The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America Read Free

and when it runs out of gas, they take another car and kill again.” He pulls the lighter from the dash and holds it to the end of a cigarette. “It’s a sad world. I’m kinda glad my time is almost up. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”
    His name’s Art, and he’s on his way home to Santa Rosa, an hour up the road. He had his eyes checked this morning in San Francisco and had to pull over because his pupils were dilated. He blinks and squints, trying to keep his land yacht between the white lines. We pass my old office. No regrets—yet.
    Art was career Navy, then dumped his last dollar into a seafood restaurant. He went bust after opening another. His wife took off when her mother died and left her some money. That was six years ago. Art’s not sure where she is. He’s lost track of the kids, too. These days, he shares an apartment with a waiter and tends bar when he can. He hasn’t worked in eight months.
    “They won’t hire anyone over fifty,” he says.
    He dials in a classic rock station. Led Zeppelin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be” blares through cracked speakers. The cloth lining from the ceiling falls on my head.
    “Do you think I’m crazy, Art?” I say, after telling him my story.
    “Hell, no!” he yells, like he’s angry. “I envy you!”
    Art drops me at a gas station at his exit.
    “Hell,” he says, “maybe you’ll find Utopia out there and won’t want to come back.”

    I consult the AAA road atlas I packed. Ukiah is another 60 miles north. A book I read named it one of the 100 best towns in America. I wonder if “best” relates to “kind” as I write, “Ukiah,” on a sheet of paper with my Magic Marker and tape it to my piece of cardboard.
    A driver stops on the on-ramp. “I’m only going to Healdsburg,” he says through the passenger window, “but that’ll get you fifteen miles closer to Ukiah.”
    I cram my pack into the backseat of his tiny import. The guy says he’s going to see a friend in Healdsburg. He’s a large man, with a rough complexion and an unnatural orange tint to his hair. I try to make eye contact, but he doesn’t look at me. He shifts into fifth, and I tense as his hand brushes my leg.
    “You really should see the Russian River,” he says. “I ought to show you my favorite place.”
    I tell him I was at the Russian River a couple months ago. With my girlfriend. He drops the subject.
    The man drives by the first of two exits for Healdsburg.
    “Where are you turning off?” I say.
    “Oh, I guess I should drop you downtown. I’ll take you back. I’ve got time.”
    He takes the second exit. My gut tells me to get out here, but I know the odds of catching a ride are better at the on-ramp in town. We cross the overpass and head south.
    We coast down the off-ramp at the central exit. Healdsburg is left under the freeway. The man rolls through the stop sign and continues straight.
    Before I can protest, he says, “I’ll show you the river in case you get stuck here and want a place to camp.”
    He rounds a blind curve. A yellow sign warns, “Not a Through Road.” There’s a gravel pit on the left, fields to the right. I feel all sense of control seep out of me. For the first time in my life, I think I know what it’s like to be a woman. The man drives on.
    The road dead-ends at the river. The man turns the car around and cuts the engine. A van is parked to my right, next to an embankment. I can’t see inside the tinted windows. I watch the man out of the corner of my eye and wait for his buddy to emerge from the van with a knife, or worse.
    “This is a good place to get your dick sucked,” the man says.
    The remark ricochets off the windshield and hangs in the air like verbal graffiti.
    Blood pounds against my eardrums. The day outside looks like a movie. If I can only stand in the sun, the rest of this might vanish.
    My fingers grip the door handle, but I can’t bring myself to open it. I can’t even breathe.
    Finally,