He had downed three bourbons in the hotel bar before he took off into the streets to find cheap beer. I was only on my second drink when my mother hissed at me that I was no better than him and went upstairs by herself. I didn’t want him outside alone, getting hurt or into trouble. I finished my drink quickly and paid the bill and ran into the street, looking for him. He hadn’t made it far: he was standing on a nearby street corner, looking around, confused. He did not see me, but, looking at him from afar, I began to worry. I could sense the urgency of his need as he looked from his phone to the street and to his phone again.

We were seemingly the only people wandering the streets of this tiny town, and his anxiety level was high. I had noticed a border patrol truck passing us more than once during our beer walk.

“I’m cold,” I said. “My stomach hurts.”

I don’t know why I was reverting back to childhood excuses as reasons we should turn back. They didn’t work, because he didn’t care, and so we pressed on. While he peered into windows, I watched a freight train pass through the middle of town, cutting the quiet night with a deep rumbling and blaring horn. I wanted to follow it out of town, toward the still-bright horizon, back to Los Angeles.

WE WERE ON an endless journey for more alcohol, and all I could think of was that if we had just brought some in the car with us I wouldn’t be standing in the cold, peering into a shut-down gas station, arguing about whether we should knock.

“They’ll appreciate the business,” he said.

“There’s no one in there.”

“I think I see someone in the back.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s been opened for years. Can we go back to the hotel?” I asked.

And it went back and forth like this as we walked, until, finally, he gave up. I stared at the sky above us and saw more clusters of stars than I had ever seen before. I wondered if the people who lived here took it for granted. Back in the room, my mother asked where we had gone, as if she didn’t know already. It was a game we always played while on vacation. Where did Dad go? As if he didn’t always go on the same hunt.