Willie and the Hitchhiker

It was two in the morning and Willie was tired. He was on the far side of Jerome, Georgia, fifteen miles from home, looking for a place to pull over and piss. He had been to the stock car races at the Banks County Speedway. He went there every Saturday night during the season and sat alone on the cool concrete bleachers, wearing his white Ford tee shirt, and eating his popcorn quickly before the red clay dust stirred up by the race cars could settle on it and make it gritty. Once the cars started up, Willie could close his eyes and tell what kind of car it was by the sound of the engine. Fords had a mellow, powerful roar, Chevies a strained and dangerous sound which made Willie uneasy, especially when that predatory growl was right behind the green Number 7 Ford of his favorite driver, Earl Junior Simpson. Willie could always pick Earl Junior's car out of the pack. For one thing, Earl Junior was almost always out in front. For another, he patted the accelerator twice during gear changes. Twice on the Willie and the Hitchhiker by Gene Langston 62 gas, thought Willie, then by God pedal down. Shit, that was sweet music. Willie sometimes patted his accelerator twice when he changed gears. In the dash pocket of his pickup, he kept a copy of Hot Rod and a pair of leather driving gloves. He'd only worn them once to the races, but when he noticed people looking at him as he fumbled to pay for his ticket with gloved hands, he pulled them off and hadn't worn them since. Willie was going to enroll in the Trade School when he was twenty. Auto Mechanics . By then he would have saved enough money at his job in the Chicken Plant to buy his own tools. He wanted to work on race cars. Maybe when he got through school he'd be good enough to work on Green Number 7. It couldn't hurt to ask. Willie had long since given up the idea of becoming a race car driver. He got nervous with people watching him drive. When he finally got his license, after failing the test several times, the License Examiner, who by now knew Willie, told him: "Willie, now you finally got your license , you drive careful. Don't be out there showing your ass, speeding and all." "No, sir," said Willie full of gratitude. "You don't have to worry about that. I'll be doing all my speeding on the stock car track." "Stock car track my ass," said the examiner . "Willie, you couldn't even drive a nail, much less a stock car." And then he laughed. But that was three years ago, and Willie was a lot older now. He changed gears for a pothole, unconsciously patting his accelerator. The radio faded in and out, barely audible above the roar of the engine. Turning the knob with his Skoal-stained forefinger , he tried unsuccessfully to catch the fast melon-sweet strains of "Cherokee Fiddle," but lost it to the late night static. "Shit," said Willie, without much feeling . He wondered dimly if the dirt on the pickup's floor was scuffing the heels of his butterfly-stitched cowboy boots. Outside, it was starting to rain; occasional lazy drops which promised little and hammered the dirt on his fenders into mud. Willie turned off the truck's radio and reached for a cigarette above the sun visor, but wind from the open windows blew it from his fingers. He scrabbled in the floor under the seat to recover it, only marginally in control of the vehicle, and almost hit the hitchhiker standing in the middle of the street with her left hand held out, thumb upside down. Willie braked, and turned around at the next side street. She ran up to his truck. "Where the hell are you going?" she asked. She was wearing thick glasses and a thick cotton sweater despite the summer heat. She was so close to the cab of the truck that her head was almost inside. Willie could smell beer and cigarette...