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JOHN'S HITCHHIKING ADVENTURE
Part 6
by Macout Mann
I'm hoping I'll get a ride real quick. If they picked Ricky up and he tells them about me, they could arrest me as a material witness or something. If I'm gone, I don't think they could trace me. Not easily anyway. But I'm still standing at High Street over an hour later. The same cop has passed by once and not stopped. Maybe they took him direct to the emergency room. I hope so.
Finally a dude pulls over. He's about Chuck's age. Wearing some sort of uniform. White dress shirt, black tie, black jeans. I thank him for stopping and we're off.
He says he's going to work. Waiter at the Fish House in New Byram. His girlfriend lives in Jackson, though.
"And you didn't want Saturday night to be the loneliest night in the week," I grin.
"You know that's right," he laughs. "You know that old song too, eh?"
"Yeah, my dad used to sing it sometimes."
New Byram's only fifteen minutes south. It'd be better if he was going further. But even if the cops did start to look for me, I could have gone either way on I20 or down US 49 to Gulfport. I would've gone that way anyway, if Chuck hadn't been in New Orleans.
I was still sorta anxious and still waiting at the New Byram exit an hour and a half later. It's almost eleven, when finally, a van stops. In it's a whole family. Man, wife, and two kids, a boy fourteen or fifteen and a girl a coupla years younger. Almost no tits. I thank them profusely for stopping, and they direct me to the back.
I tell them that I'm John and that I'm going to New Orleans to meet my brother.
The man says they're headed to Houston, so they can take me as far as the intersection of I12 at Hammond. He adds that his wife didn't want him to stop; but he did anyway, because it's rare these days to see a young person hitchhiking, and, well.....I did look clean.
I thanked them again for stopping, and told them I 'd made the trip, because I wanted to see what hitching was really like.
The kids, especially the boy, started asking all sorts of questions about my experiences.
"It's not something you'd want to do, unless you're a sucker for punishment.," I said. "You sometimes spend more time standing on ramps than riding down the road."
"I bet you get some rides with some strange folks," the boy said.
"Well, if you hitched all the time, you might get enough material for a book," I kidded.
"I'll bet you meet some interesting, people, though," the dad chimed in.
"Some interesting people and some good people," I replied. "Between Atlanta and Chattanooga I got a ride with a guy who was the guardian of a coupla nephews about my age. He invited me to spend the night with them in Chattanooga. That was really kind.
"Coming out of Mobile, I got picked up by an Episcopal Priest."
"Really," said the father. "We're Episcopalians."
"I had a great time with him," I said. "He told me a whole lot about the Bible and stuff I had no idea about. Real different from some other religious people that gave me a ride out of Nashville. She told me I was going to hell, because she didn't like something I said about salvation."
He laughed. "Yes, some of these fanatics can really get carried away sometimes."
"Tell us more." The boy seemed eager to know everything.
"Well.....let's see. I got rides with a couple of people that knew me. One of my professors at Auburn gave me a ride from Montgomery to Auburn. He stopped because he recognized me. And a dude who had seen me in the Vanderbilt Library recognized me and stopped. Sorta freaked me out. He said, "I thought that was you," or something like that, and I had no idea who he was, until he told me."
"Did you get rides with any truckers?" the boy asked.
"Yeah. One. A real neat guy. He was an owner-operator. Said he was having trouble because of fuel costs. Most truckers that work for companies won't pick you up because of insurance regs. They can be fired, if the company finds out."
The wife was finally warming to me. I guess I didn't seem like a serial killer after all.
"I see you have a sleeping bag. Aren't you concerned about sleeping out every night?" she asked.
"I've actually only had to do that one night. A place called 'Bucksnort.' And it was real peaceful."
"Oh, I know where Bucksnort is," the father interrupted. "I went to college at Sewanee, and you pass by Bucksnort on the way from Memphis."
"You went to Sewanee?" I replied. "I heard about it from this dude that picked me up outside Chattanooga. He was from Tracy City."
"Yeah, Tracy City's on the other side of the mountain crest. Pretty bad news."
"I thought so from what the dude was telling me."
"But if you've only had to sleep out one night, what did you do the rest of the time?" the mother wanted to know.
"Well, I told you about the guy and his nephews. I spent one night with them. A guy I met in Memphis turned out to be a good friend of a man I used to work for in high school. He was kind enough to give me a place to stay. And in Nashville I made friends with this street musician about my age. I figured I had enough money to split the cost of a room with him. And last night, I figured I was close enough I'd just splurge on a motel myself."
"Aren't you afraid to do something like share a room with a boy you don't know?" she asked.
"Might be," I laughed. "But you know what they say about guys my age. We all think we're immortal.
"Seriously, though, I thought these were all good people. And the fact that I'm still here and haven't been harmed must mean something."
"Just the same," she said to her boy, "I don't want you getting any ideas about doing anything like that."
"You're going to give me a car when I finish high school, so I won't have to. Right?" he countered.
They stopped at McComb for a pit stop. I offered to pump the gas. While I was filling the tank, the kid comes up and whispers, "Dude, you musta been hit on by some of those guys that gave you rides. A buddy of mine told me that happens all the time."
"Sure," I said, "but you don't want me telling your mom about that, do you? I don't even wanna tell you about it."
I also called Chuck to let him know where I was. They'd said they'd take I12 to Baton Rouge, so I asked Chuck if he'd drive up to Hammond to meet me. He said he'd leave right away. It'd take about an hour. We oughta get there about the same time. I said I'd call and let him know where I'd be.
Back on the road the boy continued to pump me about my adventures. I also asked them about their trip. They were actually going to Corpus Christi to visit the wife's sister and enjoy the beach. Did that every summer. They were a real neat family.
Since the I55/I12 interchange is in the middle of nowhere, they drove on down to the Highway 22 exit, dropped me, and then returned to I12. I saw a Walgreen's and called Chuck to let him know that's where I'd be. A Landcare truck with Chuck and his roommate in it drove up about fifteen minutes later.
This time I got to sit on the outside. The road from Hammond to New Orleans crosses a huge patch of wetlands between Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas. After all the flooding they've had, it was just like going over green water.
I spent the hour and fifteen-minutes it took to get to the motel telling them all about my trip. And I've been filling in details ever since.
They've had to work every day, of course. The company has several contracts that still involve the mess Katrina made. This job'll be finished Thursday or Friday, and we'll head back to Mobile. In the meantime, there's still a lot of fun to be had in New Orleans after working hours. And while they're working, I've been writing this and laying out at the motel pool, trying to improve the tan below my beltline. And at the pool I've had to wear the cutoffs I brought, that I never used on the trip.
So I hitchhiked 1,182 miles in 8 days and wound up with about fifty dollars more than I started out with. Along with a lot of memories.
Copyright 2011 by Macout Mann