We called it the Space Cruiser.

We “hot-boxed” the car, filled it with as much marijuana smoke as we could, music turned up loud to anything as we screamed at the top of our lungs, the battle cry of our fading youth.

SPACE CRUISING BY MARIO GALVAN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 101

We called it The Space Cruiser. Glow-in-the-dark planets hung from the crimson roof. We blazed along the back roads between Jerome and Wendell, Idaho, Grace, Alex, Jordan, Chad, and I packed inside my old banged-up 1992 shit-brown Ford Taurus, our escape ship from the small town of Gooding where we lived.

We “hot-boxed” the car, filled it with as much marijuana smoke as we could, music turned up loud to anything as we screamed at the top of our lungs, the battle cry of our fading youth.

We were all around 18 to 20 escaping the rest of society. We were going to live, Goddamn it! That was what we wanted to do that night, live!

2009 was coming to an end and the winter winds blew through the Magic Valley.

“Hey Alex, man, what time are we going to mee…