Riding the Dog

It was a cold friggin' night. I had been standing on the side of the road heading west outside of Omaha for 2 hours without so much as a glimmer of anyone stopping to give me a ride.

Usually I had pretty good luck hitchhiking. (This was back in 1972 before anyone worried about serial killers or being bored to death by people singing show tunes.)

I had been picked up by some interesting folks during my previous trips.

There was the French couple driving across country who shocked my Midwestern sensibilities by using the same bathroom at truck stops.

The drunk travelling salesman who was so wasted that he didn't notice I had only been in his car 5 minutes when I said "that's my exit."

The grandmother who offered me a joint.

One time a state trooper stopped. I thought I was busted for sure considering I had a bag of marijuana in my coat pocket. But it turned out his legally blind son had just finished a cross country hitchhiking trip and the trooper was doing some karma payback by giving rides to others.

But this night?

No luck.

Maybe it was the shoulder length hair (windblown and dirty from all day on the road), Army surplus jacket with the big peace sign, and bell bottom jeans.

Or maybe it was just Nebraska.

I couldn't stand it anymore and turned around and headed back into Omaha. Managed to get a ride to the Greyhound station. I bought a ticket to Boulder on a bus that left in an hour.

I went into the bathroom and threw some water in my face. It washed away some of the grime but did nothing to improve my spirits.

An elderly black man was cutting a piece of cheese in the corner. His hands shook as he sliced off a small hunk and offered it to me. I thanked him and headed into the waiting area.

Day old newspapers and candy wrappers swirled across the floor in the breeze created by the half-hearted sweeping of a janitor.

When the bus arrived I waited until everyone was almost on and then boarded. There weren't that many people.

An elderly couple who looked like they had given up on life a couple of decades ago.

Two giggling teenage girls with the kind of fresh faces that only girls who spent their whole lives in small towns have.

A hard faced man with hands the size of shovels and a nose that went in two different directions.

A few others.

I made my way to the back of the bus. In the last seat were a couple of guys in ragged clothes who looked more dishevelled than me. They were passing a bottle of Boones Farm Strawberry Hill. Gangly White Haired guy saw the slight smile on my face and raised the bottle to me. His face broke into an almost toothless grin. "Dude back at the station gave it to us man. You know what they say -- never look a gift horse in the mouth." He and his friend laughed hysterically for a few moments and then settled back into drinking.

I sank into the empty seat in front of them and tried to ignore the urine smell.

The bus headed out onto I-80. I gazed out the window a while but there wasn't much to see. Hell it was Nebraska at night so what did I expect?

A few rows ahead of me a Mexican guy was flirting across the aisle with one of the teenage girls. She seemed to like his cowboy boots.

The elderly couple staired straight ahead as if each was in a separate universe. If one of them had spoken the other surely would have shattered into a thousand pieces.

The hard faced man was reading Dante's "Inferno." Go figure.

Across the aisle from me a middle aged man in a black coat noticed the same thing. He looked at me and smiled. "You were expecting something else, weren't you?" he said.

"I suppose I was. I had him figured for more of an Evelyn Waugh type."

The man in the black coat laughed.

"Where you headed?" he asked. I told him I was going to Boulder and asked him where he was going.

"Oh I don't really know," he said. "My bus ticket goes only as far as North Platte."

"What's in North Platte?"

"Well other than the place I get off the bus I don't know. But it was as far as I could get with the money at hand."

I'm sure I had a puzzled look on my face.

"Anyway," he said. "What difference does it make? One place is as good as another."

"I suppose."

He turned and looked out the window, and after a few moments turned back towards me. He suddenly looked very tired. No -- more than just tired. Disspirited. "Ever since my Gloria died 3 years ago I've just been travelling around. Going from one place to another. I pick up odd jobs wherever I land. I'm a pretty fair short order cook and I can also handle a hammer so it isn't hard to find work. And then after awhile I just move on to wherever the bus takes me." He paused and gazed out the window again. "Listen," he said, "I'm going to nap for bit. Would you wake me when we get to North Platte?"

I told him sure and settled back into my seat. After a few minutes he was asleep.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a copy of "Catch-22" and began reading.

We took a rest stop in Kearney and I got out and stretched my legs. The two girls went off with the Mexican and the three of them lit up a joint. Hard faced man was making a call from a pay phone. I couldn't hear his words but I could feel the sadness in them -- like a minor chord played softly on a piano.

After a bit we all got back on the bus.

As I passed the old couple I saw a tear rolling slowly down the woman's cheek.

The two winos were passed out in the back, the empty Boones Farm bottle rolling slowly back and forth between their feet.

The bus started up again.

I gazed for awhile out the bug spattered windshield. Every now and then the dark night was lit by passing headlights. But it didn't last and it always got dark again.

I thought about Boulder and why I was going there. And I realized the only true answer was: "one place is as good as another."