Just let me keep my boots and my soul will drift all the way to that brotherly fellow named Jesus H. Christ to the tune of Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. One thing you ought to know about me: Jesus and me are right as rain. We got a special kind of thing going on. I got my boots, I got Jesus, and I got a whole lot of love to give to some lucky lady one of these days. All I want is a warm place to live my days, settling in and settling up, to rest my boots and rub my aching toes (these boots are snazzy as hell… I won’t take them off cause they look so fuckin’ spiffy).
Hey now, I mouth towards a Dodge that is drifting by, appearing and disappearing through the blindin’ snow. Cars look like ghosts when you see them comin’ on quick in strange weather like this. I don’t believe much in ghosts, but I think the human eyeball is a tricky bitch when it wants to be. This car comes by, and the next one will come by, just the same, sneaking up on me, pinching my ass, and running away without offering any help. Selfish.
It’s almost zero goddamned degrees, and nobody wants to help this well-booted man out. Ain’t that a bitch and a half? Maybe they’re intimidated by my boots. Maybe they’re—
This son of a bitch in a brown pickup truck just stopped. Right on.
I lean forward, put on my smiling lips, squinting one eye so that I seem a little bit unsure about what I’m about to get doin’. The guy behind the wheel rolls down his window, spying out at me. He doesn’t say anything at first. Sort of like sharks and snakes, how people always say that they’re just as scared of you as you are of them; that’s what hitchhiking feels like every now and then. I’ve been doing it all my life, and it never gets easier. It’s a crapshoot.
“Afternoon,” says the man, leaning his head out the window. He’s balder than a ten-year-old tire, and his eyes are red and stingy looking. He probably has some ripe weed, or he hasn’t slept in a few days. From the smell that drifts out of the cab of his clean as a whistle truck, I am sure that the smell is can-uh-bis, as them college boys call it. Yep, this guy might be a good bet for a home visit, to see what other kind of goodies he has. “You need a lift?” he asks. All too easy.
“I reckon I’d be much obliged,” I say. They love it when you use old-fashioned words like “obliged” or “reckon,” and it’s a homerun when you mash them together in one sentence I find. Makes them feel like they’re in some sort of freakin’ cowboy movie from the good old days, when everybody was nice to each other, not knowing that it’s a big ol’ lie. They usually don’t realize that people have always been horrible to each other, ever since the first caveman fucked up his neighbor’s pretty face with a dinosaur bone. I say, “Just a lift into town would make my day.”
“Hop in,” he says. This isn’t a typical hitchhiking palaver, not by any stretch. Normally, he’d hem and haw for a few minutes, debatin’ whether he should do it or not, wondering what his friends would say, what his wife would say, bugging out over myths about hitchhikers murdering their drivers. But not this fella. “You hungry?” he asks, as I open the door and slide into the passenger street.
“I’d be much obliged to join you for some supper,” I say. Two obliges already. I might seem uhhhhhhh… over-zell-us. I gotta pull back a bit. Yep, yep.
He nods, smirking. This guy’s one of those rare hitchhiking jackpots. He shifts his car into gear, smiling from ear to ear as he introduces himself as Teddy. I introduce myself as Edgar. My name isn’t Edgar, but I tell everybody that. “My mother named me Edgar, after the writer.”
“Poe?” asks Teddy.
I always throw them off with my response. “Nope. Burroughs.” This always gets a nod, even if they’re not sure who I’m talking about. I saw the name in a bookstore once. I don’t know what the fellow wrote, but I like his name: Edgar Rice Burroughs. A real nice name, wouldn’t ya say? If I could have picked my own name, I would have picked that one. So I guess I sort of ended up doing that, didn’t I?
“You like chicken stew? I’ve had it going in the crock pot all day,” says Teddy. Look at Martha Stewart over here. This is the first time I detect a bit of the whispy poofy-poo in this guy’s lurking smile, as if he’s sizing me up for a roll in the sack, and suddenly it all comes together.
He thinks I’m a prostitute.
It must be the boots. Maybe that’s one of those sneaky little calling cards, like tapping your foot on the floor in a bathroom stall or sticking your rod through a greased up glory hole.
Poor Teddy. He doesn’t smell it coming. I can’t wait to cut Teddy’s throat open with the first sharp thing I find in his kitchen. I can picture myself sitting at his kitchen table, drinking a light beer out of a can, watching him bleed out on to the linoleum while I eat his chicken stew with a big old spoon. I envision myself pouring salt and pepper all over the stew, because I love me some seasonings, and I don’t believe much in moderation. And I can hear a sound clicking inside my imagination; the sound of me tapping my boot heels on the floor, finding that rhythm that I’ve got screamin’ and howlin’ deep inside of me.
Chapter One
This is how it went down:
“So you’re from out of town?”
They always ask that question. There’s something romantic—not just that hop-bang-boom in the back of a Camaro kind of thing—about a shit-stain like me. Fun to look at, but they don’t like to keep it ‘round too long, scared it might make them get to thumbin’ just like this here fellow. They always ask that, and I always reply the same way.
“Yes, sir. Thing of it is… I’m a wandering man. I’ve been wandering ever since I was old enough to do so in the legal sense. Nothing like the open road. Know what I mean?” I said to Teddy. He smiled at me. I didn’t like the way he smiled. Like he was hiding something. Shit, ain’t we all hiding something?
“I went backpacking in Brazil once. It was so hot, I could have died right there on the road,” Teddy said, looking as if he wanted to make some additional statement on the matter, but instead, he changed the subject on me cause he seemed like a snaky cunt. “Where are you heading next?”
“Wherever the road takes me. I don’t walk the road. The road walks me.” They always love it when I say that. I’ve used that one at least a hundred times. Folksy sayings work ’em over real nice. It’s what them smarter fellas might call the icing on the cake.
“That’s refreshing, Edgar. Really refreshing. I envy you so much; you have no idea.”
“No need to envy. Doesn’t serve y’ any. Just get out there on the road like me. Don’t make excuses like most folks. Just say you’re gonna do it, and then ya’ do it,” I said to Teddy.
That was when Teddy really got inspired by me, his face lighting up like a fuckin’ slot machine that’s spilling coins on the floor, and I suddenly regretted the fuck out of my whole wise-and-humble act that I put on for folks. Sometimes, just once in a while, they get like this.