From the book

Heaven and hell came and went through the tarpitch sky lit by the stream of the Milkyway stretching through the desert of the Universe.  The thinner, cleaner and colder air of Colorado stood by, without moon, without city lights, without any lasting disruption to the progressive dousing of a Tercel with gasoline.  The dashboard was pulled out, with its damning VIN and the door panels scraped unreadable with a nearby sandstone.  A two wheel drive white Ford with a gun rack and a timing issue held court nearby, a keg already floated in the trashcan full of ice.  A ring of spectators watched while the last touches were applied to the bitter warrior coated to the last inch in accelerant.  A cheap 200 foot parachute line, also soaked in gas, was tied off inside the car and ran out to a nearby rock.

Two rocks wedged in front of the rear wheels were kicked loose and the car started a slow roll.  A slurred cheer rose from the back of the Ford.  Then the Tercel slowed and stopped, held fast by the cretaceous sandstone laid down when this desiccated mesa was a thriving coastline.  A few of us got behind the car and put our shoulders into it.  Our determination and the aid of gravity started the Tercel down a vector it could no longer avoid.

Me and Andrew had read Ibn Fadlan’s recounting of a Viking funeral.  It struck us as peculiarly heroic as far as funerary practices go.  With a short appreciation given to the gods of somewhat ancient shitbox Toyotas and Subarus and Fords, the mighty vessels that we used and destroyed fighting our wars of attrition with our own mediocrity, the parachute line was lit.  The gasoline didn’t burn fast enough to catch the Tercel, an oxidized veteran of somewhat retarded teenage angst.  The Tercel fell down the steep slope, rolling over and over and knocking down sagebrush until it rested on its side against a cedar tree.  The parachute line made a damn good fuse.  The flames went steady down the cheap poly rope and found the hull of our destroyed ship.  Many a vestal virgin, or what passes for one in this town, had lost their virtue in the back of that cat shit smelling beast.  No hags had cut any throats.  Analogs are totally never complete.

The car did not explode.  Later in my life, I would see cars explode with a concussive sort of dusty finality Hollywood never bothers to capture.  This night, the car just went up in a whooshing ball of yellow flames.  A mongrel cry from all the ugly poor mostly high school drop-out Druids worshiping at the stainless forty gallon alter in the back of the Ford erupted into the ether.  We were far back in the canyons long since abandoned since coal quit turning a profit.  That car burned spectacularly for a few glorious minutes, then settled into an anticlimactic smolder.  The cedar, burned through, failed to hold the car anymore and it finished rolling into the bottom of the canyon.  At some point, the gas tank must have went, but we didn’t notice.

We packed up in a hurry.  We were all high on our crime and wanted to clear out before we ended up doing time.  A last look around for any objects left behind that might have some damning evidence and we loaded up.  Andrew drove out of there way too fast and way too conspicuous.  Me and a strung out angel I met earlier that night sat in the bed of the truck and watched the orange glow over the rim of the canyon disappear behind us.  Andrew liked to run from the cops.   They never actually chased us, but he liked the general motivation.  The straining old Ford got us back to what passed for civilization and our crime was boasted of.  The cheap warm beer made its rounds there in a culdesac in a Clifton trailer park and we woke up under a gray, cold dawn.  I was laying in the back of his truck wrapped up in a sleeping bag with the strung out angel.

The sun come up over the Mesa and the frost turned to dew.  She groaned at the cold and sort of melted backwards into me.