Hitchhiking Home from Alberta: The Final Leg
Posted: Tuesday, January 17, 2012
by Jack H. Schick
When a weary person wakes after only a few hours of uncomfortable, un-restful sleep there is a raspy itchiness and a burning sensation as the body and mind angrily announce their dissatisfaction. The eyes feel gritty, puffy and dry. The tongue feels swollen and fluffy, the mouth tastes bad. Consciousness is dull and cloudy. Nerves are on edge. Aggressiveness and intolerance fester and an intense irritability pervades the spirit. Confidence and enthusiasm are remote, obscured objectives to which one resists aspiring because there is no hope of achievement.
The driver heard me stirring and woke up, himself. I could tell by the look he gave me that he felt as miserable as I did and was not happy to see me. I had not satisfied his expectations. I’d not provided the companionship and banter he’d needed to help him stay awake and get across Missouri that night. I saw a tinge of anger in his eyes. I sensed that he regretted picking up a hitchhiker, which was probably against his company rules; especially one who had contributed nothing. He didn’t say a word, started up the truck and pulled back onto the road. We were about half an hour west of Saint Louis.
By the time we crossed the Mississippi River, my bowels were throbbing. I was desperate for a rest stop, but didn’t want to press my luck with the driver. Suddenly, a the first exit into Illinois, on an elevated section of the highway overlooking a ‘bombed out’ section of East Saint Louis, the driver pulled over and told me to get out. He was continuing on in the same direction I wanted to go, but he’d had enough of me and dumped me off.
Traffic was relatively heavy and I really needed a ride, but I had to find a toilet. There was no place for me to go, there on the narrow walkway. From the elevated road I saw a gas station a block or so beyond the end of the exit ramp so I quickly walked that way. The single level houses along the street did not look horrible. They were on single lots, were of good construction and at one time had been nice. But now, they were obviously abandoned. Windows were broken; doors stood ajar, yards were over grown with weeds. It was a desolate, depressing section of the city. As I approached I saw that the gas station was vacant too.
I had no alternative. I pushed aside the hanging gate in a battered picket fence and walked up to the door of one of the houses. Why, I can’t explain, but I knocked on the frame of the partly open front door, hollered in “hello!’ I poked my head inside. Trash, aluminum cans and beer bottles were scattered about the floor of the entry way and hall. I stepped inside. To my right was what appeared have been the living room. The only remaining furniture was a smashed end table and a chair with the stuffing billowing out. The wall paper was stained and peeling off in sheets. I went in the room, stepped back into the corner behind the door and relieved myself.
I was uneasy about the situation and quickly left the premises. As I exited the gate and headed up the street toward the Interstate a car full of young black men drove by. They stared at me as they passed. I became even more uneasy. I knew I looked out of place walking along wearing a backpack, even in my dirty, bedraggled condition, so I trotted the few hundred yards to the exit ramp and quickly climbed the steep slope back onto the elevated highway. I was still in view from the streets below so I started walking.
I’d walked less than a mile, mostly backwards with my thumb stuck out to the steady stream of traffic, when a pick-up truck with a camper shell on the back stopped to pick me up. A married couple in their early twenties had a large dog between them on the front seat. The woman took the dog around to the back and boosted him into the camper to make room for me. They were headed all the way to New York City. My destination for the day was my cousin's place in Dayton, Ohio, so it was the only ride I’d need.
They were a mature, quiet pair. They were clean and neat, but were dressed in cloths that made me think they used to be hippies. We had little conversation as we crossed Illinois and Indiana on Interstate 70. The dog watched from the back through the sliding window. The woman occasionally passed him a biscuit. I felt at ease and secure with them. I’d felt guilty about not helping the truck driver the night before and about my excursion into East Saint Louis, but now the surrealism of the journey so far had begun to fade. I’d be staying with a relative that night, sleeping in a bed. It felt like I was nearing home.
Though I was over 18, was eligible for the military draft, had spent a year at an urban university and had just finished traveling almost 5,000 miles across the country on my thumb, I was a rather immature, naïve, sheltered young fellow. I particularly felt that way in the presence of the couple I was riding with. I was only a few years younger than them, but a world apart. They were adults. I still saw the world as my parents’ child. I had a lot of growing up to do and was beginning to realize it. An episode while I was with them opened my eyes a bit to the broad, difficult real world that awaited me.
While they were still inside using the rest rooms I returned to the truck and looked into the camper. I noticed that the dog had had a massive, loose bowel movement in the middle of their sleeping bag. When the woman came back I said, “You’re dog had an accident in the back.”
She went over, peered through the window and growled: “Had an accident! He f-----g, s—t all over the f-----g place!”
I was stunned. I’d never heard such language come out of a woman’s mouth. All I could do is stammer, “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
She was absolutely right, though. That’s exactly what the dog did. The beautiful, quiet, serious woman, the aging hippy, the wife, had expressed a frustration I would be reminded of a decade later when I too had children, a dog and my own seemingly endless series of messes to clean up. I’ve often thought back to that moment and been shocked, not at what the woman said, but that I had been so naïve to the ways and troubles of the real world. My world was far from real, yet.
She got out a roll of paper towels and stoically accomplished her job. She said nothing more about it. She did not hold it against her loved one. She patted the dog on the head, gave him a drink of water and a biscuit and moved on with the living of her life. She’d become three dimensional to me. From then on I began to look deeper into people when I was with them. There was more to this world than met the eye.
They dropped me off at the intersection of Interstates 70 and 75 north of Dayton. I found a payphone and called my cousin. Just about the same age, he and I had been great buddies since we were mere tykes. He hopped in his souped up Torino and came to pick me up. I was still over 500 miles from home, but it felt like my journey was over. I was among relatives and friends. I hung around Dayton for a couple of days raising hell, like 18 year olds are supposed to do, then headed out again. I stopped to see a girl I’d met on my high school graduation trip to Europe (Laura, we’ll call her), in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. After visiting a few days I hitchhiked on to Pittsburgh, where I spent a night or two at the fraternity house.
It took me longer than I expected to get across the state on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but I finally cruised into my home town. It was about five in the afternoon on a Friday. My dad was at work at the Sears store in the shopping center just off the highway so I stopped in to tell him I was back.
“Hey!” he greeted me. “Welcome back! Anything happen worth talking about?”
“I guess,” I said. “It’s a big, strange world out there.”
“You have no idea,” he laughed. "Or, maybe you do, now." He handed me the keys to his car and said, “You drive for a change. When you get home, tell your mother to pick me up at nine o’clock.”
I truly was but still my parent's child. I felt small and limited again. It wasn’t long before the entire trip, all 5,400 miles and 67 rides, was just a strange memory, an adventure only I was much interested in. No one else could appreciate it. I quickly settled back into my regular life. Nothing seemed to have changed much. I'd expected something more. I frequently sat quietly thinking about things that had happened on my journey, though. I tried to put the events into a perspective that had meaning in my life. Nothing seemed to fit. It all seemed unreal, like a story on a page. I might have learned some things about people and about me, but how could I really tell? I simply had to move on; get on with the living of my life and see what happened next.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)There were times I felt like I was along for the ride, it was an interesting story, and well told. Thanks for letting us in on your journey and all of it's ups and downs.
Excellent.Thanks for reading and commenting. I'm tired.
I finally realized that you remind me of Jack London and Charles Dickens. Not sure if that embodies you, but its meant as a complenent!Boy, thanks. Sometimes I don't even remind me of me.
Yep, big and strange world. And there's nothing like being in the place where you belong to pick up your life, live it and roll with whatever comes next. Really neat writing. Of course, I really like the doggy part best because I can just imagine it!Thanks for reading and commenting
Outstanding series! I read each one always looking forward to the next. Excellent composition and story development. What a fascinating life you have had. Where can I find your book?Thanks for reading and commenting
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