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On the freeway outside Willcox, Arizona, I spied a hitchhiker. Caught up in the euphoria of the caravan, I made a snap decision and picked him up. It was a decision I would quickly come to regret. From my journal: 'Now we've got Israel in the car, some hispanic kid with bleached-blonde hair. Says he's hitchin' to Galveston and after a while of being in his not-so-hot vibes, my heart sinks as I realize Galveston's past Houston and the kid wants to go all the way with us. A stop at The Thing for trinket shopping. The kid doesn't feel right. I ask Mike to hang by the car to watch the CD boom box, move the car closer in to where several caravan members are loitering outside the store. Back on the road, the kid is creep city. I sense danger in his weasel voice and semi-psychotic banter and realize that by bringing him along I have endangered not only Mike and I but the whole caravan. The idea of having him camp with us is too much as I envision highway robbery, murder, whatever. I go to work figuring out how to lose him without pissing him off, for indeed if he is psychotic we're in trouble.' |
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That day after sunset the caravan docks at a giant truckstop on the east end of El Paso to refuel and eat. I somehow convince Israel that this is as far as I can take him, somehow, that is, without him knifeing me. He's clever though, and halfway through dinner I find out that he's gotten in with someone else in the caravan! Zebra Truck Jeff probably thought the guy was with us, as little as we all know each other. I quickly correct the mistake, and everyone in the caravan is relieved as Jeff retracts his offer and Israel gets left behind. On the road late that night, I felt a twinge of guilt thinking how paranoid I'd acted. 'Hell,' I thought, 'maybe I had the kid all wrong.' |
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Ten days later, I'll be home in California reading an article on twentysomethings wanted by the FBI and leap out of my skin at a photo of Enrique Moreno Casas, 27, cop killer, swearing the kid I'm lookin' at is Israel, my ill-vibed hitcher. |
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