HITCHHIKER 3
By Mark Haugen
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Copyright 2011 Mark Haugen
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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HITCHHIKER 3
I'd just filled up on gas and beef jerky at the Loaf-N-Jug off the Canton exit heading south on Interstate 29 when a lady near the off-ramp caught my eye. It is pretty unusual to see female hitchhikers, so I figured she might be on her daily walk from a nearby farmhouse; but a long, slender thumb in the air and Coleman backpack resting at her feet told me otherwise.
My dad once told me: “Always take a cookie when they're passed.” So I did. I pulled onto the shoulder of the road and waited while she grabbed her bag and jogged the 20 yards to my car – the same white Galaxy 500 I'd been driving for 12 years.
It's kind of funny how things look differently up close than from a distance. As I drove up from behind her and then passed her, she looked like she could be a hottie in tight black shorts on long skinny legs, a red tanktop over bra-less sizers and long red hair under a black visor. But those trappings were the forest, and once I saw the tree close up, I almost punched the accelerator in fear and left her grasping air instead of the door handle. But I didn't, for I wasn't looking to get laid.
Yet what red-blooded male driver wouldn't want to be accompanied by a Barbie doll hitchhiker? As she leaned her head in the car, it looked like a puppy had chewed on the head of my Barbie doll. Her face was pock-marked and drawn ghost-like over obscenely jutting cheek bones that could cut glass. Her chalky look had meth-head written all over and “trouble” should have been etched on her forehead.
But I'd committed and was getting pretty good at keeping those kinds of things, so I half-heartedly muttered: “Hop in.”
“Where you going?” she chirped, setting the backpack on her lap and closing the door.
“Kansas City. You?”
“St. Louis. Going to see Mount Rushmore.”
It took a second or two for that to register in my brain and when we were on the interstate, I mentioned the obvious or what would be obvious to you and me. “Mount Rushmore isn't in St. Louis.”
“It isn't?”
“No. It's by Rapid City, five hours west of here on the other interstate.”
She turned her head and seemingly studied my reply. “So what's the big cool thing in St. Louis?”
“That would be the Arch.”
“It's tall, right?”
“Yes, I guess so,” I answered quizzically. “But there are no dead presidents on it.”
“Oh well. I don't need no stinkin' presidents.”
“You just want something tall?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“So I can jump off it,” she answered, looking at me like I should have known that.
“You looking to kill yourself?”
“Heck, no!”
“That's what'll happen if you jump off.”
“No, it won't. I can fly.”
That wasn't the answer nor the conversation I was expecting, so I simply asked the obvious: “You can fly?”
“Yep.”
“Then why don't you fly down to St. Louis rather than hitchhike?”
“Well I can't fly horizontally yet.”
“But you are working on it?”
“Yes.”
Then the smart-aleck kicked into overdrive within me and I asked her: “You know what they call flying vertically?”
“What?”
“They call it falling.”
“Funny guy. That's okay. Nobody ever believes it until they see me do it.”
“If you say so,” I said, tiring. “What's your name?”
“Wendy. What's yours?”
“Lincoln.”
“A dead president!”
“You got it. Most people call me L.A.”
“Then I'll call you Lincoln.”
“Works for me,” I said as she unzipped her backpack and began rifling through what looked to be a flea market of odds and ends.
She pulled out a black sleeping mask and put it around her forehead before asking: “Mind if I take a nap? I'm crashing down.”
“Crashing down?”
“Yes and you don't want me awake while I'm doing it. I get kind of annoying.”
“Then by all means ...” and I gave her a one-handed wave to have at it.
She slid the mask over her eyes and in no time was snoring 'Z's like Zorro.
My CD changer went through four Prince CDs during which she twitched, grunted, drooled and snored along, at times in seemingly perfect tempo to the songs. I noticed the only time she slept soundly was during “Purple Rain” and then kicked back in to spasms during “Let's Go Crazy.” As my own personal experiment, and because I was bored, I replayed “Purple Rain” two more times, during which she again slept silently and soundly. I found that almost as odd as the fact that she thought she could fly. I've often said that Prince could bring sanity to the insane and insanity to the sane. I wasn't sure where I fit into that. It depended on the day or the hour.
The past few days I'd been feeling pretty sane coming up on almost 30 days of sobriety. Weeks one and two were pretty rough, often fighting the urge to pull the car into the parking lots of some of my favorite old haunted taverns. During those instances, the one-day-at-a-time mantra didn't really apply to me. It was more one hour at a time, often telling myself “just make it until noon.” Then “just until one.” Then ... well you probably know how a clock works.
Now I think I am approaching the recovering drunk's high I've read about. I hadn't done the AA thing that I probably should have been doing. But I had picked up a couple books which explained the recovery process and what to expect as you progressed down the sober highway. I was now almost cocky about it, feeling good, looking down my nose at the cars parked in front of the bars I passed. It seems a recovering alcoholic can fall into the same trap as Born Again Christians, thinking you are better than everyone else if you aren't careful.
With flying Wendy sprawled out in my passenger seat, coming down from a trip on something, I felt for her, but didn't feel like I was any better than her. I was proud of myself for that, but even pride can be a dangerous thing I'm told. Jeez, what a complicated circle this can be. Do and you're damned; don't and you're damned.
As she tossed and turned more frenetically as we approached Omaha, I couldn't help but notice one of her breasts exposed and pointing at me out the side of her tank top. So, what is a guy supposed to do about that?
I tried ignoring it. But that is like trying not to look at a car accident as you drive past and they are loading a bloody person onto a stretcher. Try as might, you gawk. So I gawked, but didn't stare, because I WAS driving after all.
But wouldn't you know it, quick like a lightning bug, she flipped up her mask, eyes wide open and caught me during one of those gawking moments. She tucked her boob back in like she was brushing away cookie crumbs and began talking away like she had never dozed off in the first place, but not quite as hyper.
“So why you going to Kansas City?” she asked.
“To see a baseball game with a buddy.”
“You're a Royals fan?” she wrinkled her nose.
“No, I'm going to see the Yankees.”
“Oh, a Yankee fan?”
“No, I hate the Yankees.”
&nbs
p; “So why are you going to see them?”
“I'm going to see them lose, hopefully.”
“That's sure some negative motivation there,” she said, playing amateur psychiatrist.
“But motivation none-the-less.”
“I suppose.”
“So,” I had to ask, “how come you didn't know where Mount Rushmore was but you know where the Royals are from?”
“Girls can be baseball fans too.”
“So who is your team?”
“The Yankees,” she smirked.
“Ouch. That's grounds for kicking you out right here.”
“But then you wouldn't be able to stare at my boobs while I sleep.”
I said nothing, but suppose the blood rushing to my face spoke volumes.
During the awkward pause she began sifting through her backpack again and pulled out a hardcover book that looked to be a journal of some sort. She took a picture out from between the pages, unfolded it and held it up for me to see. It was an autographed eight-by-ten glossy of Derek Jeter.
“You carry that with you everywhere?”
“I carry everything I own with me everywhere,” she said.
“Well he seems like a good enough guy – for a Yankee,” I said.
“I'm gonna marry him,” she said surely.
“Does he know