Andy dropped me off at the Hinsdale oasis. Where after a couple of hours a dude gave me a ride south to Joliet, Illinois about four miles outside of Joliet. I hiked into the city and found a community college. I searched for Travel Plazas and found one in Minooka, Illinois about seven miles west of Joliet. So I walked to a seven eleven and started making a sign. I was coloring in the N as a Canadian asked me where Minooka was. I said it was seven miles down I-80 west and if he could give me a ride there. He did. We got to talking on the way there and he said he is retired. In his free time while his wife works he buys cars on Ebay in the US and then drives them up to Canada and sells them. I asked for some tips on how to do this seeing as I've wanted to do exactly that for some time now. He dropped me off and I thanked him.
I walked over to the Pilot which was a smaller one compared to some I've seen and hid my stuff. Alejandro walked past me carrying a pack so I asked him if he was hitching and he said he was. He was trying to get to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He was in Greenville, North Carolina and his pickup blew a head gasket. So he started hitching west. He used to live in Fort Collins with his ex girlfriend but he found himself in Jail a few times and decided to leave. He was a really odd guy, he had a notebook where he kept everything; pictures, discharge papers from the army, discharge papers from shelters and county jails. He read one aloud proudly that said “Bipolar” among other things. He said he hadn't slept for five days and that he was really fucking tired.
He was a bit shorter then most men, about five four maybe. He was Apache, Mexican, and Caucasian but he looked Apache. He had an odd approach to getting rides. He would sort of yell at the drives which I thought was a terrible way to ask for a ride, he claimed that this filtered out pussies and cowards. He said it would get him cooler drivers. It probably does but goddamn he gets rejected a lot. We sat by the lot and drank some beers and talked about things while our clothes washed and dried in the Pilot. Eventually as the night wore on I trusted him less and less and hid my pack even better. I also started working harder to get a ride out. Coincidently he was the one that got me the ride out. He pulled a driver over rather rudely and demanded that he give me a ride east. I stood awkwardly behind him trying to gesture my lack of association with Alejandro. The driver asked where I was headed I told him Pennsylvania and he said he was going to Toledo, Ohio. I said I'll think about it.
Alejandro went inside briefly so I ran off to grab my pack from my spot. The driver came out I said goodbye to Alejandro and I was off to Toledo. As we approached the rig the driver said that the passenger side door was jammed. This immediately alarmed me. So I got in the driver side and climbed across. We started driving and I noticed the dash of his truck had been decked out with custom chromed apparati. The knobs had been changed to six shooter chambers with bullets and and everything was lit with low red lights... The lining of the cab was velvet too. I stealthily tested the lock on the door and it was completely broken. This is right around when I broke into a cold sweat and a silent panic. He didn't look strong but anybody can hold a pistol. I realized too that I left my knife at Andy's. I asked him if I could test the door just to make sure it would work in an accident. Sure enough he told me to trust him that it would work. I was pretty damned scared by now but we got on the interstate and started moving. After a while I started to trust him and realized I was gonna be alright.
He dropped me off at a Pilot in Toledo, Ohio. I started walking around and found a nice spot behind a birch tree near a cornfield. I said to myself as I was bedding down that I wished this wasn't so damned easy and I made the mistake of asking for a challenge.
When I woke up it was raining and my stuff was already wet, so I packed up everything and dashed to the TA. I stashed it inside and got some hot soup. I started making my rounds along the fuel line and eventually I got a ride from a fellow from Lithuania. Once we were on the road he started talking about his past and how he was a troubled youth. I later realized he thought I was troubled and possibly on the run from the law. He said he was in a gang in Lithuania and he fled from a prison sentence to the US. He started a life here and then he got into trouble again. He said he got into a drunken fight with a dude and cut him up pretty good with a knife. The guy wound up in a coma and the police came for him so he fled again. He apparently ran to a church and asked for help, of course all they could do to help him was to make him a man of god. He spent hours talking about how god changed his life and left me at a truck stop in Youngstown, Ohio. I tried to tell him about how becoming Atheist changed mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment