Chance encounters…

He doesn’t tend to look on the side of the road for hitchhikers. It isn’t that he has anything in particular against the poor bastards, or that he’s attempting to stick too closely to the protocol and the training that he got from the company, but he’s so high up and they’re so small and they tend to try and hitch at night thinking that the cops aren’t going to be able to see them standing there with their thumps sticking out.

Never understood why there was any call for the thumb. As if the sight of a sorry individual standing by the side of the road at all wasn’t some sort of a sign that something was wrong or something was wanted. Ryan just blew past them most of the time.

Most of the time it’s just as well. Most folks can’t stand to be around him in wide open eateries or parking lots in broad daylight; they would shit themselves and run the opposite way if they were met with him late at night, sitting in the cab of his truck with the motor running and a toothpick sticking out of his young lips.

But today’s different. The sky is overcast, but not cloudy, and so the sun is not beating down so heavily that waves of heat shimmer off of the asphalt and make anyone standing on the shoulder near the dirt look like mirages, creatures coming out of the woods.

Maybe she’s just gotten lucky today. Maija’s looking for a ride, and this big black truck with Texas plates looks as if he’s slowing down.

When cars pass, she’ll throw her thumb out, but she don’t even turn to face the oncoming traffic when she does anymore. She’s been stompin down this shoulder for well over three hours now, and she done gave up hope anyone is gonna stop.

Right about then, someone slows down, and looks like he’s gonna stop. Typical. Give up on something, and it happens.

The big black truck with texas plates slows, and she waits as it goes by her to see if the brake lights will actually stay on. When they do, she hooks the strap of her backpack up higher on her shoulder, and breaks into a jog to the cab. She hopes up on the running board as he pulls to a stop – she don’t say nothing. He knows what she wants. If he’s gonna unlock and let her in, he will. Otherwise she’s coiled and ready to jump right the heck back off again – BEFORE he decides to gas it.

Call it experience.

Dark eyes with darker circles underneath, all under the brim of the ball cap glance into the cab with a slight nod toward the road in question. It’s clear he’s going her way. What remains unseen is if they’ll share company to do so…

She’s got to be wanting off the shoulder right about now, is what the thought process is. If there is much of a thought process.

Thin, weathered fingers come out to pop the pull lock, coerce the handle to pop the door’s trip mechanism, and nudge the passenger door open to give whoever the girl is the distinct and unerring impression that she is, indeed, receiving a ride this afternoon.

He’s not much to look at once she gets up there. Sure, he’s got a boyish face that you could call pretty, but he doesn’t have that rugged, manly thing going for him just yet and given the roundness of his features it’s likely that he never will. There’s a cowboy hat on his head to keep the sun out of his eyes, a flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows and revealing mirror-image arms lined with thick veins, and bluejeans keeping him decent where nobody can see nothing anyway. The cab smells of tobacco juice and fast food grease, and there’s something else.

It’s like he’s got a bear in there somewhere. Between the driver’s and passenger’s seats there’s a curtain leading to, likely, a sleeper cabin; there could be a bear back there, there could be something back there to explain why it feels so very dangerous and almost so very stupid to get in this truck.

For a normal person.

“Need a ride?” he asks, and between that drawl, that twang, and that almost lazy curiosity about him, it’s clear in an instant: he and the license plates are neighbors.

She takes him in for a minute, dark eyes piercing, calculating, searching while revealing nothing at all of what goes on inside her head. She flicks her eyes toward the sleeper section, then back to the cowboy with the drawling twang. There’s a slight hesitation, [stupid, girl!] then sharp chin dips into a nod as she hauls herself the rest of the way in and onto the seat. It’s a fluid motion, as she swings her pack to the floorboard and pulls the door shut behind her.

“Thanks.”

No accent to speak of, really. Nothing like his. Not that you can much tell with one word, right?

Just as the girl looks at this thus far nameless trucker, so does he look back at her with furious eyes the color of an Indian summer sky, his nostrils flaring out as if he has suddenly been scorched by an erupted internal heat, though this may very well (and for the best) go unnoticed as the slip of a girl hauls herself into the normally empty passenger seat of his cab.

Uncle Perry would have himself a fit if he knew he was picking girls Awenasa’s age up off the side of the road and toting them Lord knows how far, but that’s why Uncle Perry ain’t going to find out about it, is what Ryan’s telling himself now.

“Ain’t nothin’,” he tells her with a verbal shrug, rearranging his rearview mirror before cranking the gearshift and indicating to nonexistent traffic that he wants to get back on the road. And so with a shuddering roar, they’re off again.

A glance sidelong, and the kid adds, “Where you headin’?”

He pulls back out onto the highway, and they’re off, and his question hangs in the air as she runs her fingers through her hair, attempting to pull the tangles from hopelessly mangled length. Finally, she glances at him once more and lifts her chin toward the highway ahead of them. “That way.”

For a moment, or four, it seems like that’s all he’s gonna get from her too. Ain’t much for talking, Maija. Her mouth just gets her in trouble more often than not so better to keep it closed, right? Right. But the silence ain’t exactly comfortable yet, either, so she adds. “Anywhere that ain’t headed back north.”

Unless you really stop to think about it.

His muscles, every single one of them it seems, is taut. Tense. Ready to spring if need be. Nostrils flaring in an indistinguishable pattern, almost animalistic awareness of his surroundings as they go… he almost seems like some sort of psychopath or escaped axe murderer if it isn’t for the fact that his back is relaxed against the padded seat back, not hunched over the steering wheel.

And his voice is smooth. Wouldn’t be like that if he was so keyed up about his new victim that he couldn’t hardly contain himself. Unless he was a real good actor. And when’s the last time you ever met a trucker was a real good actor?

“Yer in luck,” he supposes, his speech still slow and dry. “We’re going that way all the way to Florida.”

Nothing gets the adrinalin pumpin like putting yourself into the cage WITH the animal.

He supposes her luck, and a brow arches ever so slightly over a dark eye. Speech slow, dry – her’s is smooth, and soft. Controlled. Wouldn’t do to lose any of hat now, would it. “Florida. Well, ain’t askin’ ya to take me that whole way. Unless ya ain’t mind it.”

Not much in the way of educated speech, sure. Accent is a hint of anything she’s picked up around here, there, everywhere, since she left home. But grammar – that ain’t her strong point, at all.

“Ain’t want ya to get into trouble or nothin.”

She is not dealing with a mental genius, here, one who awakened terribly early to a powerful knowledge, a grasp of mathematics or linguistics that would come to be universally acknowledged and sought after as he got older. This man is not going to win any awards at any point in his adulthood. The point for him to have done that was as a schoolboy, and he is long out of stage of development where his mother had to help him into his clothes and make his lunch for him.

The kid takes the toothpick out of his mouth once the truck and trailer hitched behind are securely reintroduced to the asphalt, once they are rolling along at a comfortable 58 miles per hour that is not likely to have them pulled over yet will shave about half an hour or so off of their overall travel time. It’ll let them get further. And he isn’t technically speeding like he would be at 60 miles per hour.

At least he hasn’t gone so far as to tamper with the electronics and that what tells his supervisors how fast he’d gone on average, how many hours the engine was running, all of that. Granted, the company hasn’t gone electronic yet, but even it if had he doesn’t stand to gain much from messing with it, other than losing the only source of employment he’s likely to hold down for the rest of his life.

A circular can of Copenhagen is pulled out of the pocket of his work shirt with the hand that is not holding the steering wheel–and that hand is devoid of a wedding ring or anything other than scars–and he sets about preparing a plug while he speaks.

“If I minded it, I wouldn’t’a pulled over.”

She hooks her hand around her ankle, fingers absently tightening the laces of the beat to hell hiking boots she wears before resting easily atop her foot. She doesn’t argue the merits of that statement, because there really ain’t nothing to argue about. And Florida is just about as far away from Seattle as she can get right now – and that’s just fine by her.

The slightest ease of the tension in her shoulders shows that she figures he ain’t gonna eat her right now, not in the next five or ten minutes while he’s chewing on that shit he’s digging out of the can. Leastwise, she hopes not, because ew, gross. She still watches him, often just out of the corner of her eye. It’s clear she’s been on the road a while, and ain’t always been dealing with the nicer sort of folks.

“Suppose so.” She pauses. Just a beat. Then… “so why did ya? Pull over, I mean. Ain’t many truckers’ll do that these days…”

In lieu of wind, they have air conditioning. And it is near-quietly pumping artificially cooled air into their space, ensuring that they will not sweat overmuch, that their countenances will retain a modicum of composure and detachment even though one of them perpetually, always, fights with his inner Rage and the other cannot help but be well aware of it riding with her.

So why did he pull over.

“S’posed to rain later,” is his partial answer. “Prit hard, too. An’ I got a look at you, figgered a good stiff wind would knock you in the ditch…”

The plug of tobacco he had been working on for several seconds is pushed between his lower gum and lip, and once it is secured in place he caps the can and puts it back in his pocket.

“Also figgered… well, who’s gonna find out if I give someone what needs a ride a ride? Ain’t got no cameras in here.”

Lips twist into a smirk, as her hand lifts from where it rested by her ankle, to rub under her sleeve on her shoulder blade, fingers testing the healing skin there. “Ain’t that the truth..” seems a stiff wind might just have got her before he had the chance to happen by.

She leans down and hooks a finger into the strap of her backpack, hauling it into her lap so that she can dig in the front pocket. A moment later, a tube of some cream is liberated from the junk within. Pack to the floor, the tube opened, and she goes about putting some neosporin on whatever damage she has to the back of her shoulder, as well as she can, anyway. Since she’ll be out of the dust and dirt for a while, might as well attempt to stave off a little bit of infection.

So while the kid might ask her a few questions for a few miles, like how far she’d walked already or if she had any plans for when she got away from wherever she was trying to go, but ultimately he reaches out with the hand that had put the tobacco into his mouth, that is maneuvering a Coke can between the cup holder and his lips when he has to spit, to turn on the radio.

And that radio station hangs in there for miles, at least fifty of them, until he has to fiddle. But he fiddles, and he doesn’t react to the smell of whatever it is that the girl is putting on herself and he doesn’t wonder if it is going to stain the upholstery and he doesn’t ask her if there’s anything he can do to help because he’s already done just about all that he’s inclined to do, and so they drove on without conversation.

Just music from the 70s and 80s.

==========

It is far beyond nightfall when the truck pulls off of the interstates it had known and prattled into a truck stop not far from an exit he needed to take after he got his ten hours of rest. The truck comes to the same practiced, maybe even mastered lack of squealing air brakes and sliding tires stop that it had exhibited earlier, and the kid rubs his eyes with the heel of his left hand before looking over at his traveling companion.

Unable to tell if she is awake or not through the darkness, the sky unlit tonight and rain starting to patter down out of the concealing clouds, he reaches up to bring the illumination of the dome lighting down on them and clears his throat.

“We’re in Idaho,” he says. ‘Idaho’ comes out AH-duh-hoe.

She dozed off, here and there, and didn’t seem bothered by the choice of tunes on the radio, lulled to sleep by the big hair bands, and just plain exhaustion. She’s in that half dozing state, curled up against the door, using her pack for a pillow to cushion her head, her feet propped on the edge of the seat, looking – if possible – even smaller then she did while trudging along the side of the highway.

She grunts her protest as the light flips on, and then begrudgingly attempts to untangle herself, straightening out slowly, with a groan she can’t quite keep back as her muscles protest. A slow stretch finds her pressing her feet to the floor, her arms up over head, her back arching, before she curls in on herself again, like a cat. Only then does she turn to look at him, than to the darkness beyond. “Idaho. Land of the potatoes. HOw much you reckon a plate of fries is gonna cost in there?”

So when they come to a stop, it is not with physical touch but with the environment that he awakens his charge, likewise without a name or any other means of identification. They don’t know each other from Adam and Eve, and there is a ridiculous degree of trust in the two of them.

More so on the part of Maija, not knowing what this man-thing is, not even knowing that is he is not entirely man and bordering so thinly on thing that it would be dangerous if he didn’t seem to be nice enough. Or restrained enough.

When she looks back at him she finds a weary but not exhausted young man with a juvenile’s sorry excuse for a five o’clock shadow and the cowboy hat out of sight with the sun having retired for the evening. A scrub of his hand over his face, and the kid considers her question.

“Around here they’re usually ’bout two bucks,” he reckons. “They’re prit big, too. If’n you ain’t the money I’ll split one wit’cha.”

She runs her hands back over her hair, babyfine whisps clinging to her fingers from where the hopelessly tangled tresses have escaped her ponytail. She doesn’t try to to much more, at least not yet. There will be a ladies room inside – though probably dank and dirty and disgusting, but it’ll work. Nothing like a spit bath in a cesspool to make everything right, hm?

She considers him, and his offer, as she scrubs her hands over her face, but in the end it’s her growling stomach that provides the answer. A slight nod as she digs in her pack for her wallet, and hoodie, the latter of which she pulls on over her head, leaving the hood up to hide her features as the former slid into the front pocket, where a brush soon joins it too. She glances at him, and testament to the odd trust they have between them, asks quietly. “Ok if I leave my pack in here?”

Ain’t like it has much of anything worth anything to anyone but her in it, but it’s all she has.

It really ain’t no big deal, but it means that little hints like a girl asking if her pack will be alright in the rig go unnoticed because otherwise, Jesus, look at her: she doesn’t look as though she has a nickel to her name. What should she have if she lost whatever all she had inside that pack, beside her body and her face?

That’s a sad thought. He could be looking at another Rosalee right now.

So why did he pull over?

“I’mma lock ‘er up while we’re inside,” the kid tells her, and stands to shuck aside the patterned curtain that, if she looks quick enough, is as a matter of fact hiding a sleeper cabin with a cot, a couple windows, and not much else. The curtain falls shut as he is moving in, and he comes back seconds later with a duffel bag in hand, cowboy boots thumping on the floor as he ducks his way back to the driver’s side. “C’mon.”

If he doesn’t hear the girl tab her door’s lock shut he walks around and does it for her after clambering down himself, and he sticks close to her as they start to walk toward the truck stop.

“This place’s got showers and whut not,” he explains, “but they’re expensive. Bathroom’s you ain’t gotta pay for and this time’a night ain’t nobody usin’ ’em, so’s you’s can just lock the door and use the sink. You need to wash yer hair’r anything I can just give you some shampoo so you ain’t gotta pay for none’a that neither.”

She does glance toward the back – just to make sure them grizzlies ain’t hidin out back there like it eels they might be, but ain’t much more than a quick peek. A tug of the hoodie a little farther down to hide her features, leaving her face in shadow, and she climbs down from the rig, thumbing the lock as she does so.

He sticks close, and she doesn’t shy away like someone might expect. Hands are shoved deep into the ‘roo pocket, her shoulders hunched a little as if she’s doing her best to take up as small a space as possible, all the more to go unnoticed. Like anyone would take a second look at her with him around. He explains as they walk, and the expression of longing is hidden from his view at the mention of showers. Spit shine it’ll have to be, and that’ll do her just fine. At the offer of shampoo, she glances up at him – and there’s that brief flash of a grin that just barely tugs at the corner of her lips before disappearing. “Pretty scary ain’t it.” her hair, presumably. “Thanks.”

She ain’t completely broke – not yet – but little things can eat away at the stash she has, so not paying for a shower, not paying for shampoo, it’ll make a difference later down the line. But she ain’t the type to like takin’ charity, even when she does it out of necessity. “Means we split a sandwhich too…”

The angry growl of her stomach agrees.

“You go on ahead and take your time,” he says. “I’ll meet you on out here when you’re done.”

He doesn’t mention that he’s resigning himself to using that granulated pink hand soap to wash his hair, but in all the years that he’s been ranching and working on vehicles and driving long-haul trucks and fighting the Wyrm he ain’t never really been one to complain about getting dirty so it doesn’t make much sense to complain about how he gets clean and so he just lets himself into the men’s room and makes sure that there are no feet under the stalls and locks himself in.

It does feel good to get the sweat and road grime off of him, even if he has to do it standing in front of an aging yellow sink that gives him the chills to look into. It’s as if he’s staring at a ghost.

==========

Whenever it is that Maija gets herself cleaned up to her satisfaction, the kid is standing there in a different pair of jeans and a different work shirt, his blond hair darkened by moisture in the starless, moonless night and his face shining with recent plowing. He smells like hand soap, and as he collects his little bottles of hair cleansers he doesn’t have much to say.

Not much other than “After you” as he holds the door open, not much other than “This is a good’un” as he registers what Eagles song is playing overhead as they walk by the ‘Please Seat Yourself’ sign and take up residence in a booth far away from the rest of civilization. The kid seems to know the score, and so he scoots his duffel bag under the table and says “I’ll be right back” without explaining where he’s going.

He’s going toward the cash register. The bravest of the staff meets him there, and with a beaming good old boy smile and a sloping of his shoulders and a hooking of his thumbs into his belt loops in what has to be an attempt to make himself look smaller–not because 6′ 1/2″ is overly tall but because the kid seems to fill the room.

Maija can’t hear every word, but the gist is: Can we get a waitress, please? We’re both real hungry. Uh… two Cokes would be good…

When he gets back the cushioning of the bench whooshes under his rangy bulk, and he slouches back against his half of the booth without giving any other indication that he’s tired. Not exhausted, perhaps, but running on fumes at the least.

“You got anybody to call when we get to Florida?” he drawls. “Or, y’know, anywhere between here and Florida? Cuz if’n there’s somewheres other’n Florida I can drop you just let me know an’ we’ll see if’n we can’t figger somethin’ out.”

Their waitress, the ballsy redhead at the cash register, drops two straws, two large Cokes and two menus on the table with a terse smile and then promptly disappears. The kid just works on opening up his straw.

When she emerges, there’s a wet spot down the back of her hoodie where her hair hangs under the hood, which is pulled up over her face again. She hands him the bottles with a soft “thanks” before moving into the diner itself.

He holds the door open for her, and that gets a startled look, before she moves inside before him. He likes the song, then he off to the counter, while she tucks her feet underneath her on the bench and watches the exchange, then the walk back.

She don’t look up at the waitress, but doesn’t make it (any more) obvious that she’s hiding her face when the cokes make their appearance. She takes her straw, unwraps it and drinks a good quarter of her coke before she even thinks to answer the question – and again, it’s honest. Perhaps surprisingly so. “Ain’t got no one to call. Anywhere.”

No, he’s not looking at this nameless, skinny young woman and thinking that he’s going to save her somehow. He isn’t even looking at her and thinking that he’s going to help her. This, tonight, is just including her in what he would be doing anyway.

Without a word of segue, the kid leans down to haul his duffel bag up onto the seat next to him. Rifling around doesn’t produce too much good, so when their waitress comes back and he orders the biggest plate of fries they can get and the biggest sandwich of Maija’s choosing they can get, he also asks if he can trouble the girl–‘Rachel,’ according to her name tag–for her order pad and pen.

A quick scribbling, and she’s off again.

When the paper is passed across the table, the kid is saying, “Now you do.”

There is a likely unrecognizable number attached to the green lined order paper, along with two names: Mr. Green and Ryan. The handwriting is sloppy but certain, the handwriting of the poorly educated.

“You call that number,” he says, “an’ you’ll get my Uncle Perry. Then he can get in touch with me on the horn if you need anything, alright?”

For a long while, it might seem like she ain’t gonna say anything at all, and the silence drags more or less comfortably until their fries and club sandwich arrive and the waitress makes her escape. She grabs a fry and shoves it into her mouth, and after she swallows, she finally breaks he silence. “Maija.” Mi-yah, she says, and it’s apparently her name, though it doesn’t quite roll comfortably off her tongue just yet, which could be a hint that it is not the name she was born with.

She takes up her half of the sandwich, and between the way she scarfs that down and the speed with which she shoves her part of the fries into her face, it’s clear she hasn’t eaten for a while. A long while. Even so she’s very careful that she only eats exactly her half, before she settles back with a belch, to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.

The pen still on the table, she grabs a napkin, and doodles while he works on the rest – doodles that turn into a likeness of the man who’s just given her his number, no questions asked. He ain’t trying to save her, he ain’t trying to take care of her, and that’s likely why she’s still sitting right here with him, sketching his portrait on a diner napkin with a stolen pen.

Underneath, she carefully pens a phrase, before she hands it to him with another of those slight amused smirks. This one even lingers a beat.

Life is a highway…
~Maija