Truth to be told, the van had been a little clunky from the start. Sometimes it was a chore to steer to the right, or they would hear a noise, like something was stuck in the fans. Sasha, the mechanic, had apparently taken more precautions with the whole bulletproof makeover than he had done actual maintenance on vehicle. Maybe it was just that old.

They had no trouble crossing the border. If anything, the train ride was boring as hell. Andy had books. Josh didn’t like to read that much, so he used the wheel as a drum for the best of the forty-five minutes they ended up waiting. There was still a tangible tension between them from the way Andy had behaved the day before. They were also both lacking sleep.

Doubting he would get any kind of answer from Andy, Josh took the initiative to go towards Lille and Reims, willingly avoiding Paris. He had read enough on the web about the french capital’s car traffic to know it was not a place you wanted to get to with your own vehicle. In about an hour and a few bad turns, they were out of Calais and into the french countryside. The landscape was pretty flat and empty, giant fields stretching on each side of the highway.

Andy not talking was actually a good thing now, as Josh had to focus very strongly on the road to make sure he was always on the right side. What was with French people and mirroring everything?

The sky turned gray pretty fast. At noon, the clouds sprinkled their first rain drops on the windshield. At 80 miles per hour, the wind roared past the van. When the rain covered the view, Josh dropped the speed a little and turned the wipers on. Nothing happened.

“Shit,” he said. He slowed down to around 50 mph and took the first exit he saw. Andy had to stop moping around.

“What’s going on?” he said, looking over his ongoing romance novel. “Are we stopping somewhere?”

“I wish,” said Josh. “The windscreen wipers are stuck. I don’t see shit with that rain.” Driving slowly to the shopping district that had been build directly outside the highway exit, they stopped in a parking lot.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” he said, annoyed, “maybe they’re just stuck because they haven’t been used for a while. I’ll go and check. You can try to turn them on again when I give the signal.”

Josh put over his head the dark red poncho he was wearing. With all his attempts at creating a style and a character, he had completely overlooked the practical aspects of a wardrobe, such as providing a raincoat for when it rained. The cotton poncho would have to do.

The rain came down hard, a good summer stormy downpour. No amount of pushing or tugging would restart the wipers. Andy didn’t give much of a fuck and Josh, for all his love of cars, was no mechanic. He finally gave up and settled back in the driver’s seat, drenched. Before closing the door, he wrung out the poncho and set it up to dry on the wheel.

“The damn thing doesn’t move at all!” he said, as angry as he was wet. “What did Sasha do? Glue them in place?” He looked around, attempting to peer through the layer of rain. “Maybe I could still drive like that, or open a window, or something.”

“I’d rather stay alive, thank you,” said Andy, back in his book.

“What if it rains for the whole day?” said Josh. “What are we supposed to do?” He got no answer.

“And what is that novel you’re so into?” he said, pointing at Andy’s book.

Andy shrugged and kept looking at his page. “A novel,” he said.

Josh wasn’t deterred from attempting dialog. “Is it good, then?” he said.

“No,” said Andy, “it’s an awful piece of garbage literature.” He kept on reading anyway.

Josh wasn’t used to being ignored like that, and he seriously disliked being treated unfairly. “Fine,” he said. “Suit yourself. It was your turn to drive anyway. I’m going to dry off and take a nap.” He went out of the cabin, entered the cargo area and undressed angrily before throwing his wet clothes into a pile in a corner. In the cabin, Josh looked up, unaffected. After a few minutes of quiet reading, he noticed what seemed to be yet another mall coffee lounge. He put the book under his clothes and went for it.

The place was smaller and pretty much deserted. Andy had only trained his french accent on karaoke songs, so the actual order was pretty rough. From the way, the waitress talked when he started using English, French people didn’t seem to be more inclined to learn another language than English did. He waited until no one was looking to add some liquor to his espresso.

Hours later, when the rain had died down, he came back. He was already halfway through his book. Without saying a word, he sat on the driver’s side, dropped Josh’s poncho on the passenger seat, started the van and drove it to the nearest auto repair shop. Thanks to his innate sense of direction, it only took forty minutes and a few dozen spins around the same five roundabouts.

The mechanic was not a professional English speaker either, but the problem was simple enough to be explained through hand signs. The guy looked at a mechanism under the hood. He adjusted some screw, replaced a wire and gave Andy a lengthy explanation in French that he didn’t understand a word of. When all was said and done, he paid cash and blamed Josh in his mind for it. He certainly wouldn’t have gotten this junk of a vehicle for the trip, even if he had no idea what a good car looked like. Was he still sleeping in the back?

Unsure but still too mopey to check, Andy just went back to their previous parking spot and waited for Josh to wake up or come back from wherever he could have run off to.

When Josh finally came back in the cabin, the conversation felt strained.

“So,” said Josh in an attempt to make peace, “you got it fixed. Good job!”

“Yes I did,” said Andy, shutting his book close with a clap. “I hope this was just an unfortunate accident and not the real value of your friend’s repair skills.” He was still feeling snappy about paying the whole bill again.

“No, Sasha’s pretty good,” said Josh. “It’s just one of those things that happen, I guess. You ready to resume the trip?”

“Yeah,” said Andy.

From that day on, their conversation grew sparse and uneasy. The van’s dysfunction didn’t remain an isolated accident. They had to stop quite a few times to control or do quick fixes on it. It finally broke down seriously the next evening, while they were touring Burgundy.

Tired, unhappy, nervous from the recent breakdown, they entered the village’s only pub, called “La tête de cochon”. They sat down at a table, not knowing what to do.

That’s when destiny gave them another push.