The Traveler in Need

by Ivan Phillips-Schmidt (United States of America)

Making a local connection USA

"Hey, Donna. I'm on the way, but I saw a gentleman hitchhiking and— . . . Yeah, I know. I'm gonna take him down to Lincoln City and get him some miles . . . Okay. See you soon." My driver hung up his phone as the snow-capped hills of the Oregon Cascades transitioned to mossy farmland outside my window. Below a deep red beard, various tattoos seemed to cover every inch of his body, including a famous four-letter word inked on the fingers of his right hand. A more cautious traveler would have likely passed on this rather rough-looking ride, but I had been waiting for over an hour and was in no position to be picky. Perhaps the tattooed man was a scholar of the road with a thesis to share. Curiously, I had not actually been “thumbing it” when this driver stopped; I was distracted, retracing the lettering on my sign. Swallowing any lingering anxiety, I introduced myself and explained my quest to hitch from Seattle to San Francisco in under a week, locking myself into a gregarious frame of mind that I was determined to perfect on this trip. The bearded man grinned. "I was doing the exact same stuff when I was your age – hopping freight, hitchhiking all over the country." He chuckled. I was keen to avoid mentioning my own credentials: a mere three hitches, ever. He continued, telling me how legal trouble, sobriety, and a good woman had caused him to leave a life on the road, and how the Oregon coast had shown him what it meant to have a sense of home. A home, indeed, I thought, as I absorbed every detail of the passing headlands. After a few seconds of silence, the tattooed man hesitated. "I had my entire life torn apart three weeks ago." His eyes remained locked steadily on the road ahead as the car lurched around a bend with increasing speed. "My wife died – was killed, that is. Run over by a trailer, jogging before sunrise." My training as an ER nurse compelled me to probe further, despite the rapid un-swallowing of my anxiety. He described the phone call that woke him, and the dawning moments of grief, during which he had fantasized about murdering the farmer who had failed to install proper lighting on his rig. An infant girl, the tattooed man’s only child, was found safe in a stroller several feet away from her mother’s body on the morning of the accident, saving the town’s first responders from finding a second grisly scene. For the next hour, I offered what advice I could, but mostly I just listened as he untangled his memories and his fears. I shared how I had grappled with the death of my oldest friend when she had been killed by a negligent truck driver just before her 21st birthday, and how those ugly moments of grief are unavoidable and tough to rationalize. I was impressed by the emotional candor of the man, and although we hadn’t exchanged names, I felt a sort of camaraderie shared only by old friends and those who have struggled together. The conversation slowed after a while, as did the car’s frenzied pace, and we found ourselves laughing and discussing the many pros and cons (mostly pros) of drive-thru coffee stands. As the tattooed man told me more stories from his traveling days, I began to understand the real reason he had been so eager to pick me up, even without the ubiquitous thumb signal. He hadn’t stopped to help a fellow traveler in need, and certainly not for entertainment during a necessary commute – we were now nearly 40 miles past his actual destination. He stopped because he needed a window back in time, to his life on the road before settling down. Before meeting his wife. I needed a ride; he needed a friend. He dropped me off at his favorite hitching post outside of Lincoln City, a pull-off with a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean—my first ever. I continued onward, making friends down the Oregon coast into California, where I (just barely) caught my flight out of San Francisco one week later.