Gambling on Friendship
I asked myself, how do I get into these things? How did I find myself in the middle of a desert, with nothing but a gas station for over a hundred miles, in the searing heat toting a backpack that magically gained weight the further I went? “What was I thinking?” took on a frequent flyer status in my gauge of adventures when I was eighteen; it shouldn’t be rhetorical, but by the time I thought it, it was usually too late to rectify, so it became rhetorical by default.
When the bus dropped me at the crossroads (ninety-one miles to Elko, one hundred and twenty miles to Reno, ninety-eight miles to Ely), on Thursday, nobody mentioned that the next bus would not be until Wednesday—as in next Wednesday, as in six days away. The two mechanics told me in broken English. I kept saying, “Next bus?” They kept saying, “Bus on Wednesday.”
“No, no—I mean ‘next bus for Ely’.”
“Wednesday.”
My brain didn’t want to accept it, but the answer was always and ever, Wednesday. I started walking from the gas station on the road that teed away, that would ultimately lead to Ely. An infinite horizon punctuated primarily by tumbleweeds and ended with wavy lines. The clomp of my boots crunching the roadside gravel, the resistance of the backpack fabric pulling against the aluminum frame, and the occasional falcon shriek summarized all sound.
I watched for buzzards, wondering if Coyotes ever get in packs or if that’s only wolves. The dry dust created a film on my face and the sweat inducing heat created a runnel of dark streaks down my face—a decidedly avant garde look, but altering it was more trouble than it was worth. I mumbled curse words, cursing myself, cursing the Greyhound bus line and anything I could think of that deserved a good cursing.
Newspaper headlines sprinted across my mind’s eye declaring, “Backpacker’s remains found in desert.” Or, “Drug addict’s bones found gnawed clean in desert,” because in 1979 it was a felony to possess or smoke pot in Nevada. With all the wisdom of my eighteen years, I hadn’t thought to check the freaking bus schedules but remembered to pack a lid for Pascale and I to smoke when I surprised her with my visit. The surprise may end up being a death notification. There were over ninety miles to go, and I’d already adopted the skin color of a lobster, not to mention an angry empty stomach and parched mouth. I finally succumbed to the idea that I must take the plunge and hitchhike.
The necessity for successful hitchhiking, outside of opposable thumbs, is that an actual vehicle must come along now and then. Even after walking quite a way, the vast open land with its teasing mirages, only grew maybe three scraggly trees, a lot of dried scrub bushes salted in, and was otherwise a blank page. After an hour of half-hearted shuffling toward my destination, still not one stinking car. By the time a nice-looking cream sedan came along another twenty-five minutes later, I didn’t care if Charlie Manson was behind the wheel.
“Going to Ely?” the guy yelled through the passenger window.
‘There’s only one town in this direction for hundreds of miles, so…’ I resisted the eye-roll and said, “Yes!”
He moved some papers and decks of cards and motioned for me to get in. The guy passed for late forties with thinning hair prematurely whitish. Standard look, nothing sinister, nothing reassuring. He turned the radio down playing country western music and I heard my mother’s voice extolling the perils of country music: ‘the single greatest threat to decorum and civility that is legal.’ I smiled to myself and hoped he didn’t think the smile was for him.
“I’m Imogene. I’m on my way to see my best friend in Ely. Thanks for the ride.” I held out my hand for him to shake, but he gave me a glance to suggest ladies don’t do that. I saw it in his slight body withdrawal and skeptical face.
“My name’s…Roy,” he said.
“Well thanks for the ride…Roy,” I tossed out with a tiny edge of sarcasm—to let him know it didn’t escape me that his imagination was so poor, he couldn’t pass off making up a name. At least I made up names on the spot.
The phony name bit didn’t inspire confidence but the fact that we moved faster than a tortoise who just finished a big meal, buffered any trepidation that suspicion might (legitimately) warrant. I’d been on a bus or walking for close to thirty-six hours and my head swam with fatigue. “Mind if I catch a few winks? I’ve been traveling for two days now without sleep.”
“Sure—you go ahead.” He offered.
About forty seconds passed before Roy announced, “I play poker. Ya’ gotta have a system. I’ve studied cards and there is in fact, a system. I’ve made a living off it. That’s why I’m on the road.”
Roy gave me the ride, so I wanted to be grateful, but an equal part of me wanted him to shut up. He continued on about poker while my head bobbed like a bobble dog, until finally hitting the window pane and the bounce woke me into temporary alertness.
“Oh, you should go ahead and sleep—you must be tired.” He said it as thought it was his idea or the first time it’d come up.
But after a while, “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds” on the radio lulled me, and I began to nod off. My mind swirled with visions of seeing my best friend and my chest swelled with anticipation. That feeling stopped abruptly like dragging the needle off a record when I felt Roy’s hand on my leg, sliding up and down.
“Hey!” I snapped and pushed his hand off my leg.
He thrust it back forcefully, saying, “You’re a girl out hitchhiking—you can’t tell me this isn’t what you wanted.” His hand moved up from my knee to my groin.
I panicked and couldn’t loosen his grip, my hands slippery with perspiration. In a moment of sheer, unadulterated self-preservation, I grabbed and pulled the door handle, trying to force open the door against the wind. Roy looked like someone tased him (one can dream) and yanked back his hand, smashing on the brakes. As we skidded and slowed, I pushed my shoulder hard into the door and leapt from the car finding myself unfortunately morphing into the country western song, “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds,” only without the grace. I rolled across the sand like a water-skier hitting water at high speeds. A cloud of dust swirled around me and the car stopped just ahead on the road. Sitting in the settling dust that fell around me, I felt more like a giant rug burn than a phoenix.
Roy got out, yelling, “Have you lost your mind, girl? You coulda been killed!”
“Better than being raped!” I snarled back in a shout. “I will get to Ely and I’ll bet they have police there who’d be interested in your idea of good Samaritan.” I said with conviction, but thought, ‘Now he’s gonna kill me and leave my body out here for coyotes and buzzards.’ What was I thinking?
Roy approached me like one might a wild badger saying, “You’re all scraped up. And ‘rape!’ I’d never rape a woman. I’m sorry—I really thought that’s what girls wanted.”
I looked at him incredulously. I was speechless. Is this the part where I was somehow supposed to reassure him? It wasn’t in me.
“Please get back in the car—I promise not to touch you; but I would appreciate if you wouldn’t go to the police.”
We sized each other up steely eyed for a second and I quickly assessed my options. It neared 5 p.m. and no other cars had passed in either direction. Buzzards really were circling.
So, I did it. I got back in the car. I sat there vigilant and smoking mad for the remainder of the ride, my forearms and a section of shoulder blade burning from the brunt of my sand impact. It didn’t occur to me to be scared, which might have been the more sound emotion; then again, mad was working well. Roy kept his hands off. I turned up the car radio to drown out any possibility of conversation.
We pulled into Ely over an hour later. Grabbing my pack, I skipped any ‘thank you’s’ and turned toward the ranger station where Pascale worked. Roy called pleadingly, “You’re not going to make any calls are you?”
I didn’t answer and kept walking. I figured if I had to sleep bruised and scraped tonight, “Roy” shouldn’t get to sleep at all. A little geyser of pleasure bubbled in me thinking of him breaking into a cool sweat with every siren blare.
The guy at the ranger station told me Pascale was due back any second and was hiking out “That way,” pointing. I parked myself on a knoll at the base of a tree in the shade and dropped my pack. I realized the warmth of the day was receding and the grass felt cool beneath me.
I saw her long before she spotted me, cresting over a hill. I pushed off the tree to stand and she stopped dead in her tracks letting out an elated scream. I ran toward her sharing a long-awaited hug. Suddenly I realized how rangy I must smell, how filthy I must appear, and that part of my shirt is torn where I hit the sand.
She gave me a once over and looked concerned.
“How did you get here?” She asked, “There’s no buses in until…”
“I know—until Wednesday,” I finish for her. “I got a ride from a country-music loving gambler who thankfully knew when to fold.”
“You hitched? What were you thinking?” she asked laughing.
“I ask myself the same thing at times, darlin’!” I said slinging my arm around her shoulder. We turned to walk toward the ranger station. Feeling her presence, our history, her comfort leaning against me, I thought, ‘This! This is what I was thinking.’
-Ciel Downing
Ciel Downing's work can be found in multiple journals, most recently, The Wrath Bearing Tree & North Coast Squid, as well her book, To Walk the North Direction. She's won the Academy of American Poets Prize and lives and writes on the Oregon coast with her wonder dog Journey.