“My batteries dead again” my mother hints. She never asks me to charge the battery, her alcoholic language and demanding tone requires a call to action.

I make my way towards the baking sun-cancer blistering clot. I hate this car. I fear the smell the most. I inspect its melting skin for any sign of damage, any imprint of a once living thing; Desert Tortoise, Native Hopi or Cacti.

As the door releases its sickly sucking sound from its seal baked shut in the Arizona desert, the smell engulfs me. In her center console sits her travel mug full of some brewing alcoholic concoction. Like curdled lava, noxious pink and bubbling, it sears my twisted nose. I reach for the retching poison and set in on the hood, next to the frying eggs. I step back and let the inhospitable radioactive interior air out.

Life support attached, the automobile coughs back to life. I inform my mother of her cars successful resurrection. “I hope you put my mug back this time” she slurs.

I dream of red telephone pole wrapping. A gift.