Next stop: El Paso… I mean Sierra Blanco
As we were leaving Van Horn with an inexplicable crippled engine, we resigned ourselves to the idea of inching along the access road until we could find a mechanic who could help us. While the fellas in Van Horn had tried earnestly to help us, they had neither the facilities, nor the willingness to bite off more than they could chew delving into Harvey’s ancient inner workings. The general consensus was: get to El Paso. They have everything there.
So we trundled off down I-10, wary of the unknown rumbles coming from under the hood, and dreading the 30 mile stretch of desert between us and the next town. We couldn’t go very fast and there was no consistent side road, so we were relegated to the far right lane of the 75mph highway. Every semi that hurtled past rocked Harvey out and then back as he was sucked in by the vacuum. It was a very peaceful time for all of us.
BAM!
Another tire? Jesus, could anything else go wrong? I pulled the rig over and at this point we all just started laughing. We had been awake for odd hours for almost a day and laughing was about all we could do. It started small and grew, but soon we were all three just leaning in silent laughter at the absurdity of it all.
After we wound down, I walked around the side and, sure enough, the back left tire had blown a tread. Stefan and I stood outside for a minute considering our options. There was no sense returning to Van Horn. We were 20 miles away and we knew already how limited their resources were. We had a spare tire, but our jack wasn’t heavy duty enough for Harvey’s girth. So the only thing that made sense was to try to make the 10 miles into the next town, Sierra Blanco.
We were about to get back in the car when I noticed a vague smell of piss. I had a suspicion where it was coming from so I walked to the back of the rig and looked underneath. Sure enough there was a gaping hole in our blackwater tank, the tank that holds our used toilet water. When the tread had blown off it flipped up with such a force that it had smashed a hole in the plastic tank. I wasn’t even shocked at this point. This was just one more addition to our comedy of obstacles.
So we limp down the highway on our bald tire and finally make it into the outskirts of town. There were a couple of shops that sell tires and parts and such and another that had a garage. We pull up alongside one of them, and Stefan walks in to ask to borrow a jack. Apparently the man inside wouldn’t let us borrow a jack, but he was willing to charge us $45 to use it. Needless to say Stefan walked across the street to the other shop and the man there offered a jack for $35… just to borrow it. Over the next ten minutes or so, Stefan walked back and forth across the street letting the sand sharks indirectly bid for use of their jack. After several trips, he settled with one of them for $20.
I backed in to the garage and climbed in the back, psyching myself up for the inevitable ordeal changing this tire would be. I grabbed some tools, hopped out, and walked in to the garage. It was there I met Payo.
In the middle of the garage was a giant tractor tire on its side, and on top of the tire was a large chair ripped out of a car. Payo sat atop his throne with a .22 rifle propped on his shoulder, sipping a giant fast food soda. His two granddaughters sat on either side of him in similar seats. He stared at us silently while we struggled to remove and replace the tires. It was disturbingly regal and creepy as hell.
After watching us try in vain for 15 minutes to remove the busted tire, I guess he figured we weren’t any threat to him and actually offered to help. He put the gun away somewhere and got out his air powered impact drill to remove the bolts. Compared to the tire iron, the drill made short work of the lug nuts.
Next came the jack, the one we’d bartered for. The back left tire was an awkward one to get to, and the range of the jack was limited. Stefan and I took turns pumping the lever and helping Payo replace the tire. Not only was it exhausting, but to get to the lever we had to lean right up against our busted septic tank. Joy.
We eventually got the spare on and put the bald tire where the spare had been. We thanked Payo and paid him; a little extra since he’d gotten down on the ground and sweat with us. And then we turned our backs on Sierra Blanco and continued the slow crawl into El Paso. We still had exhaust problems, but at least we had six tires on the ground. It would be a long process, but there was nowhere to go but west.
Bradley