Yet even with an extra hour from the time change, the few miles to the KOA Kampground just outside Tucumcari seems to take forever. I’m feeling better, no longer shaking, but John hasn’t said an intelligible word since we got here. He’s yawning and talking to himself, his window of lucidity squandered by nincompoops.Once we set up, John sits down at the table inside the van. I put a can of Pepsi and a bowl of chips in front of him, and he promptly falls asleep.Happy for the time alone, I mix myself a highball of Vernors and Canadian Club in a green aluminum camp cup and head outside to the picnic table. I bring my cane and sit down carefully, with my back to the table so I can get up easily. I take that first sip and smile. In the distance, I hear these sounds: the scream of a child that alarms me at first, but then when it’s followed by the voice of a different child, I realize they are only playing; the nasal putter of a small airplane flying above the campground; the distant bah-dumm of a car passing over a seam in the road out on I-40.The Vernors, even mixed with whiskey, is still so spicy and sharply carbonated that it makes me cough a bit.
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