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The Hitchhiker

Jesse Martin

    He sat at his desk, picked up a new yellow pencil, and started to write on a fresh pad.
    Some time passed, and the lead tip broke.
    Jaden sighed and set the pencil down. The eraser was worn down to the metal band, and the paint had faded where his fingers had gripped it. He sat back in his hair and massaged his cramping hand, letting the pencil drop to the desk. Curly peelings of wood and lead dust littered the floor next to his chair. The manuscript pile looked to be around thirty pages.
    The clock read 12:15 AM. Jaden released another sigh and flicked the pencil off his desk. It clinked to the floor and became still. He stared at the clock. Had he really been sitting at his desk for over three hours? The neatly stacked pile of manuscript, torn from the thinning legal pad, seemed to suggest that yes, he had.
    Jaden stood up from his desk, stretched his aching muscles, and put on his coat. He had an appointment with Stevenson, his lawyer, and his wife and her lawyer, to discuss the terms of their divorce. The appointment was at nine o’clock, and he wanted to sleep a few hours off first. Maybe shave and comb his hair, too, if he had time. He took the manuscript, stuffed it in a manila folder, slipped it in his backpack, and forgot about it.

    Outside, a faint orange glow hovered above the tops of distant, dark skyscrapers. Skirts of light hung from streetlamps, and purple clouds dirtied the sky, dispersing amongst an abyss of blackness and stars. A dry snow dusted neatly over every exposed surface, as if painted by a delicate and steady hand.
    Stepping over a mound of snow, Jaden unlocked his car and clumsily got in, bringing with him clumps of snow that stuck to the soles of his shoes.
    How could he have written for that long? He knew he had a meeting the next morning.
    He pulled the manila folder out of his pack and began to page through what he had written. Horror, he thought. Jaden read the piece before him with disdain. It was amateur at best. A cheap attempt at a literary horror story, he thought, and retired the pages to his backpack, resisting the urge to toss them out into the windy night.
    Jaden pushed the key into the ignition and started the car. He dug around the glove compartment, pulled out a flask, took a nip of sour mash whiskey, and hid the bottle behind some stray papers and candy wrappers.
    He brooded silently, feeling his stomach warming. When the car had warmed, he drove off into the night.
    The interstate was a dark continuum, piercing the snowy winter night—vast, empty, silent. The car’s headlights shot through the chilly night. Warm air and jazz music poured from the counsel. Jaden began to doze off. He cracked the window, allowing a huff of frigid air to lick his face. He shot up and was awake again.
    Ten minutes later, he saw a man walking along the road in the emergency lane. It’s ten degrees under, he thought, amazed. The man seemed to be dressed well: a thick jacket, a hat, gloves.
    Jaden pulled his car over in front of the man, and, leaning out of his window, called, “Can I help you?” He had to yell over the howl of the wind.
    The stranger waved a hand and approached the car. When he got close, Jaden was able to appreciate the man’s sheer size. He was wearing a big jacket. His face was wrapped in a thick, gray wool scarf, his eyes peeking out amongst pink, wind burned flesh.
    “You wouldn’t mind giving a man a lift, would you?” said the man, his voice muffled through the scarf.
    For a moment, Jaden hesitated. Hitchhikers in 2012, he thought.
    “Sure thing.”
    The man walked around the front of the idling car. His gait was smooth, not laborious like some his stature. He opened the door and plopped into the passenger seat. A thin dusting of snow fell from his body. He pulled off one large mitten and stuck out a hand to Jaden. Jaden shook the hand, finding the flesh to be rough and cold. “My name’s Bill,” the man said. “How do you do?”
    “Jaden. And I’m doing just fine, thanks.” Bill seemed to smile from behind his scarf, the folds flexing upward in a grin.
    Jaden put the car in drive and pulled back on the highway.

    “So, where are you headed to?” Jaden asked. He would tell his lawyer about this, he thought then. He and Stevenson had become friends over the course of his tumultuous legal endeavor.
    “Cove’s Point,” Bill said. Point, as it was often referred to, was about fifteen miles west of Sheboygan, where his home waited. Where his wife was still living. Jaden realized he would be driving with Bill for at least another hour. Outside, the snow fell in heavier loads.
    Jaden flicked a glance over to Bill, who was staring out the window. “That’s pretty much where I’m going.”
    “What are you going there for? If you don’t mind me asking.” His voice was muffled beneath the animated scarf. Jaden wondered what the man’s face looked like. Would he look like a celebrity? Was he deformed? Had he been in a car accident, or perhaps attacked by a dog, and covered his face to hide the hideous scars tracing around his mouth and neck?
    Jaden hesitated for a moment. “Divorce.”
    Bill looked over and nodded heavily, as if he understood exactly what Jaden was feeling. His eyes looked glassy and dark, reflecting the green dashboard lights. He still hadn’t taken the scarf off his face. It looked almost painfully tight around his face, like cellophane wrapping on a pack of raw hamburger.
    The nose portion of the scarf twitched, and Bill looked into Jaden’s eyes. “Have you been drinking?” Bill asked.
    “No...no I haven’t.” But his voice was small, and he found himself not looking at the hitchhiker, but the speedometer.
    “You haven’t.”
    Bill opened the glove compartment and pulled out the flask, holding it up for Jaden to see.
    “Is this apple juice?” Bill asked humorlessly. Jaden didn’t respond. “I’m not going to hitch a ride with a drunk, Jaden.”
    Jaden looked out at the road and gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I’m not drunk,” he said.
    “You better let me drive.”
    “No. I’ll let you out at the next exit.”
    “That’s not okay with me. You let me drive or you let me out now.”
    Jaden looked at the temperature reading outside: -14 degrees. He couldn’t let Bill walk around in that weather. It would be murder. His concentration on the road lapsed for a moment, and the car began to veer into the ditch. Bill reached a quick hand over and corrected the wheel. Jaden looked ashamedly into Bill’s gaze, and nodded.

    After they had pulled over and switched seats, Bill accelerated onto the highway and slowly brought the car up to fifty miles per hour. Snowdrifts had begun to move across the road like giant white slugs. A stiff wind pushed against the side of the car.
    Jaden sat slumped in the passenger seat, and had begun to take nips at the flask again. Bill either didn’t notice these or chose not to say anything about them, for he kept quiet as he navigated the car through the winter night. Warm air pumped out of the dashboard. The faint hum of static buzzed underneath the sound of the wind outside the car.
    After a while, Jaden was drunk.
    “Tell me about your divorce, Jaden,” Bill said.
    Jaden tipped the last of the whiskey down his throat, and began, telling how they had met in college, got married after graduation. How Christy had begun to come home later and later, sometimes not at all. How his phone calls weren’t answered some late nights when he sat awake in bed alone, unable to sleep. “Sometimes, she’d pick up,” he said, “say she was still working. One time, though, the guy she was sleeping with slipped—made a mistake. He called the home phone and I picked up. When I asked Christy about it, she denied it at first, but then told me everything. She packed her things to go live with the guy. When I moved closer to work, she and the guy moved back into the house. My house. She said I had problems drinking, and that was why she was leaving me. It never got bad, though. I never touched her.”
    “And how does all that make you feel?” Bill asked. The scarf was still tight around his features.
    He was speechless for a moment. “That guy”—Jaden pointed a finger aggressively in the direction they were driving—“is sleeping in my bed.”
    “That doesn’t seem fair to me at all,” Bill said.
    “No, it doesn’t,” Jaden grumbled.
    For a while, neither of them said anything. Bill seemed very calm. He simply was, regulating the heat and radio stations as needed and taking an occasional glance over to Jaden, who grew drowsy again. His head bobbed as he swayed in and out of sleep, warmed by the hot air rushing into his face. Blood rushed through his ears, thumping and swishing. A cacophony.
    “Should we get off here?” Bill asked.
    Jaden startled, saw the correct exit sign, and slurred something like a yes. Bill flicked on the blinker, took the exit. Five minutes later, they were driving between rows of tall, dark houses. The clock on the radio read 1:20 when Bill pulled into the empty parking lot of a bar on the north side of Sheboygan.
    “Hey, buddy,” Bill said, touching Jaden’s shoulder with his giant fingers. “Wake up.”
    Jaden opened his eyes, thinking that he had sobered, if only a little. “Why the hell are you still wearing that damned scarf?” Jaden asked, his words stumbling out of his mouth like sludge.
    “Come on. Come with me.”
    Bill led Jaden into the bar, steadying him when he began to sway on his feet. The bar was empty except for two bearded old men sitting at the far end of the long, scarred bar top. Rows of bottles housing golden and clear and colored liquids faced them. A mirror showed their reflections in its dusty, greasy surface.
    “I can’t have anything to drink,” Jaden said, suddenly feeling scared. “I’m an alcoholic, my wife would say. Not supposed to drink. Not me.”
    “Looks like you’ve already shot that to hell,” Bill responded, grinning, and sat them both at the bar. “We don’t have to drink anything. I’m not drinking anything.”
    “Then why are we here?”
    “To talk about your problems. Bars are good places to talk about problems.”
    “And what might those be—the ‘problems’?”
    “Your wife. Her lover.”
    Jaden felt a wave of nausea at the thought of Christy sleeping with another man, and lowered his head, tears prickling in his eyes.
    When the bartender, a husky, balding man with a walrus moustache, stepped out of the kitchen, Bill gestured him over and whispered for two boilermakers. The bartender made the drinks hurriedly, and placed them in front of the two men.
    “And what about them?” Jaden asked cautiously. His eyes flicked to the drink on the table, and then back at Bill.
    “What are you going to do about them?”
    “I don’t know. Divorce her, I guess.” Jaden felt his insides melting, dripping. He felt weak and exposed, and wanted Bill gone. Bill questioning him seemed to drag these frightened emotions out into too much daylight.
    “And you think that’ll help?” Bill suggested. Jaden nodded. Bill sighed and slid the tall drink over to him, gesturing toward it with an open palm.
    Jaden shook his head and turned away.
    “Drink.”
    Jaden paused, reached a hand over, raised the glass to his mouth, and let the cold drink pour down his throat.
    “You should go take care of them,” Bill said.
    “Like...?” Jaden asked, and looked to Bill to confirm what he was thinking. Bill nodded and pushed the drink closer to him. When Jaden finished the first drink, Bill slid the other one to him. Jaden drank that one, too, consuming it all in one go.
    “If I do, will you take off that damned scarf?”
    “Sure.”
    “Okay, let’s go, get it over with.”

    Bill drove. When they pulled up to Jaden’s house—they had passed it three times before Jaden had happened to drunkenly glance at it, saying, “Heyuhh, there it is!” Bill killed the engine and turned to face Jaden. Jaden’s eyes were unable to focus on one point for more than a moment, and his posture was closer to a liquid than a solid human made of flesh and bone.
    “You’re going to do it.”
    “I’m gonna do it.”
    Bill nodded. Jaden turned to reach for the door handle.
    “Wait,” Bill said, laughing. “Anything for me to do while I’m waiting?”
    Jaden snorted. “Story I just finished. In the backpack.” He shook his head and giggled, letting himself out of the car and walking across the lawn. Bill watched him pluck a key from his pocket and enter the house.
    Bill reclined the driver’s seat, removed his scarf from his face, and found the story in Jaden’s backpack. The sheets were torn from a legal pad. Fine hairs of pink eraser littered the pages, and smudge marks populated the pages.
    Ten minutes later, Jaden reappeared from behind the house, wiping his hands on his pants and limping toward the parked car.
    Jaden opened the car door and plopped down in the passenger seat, weeping. Smears of blood painted his face and hands red. The smell of blood and whiskey reeked in the car.
    “Did you do it?” Bill asked.
    Jaden nodded and buried his face in his palms.
    “So your problem is taken care of?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you want to see now?”
    Jaden nodded miserably, and Bill removed the scarf from his face, showing the drunk, red-faced man.

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