A Trip to California (Part Six)

There was one thing we did on the road that still surprises me. The white nurse in our van was sitting in the front passenger side and noticed a black hitchhiker. This was in the Midwest and it made me wonder how he ended up in an area where he could have been picked up and jailed as a vagrant. There was some argument about stopping the car for him (not a general vote, but not much support on the nay side). There were six of us, if I consider myself as a potential combatant (Natalie alone could have talked him to death), and that was also on mind. But we still wondered about what would happen for the rest of our trip.

He was very dark, thin, and tall and had a friendly and open look. He told us that he was trying to reconnect with family (or friends; he was not precise about this). He had spent some time in the Midwest with people he did not know very well. Stuck without any money – he had been dropped off by another car a few hours earlier – he was tired but not worried or stressed out. I do not remember talking to him for too long or too often – he napped in the flat area at the back of the van with his small satchel around his chest – and I realized just how silly my concerns for our safety were. He was exhausted and, as my mother discovered, very hungry. She told me later that she had seen him take a doughnut from a box of them that we had with us (I never saw this happen, but I would not have blamed him if I did). I liked having him there. He seemed to be another sign of America’s greatness for me: we trusted him and he trusted us; and we were both on this journey to the West. He only stayed with us up to Nevada (Las Vegas or Reno was his stop), and I regret now that I have no photograph of him (even his name has stepped out of my memory). I hope that he is well and living with a real roof over his head.