The serpentine belt, Cameron discovers, is aptly named. The thing winds around under the hood of the camper like a very long snake. The dry air smells like dust and burnt-up brake pads, and the morning sun is relentless. Every few seconds, with a loud whoosh, a burst of wind smacks him in the side of the head as another semitruck hurls down the freeway, like a parade of oversized beetles, mocking him with their menacing grilles as he stands on the shoulder in front of the camper’s popped hood. With one hand, he yanks on the snapped belt. In the other, he holds the new one from the glove box.
“What in the hell,” he mutters to himself, staring at the vehicle’s innards. He recognizes the major parts. Engine block, radiator, battery, dipstick. Thingy that holds the blue stuff that cleans the windshield.
The new belt was sitting there the whole time, right there in the glove box. Why didn’t he have it replaced? That squealing noise. It was never going to go away on its own.
It certainly did not go away during the last twelve hours of driving.
Well, that’s not exactly true. The squealing did disappear
. . . along with the power steering, on this barren stretch of interstate outside Redding, a hundred-something miles south of the Oregon-California border. Is there anything Cameron can’t fuck up? His attempt to flounce after a humiliating failure is, itself, a humiliating failure.
How very meta.
“Okay, I can do this.” He blows out a breath, then squints again at the video, propping the phone on the bumper. There’s no other option. If he keeps driving, it won’t be long before the engine overheats and shits the bed. Well, that’s not exactly how the video described it, but . . . it’s not good.
Besides, putting in the new belt can’t be that hard, and he, Cameron Cassmore, is a goddamn genius.
It’s time he started acting like one.
