One Word Narratives

Drifter - Submitted by A. Davis

Out here, any passing car could mean temporary salvation, temporary relief, temporary respite. But it was always preceded by those hellish and nerve-wracking moments, first when the headlights came into view and the anticipation set in, then, as they got closer, a blinding false dawn drawing closer and closer, blinding. Far, far more often than not, the lights would pass without even slowing down.

Thing of it was - most people figured that hitchers were all just serial killers and rapists. While this could, sometimes, be true and many hitchers or vagrants were mentally unstable and dangerous, most were just kids who had taken to the road because they feared the responsibilities required of the modern world. They longed for adventure or to simply see the world. Truth be told, a greater percentage of the people willing to pick up hitchers were as bad or worse than all the stories you ever heard about hitchers with hook hands or mysterious criminal histories. Sexual orientation aside, most everyone who hitched the roads and not the rails got fucked up the ass or had cum in their mouth and hair within the first year.

Another set of headlights came and went. No sign of slowing or consideration. The night was dark and only the moon gave light, regularly obscured by the shifting clouds that hinted at a storm developing.

Ideally, especially in the United States, you didn't resort to the traditional side-of-the-road hitching. You got into a town, bought a cup of coffee or a beer and struck up conversations, especially once you knew how to spot someone who was likely to be travelling. Then you'd try to hitch a ride through your conversation. This was often a better way to do things because towns also meant the chance for odd jobs, more comfortable places to sleep, and better protection from the elements. But you also had to deal with vagrancy laws, which could leave you standing on some rural road in the middle of nowhere as often as someone letting you out when their path diverged from the one you told them you were following.

The real trick to hitching is to know how to talk without saying anything. People have all kinds of prejudices you could never guess from looking at them and they can get offended over all sorts of things. A lot of times, people are really just itching for a fight or an argument and they'll try to lure the unwary hitcher into saying something that will allow them to get justifiably offended. Some folks even say things to imply they think or feel a certain way, hoping the other person will latch onto that and try to agree only to discover they read too much into the baited implication.

A single headlight was coming down the road now. It was always hard to tell if those were bikes or cars with one light out at first. It also gave the hitcher a particularly risky decision to make: do you edge out closer to the road so you have a better chance to be spotted (and hit by a drunk or half-asleep driver) or do you pull back a bit and possibly miss a ride because you were harder to spot at a distance? But the headlight, one of a broken pair on an old Toyota half-ton pickup from the 80s, came and went anyways, so it was a moot point at the moment.

A semi rolled down the road next, but there was no sign of the hitcher, who'd recently had a bad experience with a trucker, like a lot of hitchers do from time to time. Still, truckers, especially long-haul truckers, can provide the best passage to seeing the country and are arguably the most efficient and amiable resource for hitchers.

Finally, a car stopped. It was a good thing, too, since the clouds had completely hidden the moon and the air was starting to smell of rain. Getting into the passenger seat, the hitcher slid a finger along the spine of the knife strapped to his stomach under the jacket with the ripped seam in the pocket.

It was a good night to make use of that knife again.