It’s lonely in the van. Or maybe I’m confusing what I’m feeling. Maybe it’s not loneliness, but rather, discomfort at how unfamiliar this is. I’m a foreigner trying to navigate a foreign land and while others have done this before me — are doing it — it’s the getting used to that’s the hardest part. Getting used to, and getting over the feeling of shame.

Inside I’m still that ten year old cramming cookies into my mouth before my mom gets home because I’m too scared to ask her if I can have any when she’s around. I’m the teenager standing in clothes that my mother tells me to change because I look homeless. I’m the adult paralyzed by the decisions I have to make.

So when I think about other vandwellers, it seems cool and daring. But me doing it just feels wrong.

It doesn’t help that I’ve stuffed the van to full with everything I have left. The standing head room doesn’t matter because there’s only about a square foot in which this is possible. I can find nothing without playing a 3D game of Tetris with the boxes and bags. The lack of space gives me cause for further embarrassment because I can’t even do vanlife right.

Did I really need this 16mm film cartridge camera or the 8mm one. Both offered a heft and mechanical beauty that I loved to behold. But as shelf hogs, did they really warrant a place in my new transient life? I aspired to be like Fumio Sasaki, the man who only owns 150 items including his clothing.

I wanted to be like that, not defined by what I owned. But the act of letting go felt like cutting a umbilical to my identity. My ceramic tools and scraps of fabric lent me a vision of my ideal self. Letters and gifts connected me to people who were far away. What if I needed these things down the line and they weren’t there? That’s why I’d kept them for so long, why I wanted to still keep them.

Even though my low level hoarding made me feel afflicted with stuff, it also made me feel safe, as if through these objects, I could find me.

Plus I hated waste. People kept throwing stuff out and I kept finding them and collecting them. Just. In. Case. A lot of it, I had turned around and sold in my yard sale, so, see, other people could see their value, too. But it still left a lot to pile into a van. And pile, I did.

The pile. :(

Even after spending the last forty-eight hours in my apartment sorting, packing, and moving it all—minus the three hours I spent trying to sleep while an insomniac bird chirruped an operetta under construction lights — there was a lot. But I needed to get out with whatever was left by the end of the day, so at 5:30 pm, June 1, I was out.

Time to get moving. I sat in the driver seat and turned the engine. It sputtered. I waited and turned it again. A couple clicks and nothing. Were you kidding me?

The battery was dead.

I hadn’t idled it enough like Pablo had said to.

I recalled spotting some guys working on cars at the tenement building down the block, so I looked for them. A guy in a white undershirt and ball cap lingered under some construction scaffolding. The super’s in there, he said, he’ll give you a jump. He’s wearing a blue suit.

I made a futile circle of the building before finally spotting him. I was expecting a spotlight, or maybe a cape, but there was only the blue jumpsuit, his name sewn on the front: Jason. I introduced myself. Oh yeah, he said, you have the ambulance. He laughed, why would you buy such a thing? I shrugged. I have no idea.

He pulled his SUV around to my ambulance, pulled up the hood, connected the clamps, waited a few minutes for the charge to connect. Okay, start it up, he said. I did as instructed and met him back in front of the hood.

Thanks for the jump Jason, the heroic super.

He pointed to the two spinning belts in the back of the engine. It turned out there were two alternators.

That’s going to drain your battery faster, he said. Could I disconnect one and have everything running from the main alternator?

Yes, he said, but it would be a big job. He couldn’t tell where the battery was, it wasn’t visible from a glance, but told me I just needed to follow the cables, I’d need to locate it at some point. In the meantime, I should get a jumper pack.

Not a new battery? He frowned. Unless it’s dead or doesn’t hold a charge, why do you need a new battery?

I liked his style. Frugal and self-reliant.

He sized up the AC pump. Powerful AC? I shook my head no. He suggested that the freon probably needed charging. Look here, he said. He pointed to two open ended nodules. Here, or here. You can fill up either one with the freon. Mentioned where in the neighborhood I could buy it.

Then he explained how I could switch to bio-diesel — it was an easy conversion. But mainly, that I’d need some kind of heating element to keep the vegetable oil liquid. But it might be harder to find now since bigger companies were swooping in to buy it off places where you used to be able to get it for free.

I told him how I still hadn’t checked it with a mechanic. He shrugged. Just drive it around. The weirdness in the steering wheel? Probably just needed to add fluid for the power steering.

The lack of an airbag light and horn? Not required to pass a safety inspection here. (*Edit, a horn is required.) A curtain was lifting. Things were becoming less daunting.

Funny how serendipity worked. It’d taken an unlucky event, the dead battery and turned it into a lucky one, meeting Jason.

Jason asked how much I’d paid for it so I told him. Three thousand! He looked over at his buddy, did you hear that? How much would you pay for this, fifteen hundred, two thousand? What year is it? He shook his head. Then I showed him the inside. The cabinetry. The bench. Okay, okay. He could see its potential, why I’d paid the extra thou. I felt vindicated.

We stood there a while listening to the engine rumble. You should get a machete. A what? Jason looked at me knowingly. A machete. For protection. The way people are now, to people like us — he meant middle America towards non-white people. I have my dog, I said. I’ve seen your dog, with his white face. He didn’t seem to think much of Arlo’s dogness, and this coming from a Jamaican guy, a land where I heard the people are terrorized by packs of feral dogs. Fair enough. Even if I had seen Arlo scare off some beefy UPS dudes with his bark as recently as a month ago. But maybe I could pick up some mace at least.

With the battery now charged, I thanked Jason and decided to head to Long Island City in Queens. I loved the waterfront views of Manhattan from there. There was a nice park I liked for walking Arlo. And it was still desolate enough in the industrial parts that it seemed parking would be easy.

But I was quickly proven wrong. I’d forgotten about the high-rises and their affluent, weekends-out-of-town-driving residents. The glass towers rose up in front of me as I crossed the Pulaski bridge that separated Brooklyn from its northern sister. I wriggled between the Land Rovers and Outbacks. No, this was hopeless. I veered away from the waterfront and found a spot across from a factory, but it felt too exposed, too sketchy.

I went back to Brooklyn, whose streets I knew well and drove through a residential area. There. I found it. A rare spot big enough for the Econoline on a quiet tree-lined street. I hung a blanket across the back windows with magnets. I used fabric scraps that I’d kept to cover the side windows. A scavenged bodega box covered the windshield perfectly—it even had a notch that angled around the rearview mirror. No more blinding streetlamp and peering passersby. I was alone in the van with my dog.

Now I could fully digest the freakishness of my endeavor. I’d kind of expected a couch offer at some point. But no, it was stupid to even think about that because this way, I was forced to dive into this experiment completely, and that’s what this was about, wasn’t it?

I rolled out my comforter on top of a four-pillow burrito — four pillows stuffed into a woven surf bag. My intention was to get a mattress as soon as I’d made some room for it, but I’d wanted to make use of the pillows I already had and right now, this would suffice. Arlo curled up in the passenger seat. I closed my eyes. We fell asleep. We slept. In the van. With a minimum of shelter. Like caterpillars on leaves.

Goodbye bedroom.

Are you ready for Part 6?