We had been sitting on the side of the road for more than an hour — every time a car passed by we stood up and held out our thumbs but no one stopped to pick us up.

“Isn’t the hitchhiking supposed to be easy around here?” my travelling companion wanted to know.

It was according to travelled word-of-mouth but everything about hitchhiking is a game of chance and in this case it didn’t matter anyhow. We were in northern California just south of the Oregon border, sitting on our backpacks at the place where the concrete meets the dirt on the side of a road winding through a redwood forest. Everywhere sunlight filtered down through the branches of tall trees. In the minutes between cars passing, we could hear the sounds of the forest — wind rustling, wood creaking – we weren’t in a rush that was the point – we wanted to be hitchhiking.

As it has been said many times before:

The journey is the destination, the destination is just another journey.

After more time, as always happens in these instances, we caught a ride.

Even while hitchhiking some things remain the same — movement happens, time passes — while other things change — how long will you wait — how far will you go — and the most important question for hitchhikers — who will stop to pick you up?

On this day in northern California just south of the Oregon border — it was a teenager — hat turned backwards — seen-better-days pickup truck blasting rock out of rolled-down windows. The truck kicked up a cloud of dust as it came to a stop – sometimes everything changes in an instant — we grabbed our bags and ran toward the truck smiling because catching a ride is always a high no matter how many times it happens.

“Hey!” The kid turned down the volume on the radio but just a little, leaned out of the driver’s side window and asked if we were hitchhiking. He sounded doubtful but there was hope in his eyes – he was looking for danger.

“Thanks for stopping,” said my companion who was known on the road as Arrow.

“We’ve been waiting here for a long minute.”

“Is that possible?” The kid laughed. Arrow was known for his sense of direction — in fact that’s how he got his name.*

* A short story for a longer journey.

Arrow got to the point, “We’re trying to get farther north before sunset.”

“Not many cars down this way – mostly locals passing through.” 

I saw him look at our clothes, which were foreign. I made my dress out of an army blanket with hand-sewn stitches and Arrow wore a t-shirt with the word RIOT written on it in black marker – we each had a backpack with household items tied to the frame — a cup, a water bottle, a rolled up bamboo mat.  

“Where you heading?” The kid asked but didn’t wait for an answer, “where’d you come from?”

“A good question,” Arrow said.

“We’re getting as high as we can,” I was referring to the map – never give too much information — a safety precaution on the road – not that it mattered in this case.

Arrow was less cautious, “we’re going to Oregon, Washington and maybe Alaska — our plan is no plan.”

“You are hitchhiking all the way to Alaska?”

I beamed a smile at the driver — we still needed a ride, I said, “everything is possible.”

The kid was still leaning out the window.

“Hitchhiking is the free-est way to travel,” Arrow said, meaning the cost of living and the soul’s journey to liberation.

“We travelled here on spare change.”

He opened the door, “tell me more.”

I looked at Arrow and knew we were thinking the same thing. We were travelling through a redwood forest in northern California just south of the Oregon border and it’s not everyday that we are surrounded by thousand-year-old trees. The hitchhiking was easy around here — blue skies, redwood forest, ocean air. It reminded me of a line from a poem:

i thank you god for most this amazing day

Arrow said, “do you mind if we ride in back?” 

He sent a can’t-say-no smile to the kid — it was another hitchhiking talent.

The kid could not hide the look of disappointment on his face. I watched the thought form taking shape in his mind: if we rode in back he would not hear any stories but he said, “all right — all aboard.”

“We are grateful.” I called myself Echo on the road.

Arrow said thanks while I threw my backpack into the pickup, stepped up on the rear tire and swung my leg into the truck. Arrow was right behind me – see, sometimes echoes lead and arrows follow.

The kid cranked up the music and peeled out onto the deserted road kicking up a tornado of dust in our wake. As we gathered speed on the open road, my hair swirled around my head like a hurricane. Arrow and I lay down on the truck bed where the air was calmer and we could look up at the trees — giant redwoods towered overhead like a cathedral, tree trunks rising up to meet the sky, bright green needles pointing in all directions.

The whole world says:

YOU ARE HERE

From our ever-changing viewpoint — slightly elevated above the earth – we could only imagine the crown of the redwoods – the treetops disappeared along the line of perspective — of course, just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. We knew from our folded up paper map that beyond the trees were hills and behind the hills was the Pacific. The ocean was already in the air — a mix of elements. The two-lane road snaked along for a couple of miles and then straightened out and added a lane, the trees were cut back father from the road and boxy new construction advertised beer specials and sports. A roadside bar called the house of spirits even had an ad for God:

DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING? — GOD

The redwoods dropped out of view — the road picked up a lane and was more exposed in the afternoon sun. We travelled in a sonic cloud of heavy metal under the open sky until the truck pulled over and rolled to a stop. We threw our backpacks on the ground and jumped down from our temporary home.*

*As it is said: 

the only constant is change

(all that exists is impermanence)

“Thanks for the ride,” Arrow always said what he meant, “see you on the road some day.”

“May be,” the kid turned his hat around and made a U-turn.

We were back where we started — on the side of the road – new view of the same stretch of concrete and double yellow lines. We walked backwards in slow motion down the road, tracking each passing car with our thumbs but no one stopped to pick us up.

For the most part, hitchhiking is a game of luck, but there are some tricks you pick up along the way. Sometimes Arrow would stand out of view while I held out my thumb and caught a ride – then he would run over with his undeniable smile — the myth about Arrow is no one ever drove away.

Hitchhiking is also a game of skill, but on this day in this place the next ride came right away — no tricks necessary. It was an 80s era coupe painted matte black dented in multiple places with no rear bumper. The driver was an angry man with a shaved head, a black t-shirt and sunglasses. His stone-faced expression revealed nothing but he stopped and sometimes that’s what matters.

Arrow was already in motion, grabbing his backpack, running toward the car. He asked, “Are you driving up the coast?”

We were close to the Pacific now, I could feel the salt on my skin. The angry man muttered something incoherent but he swung the door open and flipped the passenger seat forward to make room for someone to climb in back. I looked at Arrow who looked unconcerned so I dove into the narrow space between shoeboxes full of cassette tapes labeled in left-slanting handwritten font:

WORLD FUCK OFF

TOXIC SHOCK

B.O.M.B.

There were other boxes in the backseat — a cardboard box filled with black clothes, silver foil wrappers, crushed brown paper bags. The state of the backseat was a red flag (or a black flag in this case) but I didn’t get the sense that the driver was dangerous until he turned on the stereo and pressed play.

A monotonous drone:

OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!

DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!

OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!

One of the speakers in the backseat was blown out, adding a high tinny sound to the mix, and the music was way too loud, which made it hard to hear when Arrow yelled, “are you living in your car?”

The angry man said nothing.

He may not be dangerous, I thought, but he was absolutely alone – someone with no one.

The music droned on:

DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!

Finally the man shouted, “It’s just temporary while I get shit together.” He kept his eyes on the road, hands gripping the wheel and stared straight ahead with the quality of a time bomb.

“We don’t have a car to live in,” Arrow pointed out what was true.

The driver stared at the road, eyes behind shades. The highway flew by out the window, flat for a stretch, dusty in bright sun. A droning voice:

OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!

A wave of paranoia crashed over me. I thought maybe the angry man was dangerous. It seemed like the song would never end.

“It’s a piece of shit car with a broken exhaust,” the driver’s voice interrupted the desolation. He had waited so long to respond we had given up hope but Arrow was not easily detoured.

“We don’t even have one dollar — oh wait, that’s a lie — we have one two dollar bill.” It was a bill we carried for luck.

Arrow sang a line from a song, “I lost all my money but a two dollar bill.”

“It got us here from rainbow.”

“What does that mean?”

“We came from a free gathering in the national forest,” Arrow navigated the conversation carefully not wanting to set off any landmines – he tried to be helpful. An old rule of the road: nobody rides for free.

OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!

DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!

OBLITERATE!/DESOLATE!/OBLITERATE!

“Do you know which road goes to the beach?” Arrow tried to reprise the conversation.

The driver said something unintelligible.

“You can sleep on the beach in Oregon man,” Arrow said, “sure as hell beats sleeping in your car – it’s legal here.”

Nothing.

“No fine for sleeping on the earth in Oregon — all of the beaches are public land owned by the people.”

I said, “the joke’s on us — the land owns the people.”

There was a shadow of interest on the man’s face before it vanished into oblivion. The driver pointed to the sun, which was starting to sink in the sky. “Any road west takes you there.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. The music morphed into a new song with an ominous chorus:

THIS. IS. THE. END.

THIS. IS. THE. END.

THIS. IS. THE. END.

I did not allow suspicious thoughts about the driver to arise in my mind although I could feel them on the periphery – I did not let them in. At the next junction, the driver pulled over. I offered a prayer to all the gods and goddesses:

THANK YOU FOR SAFE PASSAGE

“We are grateful,” Arrow said, “remember every day is the present.”

Arrow knew where he was going and had no doubt someone would come along and take him there for free. So I followed the Arrow.

As the black coupe sped away in a furious cloud of dust we crossed to the other side of the junction to catch a ride west. The sun was a golden disc balanced on the horizon between earth and sky, casting long shadows in the light reflecting off the road. All hours are magic. Arrow and I sat on our backpacks and shared a bottle of water. I shaded my eyes with one hand and halfheartedly followed a station wagon with a backseat full of kids with my thumb. Arrow laughed at something or maybe nothing.

“Want to hear a time travel joke?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you yesterday,” he said.

“I heard that one tomorrow,” we laughed.

Then in a stroke of luck too good to be true, a wine-colored towncar as big as a boat rumbled to the side of the road. Arrow and looked at each other in disbelief and ran to the car as if the roadside apparition might vanish. I saw the silhouette of an old man wearing the kind of hat only a papa can wear. When I got to the window I could see how very old he was from the deep crevices etched into his forehead, radiating from the corners of his eyes, running like canyons down his cheeks and disappearing into a gray-white goatee. The papa took his time manually rolling down the window, shaking a knobby finger, sizing us up.

“You two aren’t on the lam now are you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

We told him, “We’re just going to sleep on the beach.”

The papa motioned to the backseat with a bent pointer finger. “Now don’t worry — I’m not gonna take you for a ride,” he said meaning a different kind of ride, but we weren’t worried — after so many days on the road, the purple velvet benchseat looked like heaven.

“I feel like I’m floating on a purple cloud,” I told the papa, who thought that was funny.

“Hold that thought sweetheart,” he turned a knob on the stereo and the sound of early jazz filled the air. The papa sang along in a gravelly voice, “skies of blue, clouds of white, bright blessed days, dark sacred nights.”

The papa kept singing in a voice that sounded so good with the late great jazz musician that I thought maybe they were friends — how old would that make the diver? I wondered, one hundred years? Some people say, you haven’t seen anything till you’ve watched a century roll by.

The papa drove us all the way to the beach, turning down a sandy lane lined with reeds, creating a maze-like effect and blocking the view. The road made three 90-degree turns stepping closer to the shore before we reached the place where the concrete ended and the sand began — and beyond that was the Pacific. We emerged from the purple cocoon and thanked the papa for the ride.

“Back in my day we called this a jitney,” the papa laughed at his joke, “hope your next ride’s a breezer.” He maneuvered the town car in a slow-motion three-point turn and headed back from whenever he came from.

“I think the papa was my guardian angel,” I said.

Arrow said he had no doubt.

We followed a set of rickety wood stairs through the reeds to boardwalk elevated over a sand dune and then down another set of steps to the beach. The wind whipped our hair around our heads, ocean air filled our lungs and sunbaked sand warmed the soles of our feet. It was the end of the road — the beginning of the sea — sometimes the end is the beginning — this is just one example.

We sat on the sand with our backs against a piece of silver-gray driftwood and watched the sun sink down on the horizon, shooting a single beam of golden light across the water after it dropped out of view. We drank wine from a bottle in a paper bag and watched waves crash on the shore and stars appear where before there were none – we saw the Milky Way stretch across time through the sky. Later we found a clearing in the seagrass for our blankets and fell asleep to the sound of a foghorn in the distance. We dreamt about things that had not happened yet — but that’s not where this story starts.

Sometimes the end is the beginning.

by Lea Lion