Hitchin'

I have a highway one story. Somewhere between Morro Bay and San Simeon.

 

I was going to meet Judith; sweet, sweet Judith; just about the most wonderful woman I have ever known. Anyway, it was around ten or so and I'd been walkin'. You get tired of waiting and sometimes you just have to walk and I had sat down and I was feeling fairly dejected. This was around the time of the Manson slayings, and I remember thinking about that and thinking that something had gone really wrong.

It was a nice car that pulled up while I was sitting there and looking at a pile of twigs and feeling like, man, there is something deluded about me even being here at all and then I kept thinking about Judith and how I was going to meet her in Big Sur. It was a very nice car, but now I can't remember what kind of car it was, which is easily understood in light of what happened next.

It was a four door. I'm certain about that, because I entered one of the rear doors and pulled my pack in after me. It was a good looking couple; mid-thirties I would guess. They were clean and fashionable and I was in my dungarees. He wore a wide lapel in some sickening pastel. That much I remember.

"Thanks for pickin' me up, man. Name's Keve." I said and we were just pulling onto the highway. I remember the woman was smiling and then the driver with the lapels reached around and put the barrel of a shiny, 38 Smith and Wesson directly in my face; I mean within inches from the tip of my nose and said...

"This is one, big, mother f****n' cannon."

 

I think I said something like...

 

"Understood." and since we were already en-route, I asked if they could put me out at San Simeon. I had another day to get to Big Surand I was tired, it having been a very hot and trying day with very little luck, standing at the side of the road and politely beckoning.

 

I think this probably had something to do with the Manson thing.

What I do remember was San Simeon and how I crawled out into the rattlesnake grass on a very dark night and how that grass rattled in the wind and the sense of being very high-up above the Pacific and listening to the pounding surf below... and the seals. You could hear the seals down there and it was dark and the fog was rolling in and I was tired and sleep overtook me in an instant.

Reviews

[TKBickel]

As usual I love your stories. Very suspenseful. I’ll probably get a boo from the crowd for this but-I can’t hear you telling me this story with all the ands you have in it without sounding a little teenage girlish. That’s just my opinion so please don’t throw tomatoes at me. Otherwise, it's another around of applause.

[RainQueen]

Amazing story. The way you left a hole between the barrel of the gun and the rattlesnake grass and pounding surf...The reader is drawn in against her will, enthralled.

Whatever happened in the in-between, we feel the sweet relief as the seals cry. Wonderful write, as always~

[Rose of Gondor]

I liked the dialogue in this. Very realistic and life-like. Wonderful again. You know, all my life I've read fiction that was really more fiction than realistic. This is more realistic than fiction. :)