The parking lot seems endless. It is as if a mountain had been tattooed awkwardly with lines and stains and images of cars in rows. I am 17. This, to the best of my knowledge, is college. High school has thudded , middle school has imploded, elementary has long sutured away. It is an unusually warm day and the sky is exhaust. My 1968 mustang has a cracked engine block, leaking radiator, painted over turn signals, an almost lightning shaped tear in the back seat, a boat horn in the trunk, a bent fender, a gas gauge that does not work making shaking the car the way to guess by slosh how far to go and last of all the passenger window is held up by two bricks and a sprinkler head. It has made it to this first day of class and perhaps that is a good sign.
