TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: THE LAST HITCHHIKER

My high school chum Dick gave this to me for my 17th birthday.  A tome from another time.

by Grant McGee

            I saw a hitchhiker the other day.

            I don’t pick up hitchhikers anymore.

            I used to pick up hitchhikers.

            I used to think, “Gee, what if that was me?”

            I like the catch-all term “karma.” 

Shoot, even Willie Nelson had a song about it, “Little Old Fashioned Karma.”

            Willie sings, “…it really ain’t hard to understand, if you’re gonna dance, you gotta pay the band.  Just a little old fashioned karma coming down.”

            And it was a hitchhiker who introduced me to the term “karma” back in the fall of 1973, but that’s another story.

Seeing a hitchhiker brings up another saying, “There but for fortune go you or I.”

There are plenty of stories to go around about the pitfalls of picking up hitchhikers.  Most of the hitchhikers I’ve picked up have just been everyday people.

I have been a hitchhiker.  Not the coast-to-coast-with-a-backpack kind, but out of necessity.

Once on my way to work the Volkswagen I had threw a rod (what an incredible noise that made, sounded like a chain was flying around the engine compartment).  I pulled over, turned off the engine and sat there for a bit.

I had to get to work.

So I locked up the bug, went to the side of the road and stuck out my thumb.

Car after car passed me by.  Finally a car that had been flying toward me came to a screeching halt, it left skid marks. 

The passenger door flew open. 

“Hurry up buddy,” yelled the driver.  “Get in, I’m gonna be late for work.”

It was an old car that made a loud thunking noise as we zipped down the highway at 60, 70, 80 miles per hour.

“Overslept,” said the driver.  “Me and the old lady were f#*~ing all night.  WOO!  She was in a MOOD!”

“Well how ‘bout that!” I said, smiling a polite nothing-I-can-do-about-this smile and nodding.

The thunking vibrated the car as we zipped past all those who had passed me by on the highway earlier.

THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK….

“What’s that noise?”

“My front axle’s bent, wheel could fly off at any time.”

“Oh,” and again I nodded and smiled my polite nothing-I-can-do-about-this smile.

Well the wheel didn’t fly off.  The guy dropped me off by the side of the road not far from work.  While waiting to cross the highway the cars that had passed me 20 miles back passed me again, a couple with apparent “how did he do that” expressions on their faces.

It isn’t as if hitchhiking is entirely a bad thing.

If you read “Made in America,” the Sam Walton story, you’ll find he even engaged in hitchhiking on an apparent regular basis.  Walton would fly into towns to visit one of his many Wal-Marts.  He would wait at the small airport for a local pilot to come through then ask if he could catch a ride into town.  When he was done with his visit he’d get the store manager to give him a lift back out to the local airport.

It may have been Sam Walton, he may have worn a suit and tie, he may have had a dog named “Ol’ Roy,” he may have had his own plane at the airport, but it still sounds like hitchhiking to me.

One time I picked up an old hitchhiker.  No sooner had we gone a mile than he asked me for twenty dollars.  When I told him I only had five dollars he proceeded to curse me and call me a liar.

I started laughing.

“What you laughin’ at you sumbitch?”

“I give you a ride, you hit me up for money then you cuss at me and insult my momma.  You’re obviously a dumbass.”

I pulled over and told him to get the hell out of my car.

But I’ve been digressing here, the name of this story is “The Last Hitchhiker,” let me tell you about him.

It’s spring 1998, I’m on my way to work in Sierra Vista, Arizona…about 20 some-odd miles from my groovy pad in Bisbee, Arizona.  There, standing at the overlook where drivers could pull over and admire the view of the town of Bisbee I spied a hitchhiker by the side of the road:  no shoes, no shirt.  The old phrase “there but for fortune” came to mind so I pulled over and let him in.

“Just got out of jail,” he said. 

“Oh shit,” I thought to myself.  I thought about all those folks who had given me a hard time over the years about picking up hitchhikers, that they were finally right.

“Where’s your shirt and shoes?” I asked, smiling my nothing-I-can-do-about-this-now-because-you’re-already-in-my-car smile.

“They arrested me while I was sleeping.  I was at home on the sofa and they busted in and hauled my ass away. This is what I went in with and this is what I came out with.  I called my girl but her phone’s disconnected.  I think she left me.”

In my rule book of picking up hitchhikers the guy owes the driver conversation.  If it’s good storytelling, that’s a plus.  This guy delivered.

“Yeah, I got in a bar fight up in Benson and bit off a hunk of this guy’s ear,” he said with pride.  “He ran out of the place cryin’ and hollerin.’  I went home.  I never thought he’d call the cops.”

“You bit off a hunk of his ear.”

“He insulted my girl, called her an old whore.”

“So you wandered around jail just wearing your pants.”

“Aw hell no,” he said.  “In jail they give you this orange jump suit and you get a pair of cheap flip-flops.  But when it was time to go home they took back their stuff and gave me my pants back.”

We came to an intersection, I pulled over.

“Well, my work’s that way,” I said pointing toward Sierra Vista.  “Someone will probably be along here shortly and you’ll get another ride.”

“Hey, I appreciate the ride this far.  You have any money you can give me?”

I thought about it.  Thought how I might feel if I was in his situation (I was about to say ‘in his shoes’ but he didn’t have any).  I gave him five dollars.

And I haven’t picked up a hitchhiker since.

                                    

                                                           -30-