I drove across a sunny, frozen New York State at a sensible 62 miles per hour—the speed limit was a conservative 55 at the time—feeling anxious and excited to meet whatever was out there for me. There was a feeling that my life was finally starting now, that all the pretense and training was over. I’d followed a path up to this point—school, followed by more school. There probably would be more school in the not-so-distant future for me—I liked the structure of school; I liked dining halls and dormitories; I wanted to become a tweed jacket-wearing teacher and write novels, or maybe just one novel, and have a small office with creaky floorboards that overlooked an ancient maple tree. But more school was still a couple of years down the line. For now, for today, for this moment, I was happy to be a man with $1,200 in his bank account (the entirety of my earnings from the bartending job), a full tank of gas, and a vague plan.

Buckle up, World.

About fifty miles outside of New York City traffic began to pick up. Everyone on the road suddenly seemed to drive with a new-found sense of purpose and skill. I’d always thought of myself as an above-average driver, doling out the proper amounts of caution and aggression depending on the situation. But compared to these drivers, who aggressively darted between lanes, I drove like a nearsighted old woman taking her sick cat to the vet. No matter what lane I was in, it was always the wrong lane. They tailgated me, and honked at me. To make matters worse, these drivers appeared to derive some kind of cruel pleasure from my befuddlement. They toyed with me, and played sadistic games. They’d pull in front of me, then hit the brakes, causing me to slam on my brakes which caused all of my belongings, which were crammed into the backseat, to suddenly lurch forward and threaten to crush me. Then they’d take off again and give me the bird as they drove away. What a hilarious game that was. At one point, I noticed a delivery truck in my rearview mirror that was so close to my back bumper that I could identify some of the bugs embedded in its front grill. Its air-horn howled. I screamed the words, “Back off, goddamn it!” Being a sensitive sort, I took this treatment—all of it—personally. I hadn’t even reached the city limits yet, and I was already certain that the people of New York City could sense my outsider status, knew instinctively that I wasn’t from around here, and, the same way a dog detects fear on a mailman, smell my weakness and naivety.

I needed to pull over somewhere and collect myself. I spotted a rest area up ahead and put on my turn signal. There was was a car, or, more accurately, the remnants of a car parked in the rest area. The hood was propped up and the tires were gone. The thing had been completely stripped and then torched. Wisps of smoke still rose from its charred frame. It looked like a prop from a movie about the apocalypse. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see a bleached skeleton, jaw agape, reclining behind the wheel. I said the word, “Jesus!” then hit the gas and bypassed the rest area.

I got onto the Tappan Zee, a groaning, seven-lane bridge that spanned the brown, sudsy waters of the Hudson. Traffic slowed to a crawl, then, without warning, stopped altogether. I sat inside the bubble of my idling Subaru, staring out at the sea of red brake lights before me. A light on the dashboard suddenly began blinking. It was the CHECK ENGINE light. All day I’d been noticing things that seemed like bad omens—foreboding clouds, crows lifting off from fields at dawn, the burned car from a few miles back. But here was the first tangible evidence that something was actually wrong. The needle on the car’s temperature gauge began to move at a steady pace from the “C” towards the “H.”

Having always believed that I’m the smallest bit psychic, I attempted to will the needle to stop moving with my mind. It didn’t work. A puff of white smoke emerged from the hood of my car, and the same way that a soul leaves a corpse in the movies, it quickly escaped into the sky.

I took in the scope of my predicament. The sun was going down. I was about 25 miles north of New York City. I was sitting in an overheating vehicle, surrounded on all sides by idling, honking cars. I was suspended approximately 140 feet above the Hudson. (I could see it down there, its brown water churning away. I’d never seen a browner, or angrier-looking river in my life.) The wise thing to do here was to pull over to the side of the road. But being on the bridge meant that there was no side of the road for me to pull over to. A second puff of white smoke appeared, followed by a third. You are going to break down now, I thought. A tow truck will eventually come and help you. Cars break down. These things happened in life. I also thought about how I would single-handedly back up traffic for miles, and how I would, again single-handedly, make hundreds if not thousands of New Yorkers late for their dinners.

New Yorkers, I imagined, wouldn’t like being late for their dinners.

I could feel the bad karma that this would generate; I saw it, literally, as a black cloud that would hang above my head for years, possibly even for all time. The smoke-ghosts continued to escape from the hood, increasing in volume and velocity. I slipped into a half-catatonic state, resigning myself to what was happening, wistfully wishing from time to time that this was happening to someone—anyone—else. My shoulders slumped, as if something was breaking in me. A great misery, I was certain, was about to begin. Like a captain going down with his ship, I shut my eyes and braced myself for the end.

Then it occurred to me that I had one final bit of recourse here. I thought, What if I switched off the car and simply let the engine cool? I turned the key. The engine stopped. The needle on the temperature gauge—to my delight—began to settle back towards the letter “C” again. I screamed and pounded the dash, feeling like I might make it through this yet. I left the car’s power on, so that my lights would remain illuminated, so that none of the other maniac drivers would crash into me. I sat in silence, listening to the sound of muffled radios playing inside the surrounding vehicles. When traffic began to move, I started the car, and pulled ahead. When it stopped, I shut the engine off again.

My start-stop technique got me across the Tappan Zee. By the time I was on the far side, the sun had gone down completely. I drove on, keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge. I followed the directions to Phillip’s house, which was located on a quiet, dead-end street in Yonkers. By the time I pulled into his driveway, the CHECK ENGINE light was ablaze again and so much smoke was billowing from underneath the hood that it was nearly impossible to see where I was going.

I stood shivering on his doorstep. I rang the bell. A dog began barking inside. Phillip opened the door accompanied by a German Shepherd. “Herr Jones,” he said. “Welcome to our stately manor. Are you seeking lodging for the night?”

I told him that I was.

“That’s Sheba,” he said, gesturing towards the dog.

I said hello to Sheba, then entered the house. It was warm inside. Something delicious and possibly roast-like was being prepared in the kitchen. “Mother has prepared a feast for your arrival,” Phillip said. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until that moment.

Phillip stood in the open door, taking in the sight of the still-smoking Subaru. He shook his head. “Having that thing in our driveway has instantly lowered the value of our home by at least $10,000,” he said. “And, if you think you’re getting all the way to Chicago in that thing, you’re insane.”