt out of the plastic cup, getting it all over shinny fur. They strutted under the brush, slowly, when I flipped on the porch light, their Mohawks bleached like highway lines.

Two miles—less, now. And all downhill. The Ford likes moving without trying. It’s smart enough or lazy enough to appreciate inertia, like a balloon cut from its string. I’d love to see a fox, though. Its Scottish paintbrush tail dipped in white. I’ll just have to imagine until… The overhead light is on. The door bent open. We’re stopped.

Not sure if I passed out or if I swerved to avoid something, but look, there’s our mailbox smashed into the hood. The red flag is up. We’ve got mail. Jesus, the Ford hisses like a caged cobra, or, in this case, a deflated tire. I push the antique door and stumble on the gravel driveway. I can see our cottage through the dark elms. It glows like home and smells like smoke.

And there it was. Struggling to get off its back like a beached turtle. A sea urchin with legs and snout, a little bloody but not scared. The porcupine’s attacking armor had pierced the Firestone and caused this disaster. It’s like Darwin forgot about this species, this artifact older than my Ford.

When it rights itself as though it has had enough of my staring, I want to help it. I hit it, after all. But it readies itself, debonairly, for another round. It whines, defiantly, jerks its head, and limps across the road like a drunk. I hear the screen door slam and you calling my name in the hot night.

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