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We were driving through the mountains, cruising at about fifty-eight in a thirty-five zone. It was just me and Jessie Portwood, flying in an old Jeep, bouncing on occasional potholes, both of us smoking Marlboros as the afternoon heat baked us over.

     We had removed the top to the Jeep, and the doors as well. Spring had just begun, and we had agreed that a Jeep with its doors and a top would not suffice in the Virginia heat. So we had the top off, and I was standing up on the passenger seat, the wind blowing in my face, making me feel like I was on a rollercoaster as my hair was flying backwards, feeling the drag of the wind’s power.

     I should have been sitting down with my seatbelt on, but Jessie had claimed earlier that few cops ever came driving down this road. “It’s private property,” Jessie had claimed.

     And so, I was having the time of my life instead, clenching my cigarette in one hand, my other hand gripping a part of the frame where the passenger-side door used to be. I was holding on for dear life as Jessie swerved through the curves, narrowly making them in his lifted Jeep.

     Jessie was sweating viciously in the heat; his face was red with exertion as he concentrated on the road. His shoulder-length blonde hair flapped similarly to mine, and sometimes it flew right in front of his eyes. During the straight parts of the road he would reach up and yank the strands of blonde back, behind his ears so that he could see. He cut a comical sight driving the Jeep, mostly because he had quite the gut. It bulged all around the steering wheel, and made it difficult for him to steer properly. He leaned often into the curves, using his stomach as an aid in turning the wheel.

      I whooped as yet another sharp curve came hurtling towards us, forcing Jessie to curse and crank the wheel hard to the right, barely making the turn. The momentum of the car trying to turn on a dime caused the left side of the car to hydroplane, tilting the car up in the air for a moment. I was hollering as Jessie swore again and again until the car settled back down.

     “Maybe you should go slower!” I had to shout to be heard. He had pitched his cigarette, pale-faced from that last turn.

     He didn’t even argue with me, like he usually did. He slowed it down a tad, cutting the speed from almost sixty to forty-five. “We gotta find a place to stop,” he said. “I gotta piss.”

     “You just went,” I reminded him as he turned gently this time, careful not to repeat his mistake from the last turn. “Not half an hour ago. What, you got a weak bladder or something?”

     “Shut up!” he glared at me briefly, and then jerked the car off of the road and into a ditch, causing me to lose my balance and fall into the back of the Jeep.

     Killing the engine, he leaped out and ran to the end of the ditch, where a small creek was forming. I had lost my cigarette, and felt the need of another. I had it lit in no time, and leaned back against the Jeep as he finished up his business and came back to the car, smiling. “That was hilarious.” He was referring to how I’d fallen into the back of the Jeep as he had stopped.

     “Not really,” I countered him. “It just shows how much you suck at driving, really.”