Page 9 of Goode Vibrations

“Just be safe. That’s all I ask.”

“I will.”

I ended the call and slid the phone into my purse, and then looked at Delia. “Satisfied?”

She shook her head. “Well, I wouldn’t have letmydaughter go hitchhiking across the country at eighteen, but then I’m old-fashioned.”

“If you think about it historically, though, this is the way of life, Delia. You strike out on your own. Find your own way. It’s all I’m doing.”

“Men did that, dear—we women stayed home and raised babies.”

I snorted. “True. But there were women who did go out on their own. And anyway, it’s what I’m doing. I really do appreciate your concern. I know you mean well.”

We drove a while longer, and then we reached a junction where two highways met. Delia pulled to the shoulder and put the Buick into park. She pointed one way. “That way takes you to US-40, which will take you to Ohio.” She pointed the other way. “That way takes you to US-119, south toward Kentucky by way of West Virginia.”

I looked around—four-lane highways, a Sunoco, a maze of entrance and exit ramps; endless possibilities. “This is perfect, Delia. Thank you for setting such a wonderful tone for my trip.”

“I think what you’re doing is foolish, and you ought to go home straight away. But I’m also a bit jealous, if I’m honest. I was never brave enough to do what you’re doing.”

I leaned across and hugged her. “Thank you again for everything. Be well.”

She patted my cheek. Reached into the pocket of her cardigan and held something in her hand—she took my hand in hers and pressed something into my palm. “Take it and no arguments, if just to soothe my conscience that I’ve done everything I can to help you be safe.”

It felt like cash rolled up, and I knew I couldn’t refuse it. So I pocketed it and shook my head. “It’s not necessary, Delia. But thank you.”

She just patted my hand. “Be safe. Be smart.”

“I will.” I got out, shouldered my backpack and arranged everything properly. Waved. “Bye, Delia.”

“Goodbye, dear. Safe travels and Godspeed.”

She pulled a U-turn and headed back the way she came, and then after a moment was out of sight and I was alone. Ohio, or Kentucky? North or south?

Either direction was the wrong way for my eventual destination, but for some reason my gut said south, so south I went.

I followed US-119 on foot, on the shoulder, for a long time. Hours. Miles. A truck stopped for me, about three hours into the day, then later on a cube van marked with the logo of a local plumbing service pulled over. The gentleman within was middle-aged, rounding, balding, sweating, smelling of chemicals and tobacco. The interior of his cab was cluttered with Mt. Dew bottles, empty cigarette boxes, and McDonald’s bags, but his brown eyes were kind and he offered to take me three exits down, a good forty-five minutes drive for him and hours of walking for me. He told me about his daughter, my age, a journalism major at Penn State, who had a serious boyfriend he didn’t like, and about how she was a cheerleader and he went to all the football games just to watch her cheer even though he was more of a basketball fan…I had a feeling he was talking about his daughter more to put me at ease than anything, which was sweet. He eventually got around to introducing himself as José, and I told him my story, leaving college to explore as I headed for Alaska on foot.

I got the usual disbelief and warnings and such, but then José started telling me about when he was sixteen and living in Mexico and his parents decided to emigrate here to the States. They got separated at the border and he ended up going through immigration alone, and how hard he worked for his citizenship and how he built his plumbing company on his own from nothing…

We reached the exit, and he stopped at the stop sign at the top of the exit and I got out, said goodbye, and headed back onto the highway.

So it went. Hours on foot, a ride for a few miles or a few hours, conversation with interesting people. A long-haul trucker named Jerri—with an I—took me from West Virginia halfway through Kentucky, and good grief Jerri was interesting. Jerri didn’t identify as either gender, and wore…his? Her? Their?—Their, I suppose, hair in a long, thick, wavy, mass of glossy blond that wouldn’t have been out of place in a shampoo commercial, but also a heavy stubble beard, lipstick and eyeliner, masculine tattoos on burly arms, a girly pink tank top with a jean skirt…it was confusing, but Jerri was sweet and soft-spoken and bought me lunch at Sonic and talked my ear off about everything from howRogue Onewas the bestStar Warsmovie, to the effects of political policy on living as a nonbinary transgender person.

Along the way, between rides, I walked. I ended up discovering that I was much happier sticking to local county highways than interstates and major highways. It was safer, for one thing. Fewer semis barreling past at seventy-five, less risk of some distracted asshole veering out of their lane and turning me into toothpaste. Perhaps, being more remote and less traveled, the smaller county highways carried a bit more risk of being picked up by skeezeballs and creepers, but hey, there was a trade-off to everything, right?

And the other benefit to sticking to small, deserted, rural roads was that there was a hell of a lot more interesting stuff to photograph. I got cool shots of all sorts of things. Roadkill twisted into pained contortions, old abandoned cars on the side of the road off in the tall grass with stickers and wheels missing and weeds growing out of the wheel wells, toppling old barns that had probably been standing since the Civil War, giant six-foot-tall sunflowers growing by the acre, all angled to face the lowering orange sunset; I photographed ancient oak trees standing tall in hayfields like lone sentinels, tiny farmhouses next to industrial-sized barns and silos, and train tracks like endless fingers vanishing into distant points, and trestles over rivers smeared with impossible graffiti, and overpasses like abbreviated tunnels casting patches of shade on the sunbaked asphalt.

I shot at dawn and dusk, noon and midnight, mostly in black and white. Compulsively, obsessively. I shot the cars that picked me up, the semis as they waited for me to climb up, I shot the drivers (with hand-scribbled releases in case I ended up turning the photo into a sellable piece) as they smiled at me awkwardly or naturally, with even white teeth and meth-fucked gaps.

I reached Louisville at four in the morning in the cab of a long-haul dairy trucker named Jeb, who let me off at a motel he knew was safe and cheap and near a nice little local trunk line that would put me through to Missouri, eventually. The next morning, or, rather, late afternoon, I mailed several dozen rolls of film to Mrs. DuPuis and purchased more from a local supermarket.

I then set out on foot, feet aching and legs tired, but finding a bizarre joy in the journey. The long hours on foot shooting everything I saw was sparking my creativity; there were a number of shots I’d taken that I just knew would end up on canvas. I was more inspired than ever to paint, which was tricky since I’d sent my painting supplies to Ketchikan. I had my iPad and stylus, so I could sketch and do digital stuff, but it wasn’t the same as putting on my dad’s old white button-down and standing in front of a freshly stretched canvas.

I wasn’t even lonely.

Mostly.

I had lots of fascinating conversations with lots of fascinating people. The only real skeezeball I’d encountered was Donny, that first day. Everyone else who had stopped for me and given me rides had been kind, generous, honest, and good. Jeb, the trucker who had taken me to Louisville, had been one of the most foul-mouthed, vulgar, strange, and offensive people I’d ever met in my life, but it wasn’t directed at me, it was just…him. Every sentence featured at least two F-bombs, minimum, and everything he saw and thought was verbalized through a filter of vulgar jokes. It was honestly fascinating, once I realized he wasn’t being intentionally offensive, he was just a lonely old man who lived his life in the cab of a semi talking to himself and occasionally to the other truckers via CB radio.