On the Road - A Modern American Hitchhike
"You want to do WHAT?!?"
This was the standard reaction I got when I told my friends in New Orleans that I was going to hitchhike 900 odd miles to Miami. Most of them thought that I was in the throes of some kind of nervous breakdown and advised that I simply should not do it.
"You do realise that people are going to expect you to give them a blowjob for a lift, right?... It's sort of the rules of hitching here." Was one particularly heartening response.
"Serial killers tend to migrate south for the winter so you'd better watch yourself." Was another, equally inspiring comment.
The purpose of this journey was to meet my great friend Sunny and his fiancé Natalie on an island south of Miami for a three day 'regional Burning Man' festival called Love Burn. It sounded more like an STI but they had promised large helpings of good music, delicious food, art, good company and, above all, fun. How could one possibly resist.
During a bit of research on the festival, I found out that one of the principles of Burning Man was 'Radical Self Reliance.' It seemed to me to be a bit of a no brainer that I should try and make my way there under my own steam. On a more personal level though, I just wanted to see if it was still possible to hitchhike in America. Before the early 80s this country was a hitchhiker's Meccah. Nowadays it's supposed to be an altogether different story.
In this climate of excessive fear and hate, I hoped this would prove whether the spirit of generosity and neighbourly love still existed in America today. I was traveling to a festival that celebrated love in all its forms so this seemed rather apt. And, after all, I was in the South. Fewer regions are as famed for their hospitality so it shouldn't be that tricky to get around surely.
The final reason for going was simply that almost everyone had told me that it was impossible. And this blog is all about trying to remove the stigma around an activity or a country. In truth, I confess to being a tad nervous. This could well be a decision veering on the wrong side of stupid.
I began my journey by taking an Uber at 6am to a Shell station on the outskirts of east New Orleans. It felt like this was cheating a little bit but asking my housemates for a lift at such an unsavoury hour is pretty off colour. Especially in a city which isn't exactly known for its 'early to rise' culture.
I'd done some hitchhiking in Iran and Iceland and found that petrol stations are the most fertile ground for prospecting. The main advantage being that you can visually screen people before you approach them.
Unsurprisingly, I try to avoid lone men and unsavoury looking groups. Although that goes out of the window when one starts getting desperate. Women, old and millennial couples tend to be safest. This doesn't quite guarantee that you avoid a lift with Rose and Fred West but it's safer than waiting by an Interstate ramp.
It was a spectacularly beautiful morning for a day on the road. The sun was an enormous shimmering orange orb, veiled by a thick cobalt blue mist. In the distance were the shrouded skeletons of the Mississippi River's heavy industry. The horizon was an explosion of pastels, with oranges, yellows and reds that were so thick and vibrant that it made my heart ache pleasure as we approached my first hitching spot.
After fourty minutes at the Shell station, my ebullience began to drift towards panic. It had became apparent that this was not a station frequented by people planning on getting on the interstate. This was one of the least safe areas in the city and everyone I propositioned was going somewhere nearby or simply didn't want to have anything to do with me.
I thought I was in luck when a pickup truck full of Mexicans I'd already spoken to beckoned me over. But as I approached I realised that they were offering me money. It was a touching gesture and the first unexpectedly positive moment of the trip but I politely declined. Perhaps I needed to change my look a little.
After nearly an hour I was told by a passer by that I would have more luck at the Walmart down at the next junction. Another quick Uber and I was in the parking lot of a Walmart working on my pitch. But it wasn't going down well. Some people responded with a flat 'NO!' before I'd gotten a word in edgeways. I would try and follow up with another word in but would be shot down swiftly with another 'NO!' and sometimes an outstretched palm of a hand if I was really lucky.
At this point I was really beginning to lose heart. It had been almost two hours and I was about as close to shagging Jennifer Lawrence as I was to getting a ride out of town. Perhaps the doubters were right. Perhaps this was indeed an impossible challenge.
I walked over to another Shell garage feeling defeated and deflated and began looking at the greyhound bus schedule. Flights to Miami were now so expensive that I may as well have flown to London. The only bus I could find cost $120, required two changes and would take 24 hours to get to Miami. Fuck, I thought, I've really cocked this one up.
At that moment, the owner of the Shell station came out and shouted "Hey! YOU! No hitching at this gas station man. GO!"
I decided to stand my ground.
"I have money. I'm not a vagrant sir. I'm just an amateur journalist writing an article about whether people are kind enough to let them get a ride from a stranger in America."
He shook his head disapprovingly and disappeared into the store. I was quite sure he was calling the police.
Just when I was about to give up all hope, a man approached me and asked what I was up to. He was called Saleh and was heavy set, in his early 30s with bright hazel eyes and eyelashes thick as a camel's. He sported a thick, black beard and was an unmistakably Middle Eastern in origin.
"Where are you from?" I enquired.
"Palestine. But we moved to Aarkensaas eight years ago. I ran a tyre shop there."
I told him that I'd been in Palestine last year to run a marathon in Bethlehem. Thankfully I had a few pictures of me there to assure him that I wasn't a complete fantasist. He seemed a little taken aback and said he would gladly give me a lift. I asked him where he was heading and it turned out that he was actually working as a landscaper on the grass at the petrol station.
"But you're working? You really don't have to give me a lift."
"Please. It would be a pleasure my friend!"
I asked him if he could go as far as Slidell, 25 minutes out of town and he said that was fine. Once we were on our way, Saleh and I struck up a conversation.
"Do you get any trouble for being a practicing Muslim in the Deep South?"
"I've been called a terrorist a few times by complete strangers in Aarkensaas. But when they got to know me they became some of my best customers." He said, with an infectious smile.
"Are you married?"
"Not yet. I'm going back to Jerusalem this year to find a wife. In the meantime, I've got four girlfriends here.... It's really less fun than it sounds. Just a big stress man." Throwing his hands in the air.
"Sounds like a nightmare to me Saleh."
The effect that this encounter had on my spirits was immeasurable. We shared a good number of laughs on our short trip and I promised him a few beers when I was back. I began prospecting again with renewed vigour and something of a spring in my step. This next gas station was larger and more likely to be catering to people who were heading onto the interstate, so I was much more confident of a lift.
Fortune soon came in the form of Matt. He had a round, boyish face with a thin ginger beard, wore a trucker cap and drove a red pickup truck the size of an oil tanker. He was the same age as Saleh but just about the opposite in every other respect. Born and raised in Pensacola, Mississippi, he was a tugboat captain on the Mississippi River and was on his way home to his family after a tough job on the water.
Sadly he wasn't quite as trusting as Saleh and had been infected with the pervading atmosphere of fear that has crept its way into the consciousness of so many Americans.
"I don't maand to give y'all a lift but I need to see what's in your pockets and your bag. I'm sorry to do this but I just can't take no chances."
I duly obliged and once satisfied, we were on our way (on the condition that my bag was left in the back of his truck of course). We soon got talking and it turned out that he wasn't quite your standard, hard nosed Mississippi hick. His wife was from the Philippines which wasn't exactly typical of someone from the Deep South. He had met her while visiting a friend who was living near Manilla.
"How did you propose to her?"
"Unfortunately it ain't just as straightforward as getting down on one knee. See, they pretty old school in The Philippines. You still got ta court a lady there. I hayd to bring gifts to her parents, grandparents and great grandparents before I could even take her out to the movies...All in all I needed to make three trips there to even get close to taking her out properly."
If that's not love then I really don't know what is. He had voted for Trump of course but didn't really like him much personally. He said it was simply because everyone he knows is struggling to find work or was on section 8 (American unemployment benefits). Trump was the only candidate that recognised that this was such a burning issue for so many Americans and capitalised on it. I couldn't blame him at all for his decision.
"There's just no work back home. I have to commute seven hours to get to a job. Life for us folks used to be a good deal easier when I was young."
He also wasn't very religious but occasionally went with his wife to predominantly Asian, Catholic services. He said it was the church that he felt the most comfortable in.
"Did your family accept your marriage to a woman from the Philippines?"
"Oh sure. They think Sophia's great. Never had no trouble from nobody"
I was happy to hear this and genuinely surprised at the level of openness and warmth his family had for his partner.
"Do you own any guns?"
"You mean to say, which guyns don't I own?" He said, shooting me an impish smile.
"Got a tonne of em...Gave my wife Sophia a 9mm Luger for Christmas. She can fire a bull's-eye in the middle of a coke can from 30 yards away. God I love that woman." He said, beaming now and gently let out a sigh.
We got along just fine and said a pleasant goodbye near Pensacola. He kindly went out of his way to take me to a big petrol station with a truck stop. I shuddered when he mentioned the words 'truck stop,' dreading all of the reciprocal blowjobs I'd been warned about.
With a slightly hesitant gait, I anbled along the front of the ranks of parked trucks and quiety sized up which pot bellied teamster was least likely to request oral sexual favours as thanks for his passenger seat. Soon it was apparent that I was barking up the wrong tree.
"I'd love ta take ya son but my truck insurance don't cover passengers." Said one enormous mulleted teamster with what was either a large blood and/or ketchup stain on his string vest.
It turns out that this was an issue for every trucker I propositioned. Those poor bastards, I thought. All those potential blowjobs scuppered by red tape and petty bureaucracy. I can see why they all voted for Trump now.
A little crestfallen, I made my way back to the petrol station in search for a lift from a car.
After fourty minutes I met a man called Rodney who was looking about as forlorn as I was when I bumped into him by a gas pump. He bore a rather striking semblance to an older Johnny Knoxville. Except if Johnny Knoxville had become addicted to crystal meth for some time and lost a good portion of his hair. His skin was grey and sallow and his eyes were a disconcertingly chaotic mixture of amber and green. More worryingly, his truck was so decrepit that even Charles Manson would have probably refused a lift in it. He was, in short, precisely what I intended to avoid when doing this sort of thing.
"Don't suppose you're heading to Florida?" I enquired gingerly, really hoping that he wasn't.
"Sure am. Heading to work at the state fair in Tampa. I run a few game stands there. Only problem is that I've got no money to get there. Just ran out."
I weighed up my options for a moment and decided to throw caution to the wind.
"Well, I'm happy to cover fourty bucks of fuel if I can get a ride."
"You've got yourself a deal man."
With little time to pause for breath, I was rolling towards Florida with my new friend Rodney. I was curious about his profession, having never met a fairground worker before. It turns out the games he worked in were the sort where you attempt to throw hoops over giant teddy bears, shoot balloons with an air rifle and fish for ducks with a magnetic rod. It all sounded very familiar and pleasant.
As he was describing them to me I realised that fairground work was precisely the sort of migratory lifestyle that would appeal to a serial killer. I was reminded of the comments from one of my friends about the migration of serial killers in America. I know from a previous article I'd written on the subject that there are up to 50,000 'active' serial killers in America at any one time. Just wandering around, searching for their next hapless hitchhiker. If they're all in the Deep South then that's a pretty astounding concentration of potentially active murderers in one area.
I asked Rodney if we could listen to some music and he predictably put on a country radio station. The first song on had a chorus that ended with the line 'but I guess I'm just crazy' which Rodney dutifully sang to. I plastered on a smile and nervously joined in.
With all the subtlety of a freight train, I steered the conversation towards my loved ones and a family back home. If he was indeed planning on bathing me in acid then I hoped to hedge my bets and appeal to his better nature. After about half an hour of talking with Rodney, I was reasonably convinced that I wasn't going to end up in nearly separated chunks, adourning his freezer.
Soon we were getting along like gangbusters and I was learning a lot about fairground or 'Carnie' (short for Carnival) life in America. It turns out that Carnie life is a means of existence deserving of its own reality TV show. Drug abuse, for one, is pretty rampant. Especially at smaller fairs. One former colleague of his somehow managed to have a $1000 a day crack habit whilst also being responsible for the management of the fair's most high risk roller coaster. Quite a feat.
As Rodney was speaking I noticed that his inside arm bore a mottled grey scar that was very likely to have been caused by chronic heroin abuse. I was a little concerned but, in spite of his rather frazzled appearance, he seemed to be fairly with it and I really had little choice a this point.
In any case Rodney turned out to be one of the most interesting people I'd met in America so far. He had some very insightful ideas on how to combat drug abuse and homelessness and we agreed on a large number of points during our many chats.
After exhausting most channels of conversation I helped him chose a Royal Caribbean cruise holiday with his girlfriend from a disconcertingly soggy catalogue. Surely even the most mean spirited serial killer wouldn't chop someone up who helped them plan their cruise holiday, I thought.
This activity took up a whole hour of our drive and by the end we had settled on our boat, departure date and even the appropriate food and beverage package. I refrained from telling him that, in my mind at least, a cruise holiday was almost certainly what inspired Dante's vision of the Seventh Circle of Hell.
Despite the slow start, I had made excellent time on the journey thanks to Rodney. I checked in with Sunny and It turned out that Sunny and Natalie were a few hours ahead of me in Florida and very kindly offered to stop and pick me up in Ocala, 'The Horse Capital of America,' according to Wikipedia.
I met them at a truck stop and said a warm goodbye to Rodney. In spite of being stuck in his car for the better part of seven hours together, we were not quite at eachother's throats yet and he promised me a drink or two when he was next in New Orleans as a thanks for helping him get to the fair in Tampa.
So there you have it. 900 odd miles, four rides and a total of 18 hours on the road. I did cheat a tiny bit at the beginning and the end but this did at least prove that it is still possible to hitchhike in America.
There are a few caveats of course. It's not something that you should do if you're in a rush, shy or a solo female. Women are particularly vulnerable and I wouldn't advise ever doing it without company. American society sadly isn't what it used to be anymore.
Unfortunately the new government isn't helping a great deal. However my time with Matt, Saleh and Rodney was an important reminder that this country is so diverse that it really defies stereotypes at the individual level. True, Matt did think that London and England were the same country. But when you wrap your head around how absurdly big this place is then you begin to see why many of them don't care to educate themselves about the wider world.
America has more than enough diversity to be a world to many living here. And that's OK. Because it's a pretty fabulous one when you look past its more glaring faults. I'm certainly still proud of calling myself a citizen and a resident of this place. There's endless amounts of wonderful things to discover in this country and I'm looking forward to unearthing as much of it as possible during my time here.