Nicholas B
When I first moved to Austin, I tended to live out of my car. I literally just drove here from Los Angeles, parked my car in random neighborhoods and then would just walk around downtown.
I parked my car in one neighborhood, got out, walked downtown, got drunk, met a bunch of people—this was the way I was going to introduce myself to Austin. Came back that night, Pontiac Grand Prix 2001, sitting in the driver’s seat. I recline so I can look at the moon as I’m falling asleep, window down, happy to be in a new city, excited as hell.
I see some headlights pull up behind me. I’m looking, and always kind of aware, are the cops going to arrest me? I don’t know if it’s illegal, I don’t know how any of the laws work, but I’m sitting like this and headlights come up. Somebody’s back there—they probably live in the house next to me. Car stays there. I see a young kid. I don’t know exactly what the person looks like because it’s late, but a young person walking, big arm swing, very confidently…swaggering, if you will.
They walk up and I hear, “Oh hell yeah. Out of state plates, windows down. I got this.”
Person walks up. Where I’m sitting, you can’t really see me from the outside looking in. I see the person approaching. I think, Something’s about to happen here. They walk up and I see it’s probably a 17, 18-year-old kid.
“Hell yeah. Out of state plates, windows down.”
He walks up and faces me, and as he goes to lean in to, I think, steal the car, goes, “Oh shit! My bad, man!” and then just walks off, makes a signal to the car behind, car behind pulls up, takes off, and I just sit there laughing. I stayed there the rest of the night, just smiling at the moon.
