Road Trip (2018 Wattys Long List)

Chapter 9

Daylight would be coming anytime now, but the sun had not yet broken above the horizon behind them to the east, when Harvey came upon the lone, denim-clad youth, with his thumb extended, hopefully. He couldn't have been more than sixteen, his thin face a hotbed of burgeoning pimples. Besides the faded denim clothing, he wore work boots and a braided leather bracelet around his extended wrist, his uncombed hair curling well over his collar. On his back hung a large canvas knapsack, much like a baby koala bear clinging to its mother. The straps of this burden pulled tightly against his thin shoulders. He appeared to be a tall boy, maybe six feet in his dusty boots, Harvey thought. On an impulse, Harvey slowed the car and pulled onto the right shoulder of the road. The boy quickly sprinted towards them on the gravel, once he had realized they actually intended to pick him up. Grasping a rear handle, he pulled the door open.

"You're old!" he exclaimed, without thinking, scanning their faces.

"So I guess that's a problem and you would prefer walkin'," Reg remarked dryly.

"No, no, I mean I'm okay with that," the boy tried to back peddle now, quickly slipping out of the backpack straps. "It looks pretty crowded in there, where can I stow my pack?"

"How 'bout up yer ass," Reg said.

"Reg!", that ain't nice," Stu said sharply. "You slide over, and let the kid in."

Reg mumbled something under his breath and climbed out of the car, capitulating to his friend's authority, but not about to be squeezed into the middle seat, between this pimple-faced boy and Mildred.

"We'll put it in the trunk," Stu said, exiting the car himself to place the bulky back-pack in the rear storage compartment.

"I don't know why in hell we had ta' pick up a kid," Reg grumbled.

"Cause, for one thing, they are gonna' be looking for three men and a woman; no kid, get it?" Stu said as he re-entered the car. Harvey pulled back out onto the blacktop and they were on their way.

"Still, I don't like this idea."

"Ah, come on, Reg. Stop your damned whining!" Stu said sharply, to end the argument.

"You guys in trouble? You rob a bank or something?" the boy asked timidly.

"Naw, we are just on a little - unauthorized vacation, is all,'

Stu assured him.

"Ah, that's too bad. I kinda' hoped you were criminals."

"Is that you, Charlie?" Mildred suddenly came to life.

"Charlie? Who's Charlie?" the confused boy asked.

"It ain't Charlie," Stu told her. "Just go back to sleep now." Turning back to the boy, he said, "What is your name and where you headed?"

"My name is Ryan, and I'm going as far as you'll take me, so long as it's somewhere west."

"Trouble at home? Not that it's any of my business, you understand" Stu said.

"Aw, I don't know. Just thought maybe it was a good time to see the rest of the world. There isn't anything to keep me back there at home."

"I see", said Stu thoughtfully and he placed his mouth close to Harvey's ear. After a short whispered conversation with his friend, he turned back to the boy. "We might be able to help you out and take you as far as Vancouver if you are willing to help us out along the way."

"What do I have to do?"

"Oh, various things. Nothing too hard. Ya see we are all from the same residence. A nursing home. You could say we left on short notice and never told anyone we were going," Stu said smoothly.