sometimes casey smokes and drives while zeke sleeps, sometimes it's the other way around. it was difficult enough to convince zeke to let casey behind the wheel of his precious gto; zeke always stands slouch-hipped by the petrol pump while casey trawls dazedly in the cold flourescent aisle of the gas station, browsing through the many brands on junk food in search of something that won't make him want to puke afterwards.

the vibration on the road gets to feel like an itch over his skin and sometimes the urge to pull over and just... scream or roll in the sand or run or something means he has to carefully unhook his fingers from the wheel and consciously unclench his teeth when they stop for the night. most of the time they sleep in the car, sometimes if it's warm and the ground flat enough zeke will lie out a few yards away; on such occassions casey never fails to ask zeke how he wants his roadkill cooked for breakfast.

every missing seam in the sewn rib of the vinyl seats, every sharp edge of plastic where cigarette tray lids have been broken off, every growing crack in the windscreen and every ripple of the dent in the back passenger door where someone opened their door onto it in a parking lot; casey has these things memorised. the american countryside forms a matte corridor for the car to slide through as if in a slipstream of the way things Could Have Been.