An Unusual Hitchhiker

It was a crisp warm day. One of those days that remind you of cold ice cream with hot fudge on top. The sun’s warmth was pleasantly accompanied by a lazy breeze across the brown grassy hills. When the sun was at the right angle, the hills were covered in golden natural splendor.

The old road that ran through these hills was empty, devoid of cars—all save one. A large blue truck ambled down, its dull paint gleaming in the attentive sun. The driver was a big fellow with a square jaw, black mustache, and massive arms. He gripped the steering wheel loosely; he was feeling relaxed with only a touch of tension. The cause of the tension sat just to the right of him with an old brown hat, brown coat, and small brown suitcase. The man was a hitchhiker; Tom had picked him up just ten minutes ago off the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

Tom was a truck driver for a living, and his generous nature always made it a point to pick up a hitchhiker. It became almost a game for him to study them with the quick furtive glances he stole as he drove. In his experience, hitchhikers could be placed in three different categories. There were the ones that wore smelly clothes, hole-y shoes, and had the most god-awful rancid breath that stunk up the whole truck. In Tom’s opinion—and he wasn’t wrong—they were just bums on the road. Then there were the young ones, aging around the twenties, that were eager to live life fast, hard, and now. They fidgeted in the seat next to him, tension springing and coiling as if they were ready to jump out the car the minute he started pressing the brakes. Tom called those the adventurers. The adventurers were usually talkative, always telling Tom about their ambitions and their feats and where they were going and that they only had this and that and this. Come to think of it, the road bums were talkative, too, but because of their breath Tom usually thought of inventive ways to shut them up before they stunk up the truck beyond bearing. Then there were the silent types. Tom didn’t get many of those, but he’s had a few. The silent types were gripped with tension, too, but of a different sort than that of the eager and light-hearted adventurers. This tension was hard and cold, almost waiting. Their eyes darted about everywhere; they always checked the side mirrors. Tom always made his movements slow and easy and pretended not to notice that their eyes catalogued his every move. The silent types were silent, of course. Tom didn’t mind that because he figured that he didn’t want to know what they did that had them running.

But this guy was different. Tom couldn’t place him. The man—he said his name was John—had clean casual clothes that looked fairly new. But he wasn’t the silent type either. John didn’t have the caution and jerky survival instincts that runners possessed. Rather, he sat almost contentedly in his seat. More strange was the slight smile that he had on his face.
              
“You a musician, John?” Tom asked pleasantly. They hadn’t talked much in their short acquaintance. So far all that Tom knew was that John was from “these parts”. When asked about where he was going, John had said “We’re almost there”.

John glanced at his suitcase; it was small and looked like a violin case. That was because it was a violin case. “Used to be. Played violin.”

“You got one in there?”

“No. I lost the violin but I still have the violin case,” John replied pleasantly.

Tom chuckled good-naturedly. He was about to quiz John further—John was a puzzle that Tom had a good time trying to figure out—but John suddenly said, “Right here is good, Tom.”

“What?”

“You can let me off here.”

Tom applied the brakes and took a swift look around. Nothing had changed. There were the brown—sometimes golden—rolling hills, a few scattered trees here and there with loud birds. Nothing was here. “What you gonna do here?”

John only smiled. “Something I’ve always wanted to do.” When the truck came to a complete stop, John opened the door, thanked Tom for the drive, swung his suitcase to his side, and shut the door decisively. After a few moments, Tom started the blue truck again and continued to amble down the lone old road. John watched it climb the hill like it was a huge blue caterpillar in the distance; it rounded the top and disappeared on the way down.

The wind stretched its cool fingers over John as he stood by the side of the road. He smiled—no, grinned—and took a deep breath of freedom.

With a lightness in his step and his soul he walked down the road.
         
The birds chattered innocently to each other as John passed a proud tree. Since he was walking on the side of the road, the gravel crunched under his shoes.

Shoes. Without warning memories engulfed John’s mind, strangling his amiable mood. These shoes were shiny, brown, and nice—the type you would wear for business. The type he wore everyday when going to the office.

The office. Remembered emotions swept through John, causing his step to falter. He remembered his single-minded pursuit in trying to become partner of the company. He remembered working all day and most of the night to finish papers, papers, papers—then get up several hours before the crack of dawn to do it all over again. He remembered groveling to his bosses; he humbled himself so much that he was surprised he never got down on his knees and lay his head down in submissive obedience. His arms were stretched out towards the ideal of partner, his fingers just brushing against it.

Then he had met Marylou. He didn’t know how he had met her; he was so busy with work that he barely had time to eat and sleep, much less socialize with the outside world. She was a sophisticated woman, tall and lithe with controlled grace and auburn hair. He loved her. He proposed, she accepted, they got married. She moved from her pitiable apartment to his lavish house and they began a new chapter called Marriage. He tried to work less—he really did—but still the complaints wouldn’t stop coming. “How come you’re never hooooome?” It came to the point that Marylou was still complaining even when he was at home.
         
Months lumbered past. John’s fingers were firmly touching partner, his grasp was almost there.

He went home early one night. This was a complete aberration; usually he was home hours later. But he was sick, his stomach was rolling like the sea. He must’ve been deathly sick because John never let anything like mere mortal illness pull him away from the office.

John wasn’t that sick, however, not to notice that his wife wasn’t home.

He had been getting suspicions. The bills had gotten slightly higher. His lovely wife didn’t know that her husband could check what she bought on the credit card. It said that she bought things like a thirty inch screen TV—but where was it? Certainly not at his house.

The night he was sick, his wife came home two hours later—which was three hours earlier than he usually got home. It was dark outside and he couldn’t make out her face as she came in. As she shut the door, John turned on the light. His wife shrieked but then calmed as she saw that it was only John.

Only John.

That night his suspicions were confirmed. Her hair was mussed, her lips swollen, cheeks flushed. The tell-tale sign, however, was the smudge of her lipstick. John almost vomited on the spot. But his wife thought he was a dumb creature—for some reason his high-paying job didn’t say anything about his intelligence—and so she made lame excuses about her appearance. John didn’t even think he was all that convincing in acting like he believed her, but she took his words at face value. His cheating wife only made him all the more focused on his work.

Somewhere along the line, the partnership was granted.

But not to him.

It went to the new guy, Adam, that had only been there for several months. John had been there for several years. 

Somewhere along the line, John had found the numbing power of alcohol. It made him blissfully uncaring about his unfaithful wife and his unfruitful job. He started to plummet down in his career, his work was getting sloppy, he was too grouchy to his bosses.

Somehow, through his weeks of drunken stupor, he had found out who his wife was cheating with: it was Stan.
         
Stan was a partner.
         
John put two and two together and found out that if he had become partner, his hours would have been shorter. Stan and Marylou wouldn’t have had as many hours together. 
         
Finally coming out of his reminiscences John found himself near the top of the hill. He wiped the sweat from his brow and took off his jacket and threw it carelessly to the ground. The wind was stronger up here, whipping at his white shirt, as if trying to stop him. It fueled his determination. He trudged up the hill, the suitcase a heavy burden.
         
A heavy burden. Oh, it was so heavy.
         
John slipped and nearly stumbled down the hill, but he caught himself and grimly kept on. In triumphant victory he reached the top and he took a moment to catch his breath. Then he walked towards the edge of the hill.
         
The hill was rounded on the side he climbed; to the truck driver, it looked rounded, too. But what he didn’t see and what John knew was that on the other side was a sheer drop-off. A river ran along side it, its blue waves cascading over each other for mastery as it swept down its path. It would run under the road a couple miles down and then join the sea.
         
Stooping to his knees, John set the suitcase down gently. His hands trembling a little, he opened it up.
         
Inside were papers, a ring, and a bottle.
         
The papers were stacked neatly. John touched it lightly; he pretty much stole them from the office. The partners had been working on it for months—John had  helped them—and finally it had been finished. What John had here was the final copy—and the only one.
         
Then his eyes fell on the ring. It was his own, a gold band that he had bought himself. He fingered it for a moment but it never warmed up to his touch.
         
Then he looked at the bottle. It was a very expensive brand of alcohol, one of the strong ones that he had favored during his drunk days. It was still full, unopened. He looked at it a moment with undisguised longing—maybe just one drink—but then he shook his head firmly.
         
He closed the suitcase and all gentleness was gone. He grasped it roughly, firmly, and without a second’s thought he threw it over the hill and it plummeted down, down into that swirling river below. It hit with an audible—and satisfying—splash. The suitcase bobbed for a few moments and then disappeared beneath the blue surface, on its way to be swept forever into the sea.
         
John’s former life swept forever into the sea and never to be reclaimed.
         
The heavy burden was gone.
         
A lightness infused John and took hold; it was pure and good and bright as the sun. The wind ruffled his hair and John threw out his arms and yelled, “HELLO, LIFE!”