The Hitchhiking Type

CHARLESTON, S.C.—I didn’t approach hitchhiking with an eye-glistening wanderlust or a throat-swelling love of life. I stuck my thumb out impudently, like a child forced to apologize, then made my boyfriend do the same. We had bought tickets to a concert without realizing the show was a 40-minute drive north of the city. We don’t have a car, and we need a ride. Otherwise, the $30 tickets go to waste. The only impulse more natural to me than looking out for myself is looking out for my money. Apparently, 30 bucks is worth more than my life.

I’m wearing a skirt, and Simon’s in khakis. But standing in front, with a pointy nose and prudish mouth, I still scare the cars away. We don’t look like guitar toting, hippie hitchhikers. Fortunately, Simon has puppy-dog eyes and baby teeth set on a big head that I can hide behind. He sticks out his thumb and smiles innocently. At 22, he looks barely 16.

A couple of cars pass. The drivers and passengers stare as if we were roadside freaks. And I guess, as a couple of hitchhikers these days, we are. Driving the third car, a lone 30-year-old laughs and apologetically shrugs, mouthing, “I’m sorry, I can’t.” Can’t of course because she’s a sensible person. We understand completely, feel guilty for putting her on the spot, and nod in thanks for her laughter.

“Don’t hitchhike!” a doughy-faced, middle-aged woman scolds from the passenger seat of a mini van. This is the fifth car. Things are looking up.

“I know,” Simon says apologetically, letting his arms and legs fall into a full body shrug. “We feel so bad, we’re so sorry.”

“Where are you going?” the passenger asks, overtaken with curiosity.

“College of Charleston?” Simon answers as meekly as possible.

The light is about to change and the car inches forward towards the onramp. “Get in,” the driver says, her voice cracking.

A plastic blowfish bath toy swings from the rearview mirror. The car smells like saccharin, like a new synthetic interior mixed with a kid come straight off the playground. The doughy-faced, front-seat passenger introduces us first to her 10-year-old daughter, sitting next to Simon, and then to the visibly nervous driver in front of me.

While Simon tries to make the hosts feel more comfortable by talking movies, I silently catalogue the various offenses I might suspect of a hitchhiker. Armed theft, vandalism, and child-molestation come quickly to mind. I look over at the 10-year-old girl and even though Simon’s arm is just resting on his own thigh, I move it onto my lap.

“‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is too gory for me,” the doughy-faced woman proclaims with a chuckle. “That’s just not my type of scary movie.”

“Me neither!” Simon says, even though it’s one of his favorites. “I’m too afraid to watch it!”

“Oh God, last night, she put on ‘Jeepers Creepers,’” the mother says, pointing back at her daughter. “And I just couldn’t stop watching. So creepy!”

“‘Jeepers Creepers’ is great!” Simon says, scooting forward. “Have you seen the sequel?”

“I didn’t even know there was one. Same actors?”

“No, just the same monster.” Simon starts to smile. “Starts out, a couple is driving in the dark on an empty highway…Then they stop to pick up a couple of hitchhikers and everything gets crazy!”

Then, there’s a long pause.

“Hitchhikers!” the two front-seat friends realize at once and laugh. Then the doughy-faced one twists around to face us. Pointing, she says: “Like you!”

“Sorry, just joking,” Simon says with an apologetic smile.

“Oh,” the woman says, her grin becoming awkward. “We don’t usually do this, we don’t just pick up hitchhikers,” she chuckles quickly. “I just couldn’t bear the thought that some creep might get you. You look so young.”

She reaches into the back and begins to readjust her daughter’s blanket. “I mean, it’s not like we’re the type who pick up hitchhikers.”

Except they are exactly the type who pick up hitchhikers—in my experience, the only type. The people who stop for hitchhikers aren’t psychos or child-molesters, burglars, or schizophrenics. They’re the middle-class, middle-aged women who envision it as such. They’re the churchgoers and soccer moms, the good women who volunteer at school fundraisers.

As long as the young hitchhikers aren’t what they’d expect, aren’t punks with dreads or convicts on the run, these women will stop. They have to. Otherwise they’ll be wracked with guilt for not extending protection from the pedophiles. They end up stopping for every jerk kid who asks, even a couple of college idiots in a skirt and khakis.

When we get out of the car, the doughy-faced woman wags her finger at us again with a smile, “Don’t hitchhike. It’s dangerous! Never again!” she says.

“Never again,” we nod. As the minivan pulls away, the passenger is still wagging her finger out the window.

“So easy,” I say with shock.

“So easy!” Simon exclaims. “We’re hitchhiking to the beach next weekend.”

“Definitely,” I say. Definitely? A wave of nervousness rises and then passes. Yes, definitely. We shouldn’t have too much trouble. I mean, it’s not like we’re the hitchhiking type.



Francesca M. Mari ’07, a Crimson photo editor, is an English and American literature and languages concentrator in Adams House. As you read this, she is hitchhiking.