Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America

by John Waters

  I check my BlackBerry and see my office has e-mailed me that The New York Times has even contacted us wanting to know about my hitchhiking journey. I am shocked. I e-mail my office back to say “No comment” and feel just like Henry Kissinger. Even the gang I’m with seems impressed that The New York Times is interested. But then I get the slight impression that maybe they’re relieved I’m refusing comment. After all, press attention is definitely not what these maybe, maybe-not shady capitalists are seeking.

  Nobody ever brings up the question of my sexual preference. Duh, I imagine they’d reply if I had asked if they’d been wondering if I’m gay. I keep seeing all these big “porn outlets” in the middle of nowhere alongside the highway, just like the one I’d imagined for my UFO-sex chapter, and wonder out loud, “Are these stores for interstate travelers or locals?” Ritchie totally surprises me by answering matter-of-factly, “Well, I think that is where truckers who are gay blow each other in the parking lot.” I laugh out loud and say, “I don’t think so!” He shrugs, still sure of his position.

  As we get nearer to Kansas City, Missouri, where they have a house to stay in, they debate where to stop to get “a real meal.” Ritchie asks if I’d like to come downtown with them to eat some ribs. I explain how afraid I am to go off Route 70 or anywhere near a city because I’ll never get the next ride. They offer to take me back past Kansas City to a good exit after dinner before they go to where they plan to sleep. I try to decline, knowing that this would be out of their way, but Ritchie won’t hear of it—I paid for gas, it is the least they can do. Shirley surprises me by saying she is a vegetarian and only eats nutritiously. We talk a little about how hard it is to eat in an unfattening way unless you can cook for yourself. She has a lot of health food packed with her—maybe I was judging her wrongly. But no, when we stop, she asks if I ever saw the filmed-in-Baltimore TV show about junkies The Corner. “Sure did,” I say, “a great program.” “I lived the life of The Corner,” she says flatly. I see.

  We pile out of the van in the parking lot of Rosedale Bar-B-Q and sit on the ground and stretch. Even the dog and the bird are brought out for some fresh air. I feel so excited to be with this gang of outsiders. These days everybody thinks he or she is an outsider, but here is the real deal. Probably the only members of the fracking community I’ll ever meet. Maybe I’ll become a fracking hag when this whole trip is over.

  I ask them if I can take their picture. Ritchie and Aiyana pose with the dog. Shirley and Jasper tell me politely they’d prefer not to. Jasper is a gentleman, though. He says, “Since I was seated in the back of the van with Shirley, I am sorry I didn’t get to know you as well as Ritchie and Aiyana did up front, but you all sure were laughing a lot!” Billyburr drinks hungrily from a bowl they set up, and Biscuit actually squawks, but not too loudly. Even the bird knows too much attention could mean trouble.

  We have a delicious greasy meal of ribs, baked beans, chili, and Royal Crown Colas. They have beer but I stick to my teetotaler ways. Everybody is beat. We drove 460 miles together and they had been driving all night before they picked me up. We pile back into the van and Ritchie gives Aiyana directions on how to get back on I-70 West to go past the city. We keep driving. The exit they thought would be the best, the Kansas Speedway one, isn’t. Still local. Not a good ramp. I can tell Jasper and Shirley want me to find a place to get out now so they can go crash. We keep driving to the final exit before the Kansas Turnpike begins, Bonner Springs. I don’t know. It doesn’t look good to me either. The entrance ramp is quite a hike from where the meager choice of motels is located. But what can I do? To go farther they’d have to pay to enter the freeway. I’ll get out here anyway and figure out what to do tomorrow. Since there’s no Days Inn, I pick Holiday Inn. Ritchie is so considerate that he waits in the van while I go in to check on vacancy. There is one. I come back out and say goodbye to my new buddies. I hope they find their pot of gold. They deserve it.

  REAL RIDE NUMBER FOURTEEN

  MAYOR

  I hate the Holiday Inn. The woman behind the desk is unfriendly and suspicious when she sees me checking in carrying my cardboard sign. The hotel room has the worst lighting so far. I can’t even see to unpack my bag, much less read. I am exhausted. My office is long closed for the day, so I e-mail Susan at her home and give her my hotel phone number and tell her to call me. I’m beyond tired, delirious. I check my e-mails and see that my credit card was discovered at that steak house in Indianapolis and is already on its way via FedEx to my Baltimore office. At least I don’t have to go through the hassle of canceling and getting a new one.

  Susan e-mails me back that she tried the hotel number but “nobody answers.” I call her back to confirm the number but she doesn’t pick up. I keep calling and not getting through and she keeps e-mailing back, “No one is answering at hotel” or “It just rings and rings.” I’m flipping out and leave the most pitiful message I’ve ever left begging her to pick up. Finally my cell phone rings. It’s Susan. I’m so tired I’ve been calling my office number, not her home number, so she’s received none of my messages. But the reality of the situation is, the rotten Holiday Inn operator isn’t answering the main line. I want to run down to the lobby and, if there’s anybody behind the desk, scream, “Gone fishing?!” but I can’t make hotel enemies, I may need their help.

  Susan and I review the day, talk about how my SPOT device stopped working for much of the time inside the van. I argue that it’s a falsely advertised instrument, but Susan tells me it’s because I had it in my pocket and not “with a clear view of the sky in all directions,” as the instruction book demands. “How would that be possible if I were an extreme skier trapped in an avalanche?” I bluster, having never trusted this tracking tool in the first place. I calm down. We hang up. I guess I’m feeling better. Aren’t I about halfway there?

  I go back down to the lobby to go out front and scope out the distance to the entrance ramp to I-70W. It’s far. The new woman behind the desk is a tad friendlier, so I don’t accuse her of not answering the phone. I ask her if she knows anybody I could pay to give me a ride on the turnpike to a better exit in the morning. She says to “talk to Floyd, who works the night shift, maybe he’d be willing when he gets off at seven a.m.” He’s not in yet but I tell her thanks and I’ll be back down at eleven, when his shift starts, to ask.

  Back in my dark motel room, I see from new e-mails that my sisters have told my mother that I’m hitchhiking across America. She was “glad to be informed.” She “didn’t seem too shocked,” my sister Kathy tells me. Maybe my mom’s been “broken down into submission” by my public life, as Susan comments when I tell her. Maybe nothing could shock my mother anymore.

  I miss hearing from The Corvette Kid, so I e-mail him, “Got three rides today—one was in a huge truck.” He answers, “Oh Wow! Way to go! Don’t go too far now u hear. Haha.” Mmm, not sure what this means. Is he back home, bored, itching for more travel? Nah, just e-mail teasing, I figure. Not even vague enough to be a backup plan. I go back downstairs and Floyd is finally behind the desk. He looks totally mystified when I ask if I can pay him (plus tolls) to take me to the first turnpike exit with services inside the state of Kansas in the morning. I show him the online Here We Go Magic story. I name-drop the titles of my films. He is nonresponsive but says, “Maybe, I’ll have to ask my wife.” “Okay,” I tell him, “I’ll check in with you first thing in the morning.” Doesn’t sound promising. I sulk my way back upstairs. It’s late. I turn off the one or two dim lights and uneasily try to go to sleep. Maybe Floyd will come through for me.

  But he doesn’t. I wait to go downstairs until right before 7:00 a.m. when he gets off. I don’t even bother going into the hideous breakfast room. I’m sure bad lighting equals even worse breakfast selections. Floyd tells me he can’t take me onto the Kansas Turnpike because his wife needs the car “right when I get home to go to a job interview.” “Well, can I give you twenty dollars just to take me up to the entrance ramp?” I beg. He h
ems and haws but can’t think of any excuses so says okay. I tell him I’ll wait. I sit outside with my hitchhiking sign and talk to a nice lady who seems interested but doesn’t offer me a ride. I look back in and see a new woman is behind the desk, but where is Floyd? It’s 7:10 and I don’t see him. Has he snuck out the back door to escape me? I panic. I wave my sign to a man pulling out of the motel parking lot in his car, but he ignores me. Suddenly the new check-in lady comes out and says, “Sir, if you continue to flag our guests, I’m calling the police.” “I’m sorry,” I fib, stalling for time so Floyd can rescue me, “he looked like the type who would have picked me up.” “Yeah, well, that was my husband!” she responds with a bit of a sneer. “I won’t do it again,” I agree, and she goes back in. Bonner Springs bitch. “Where is that goddamn Floyd?” I stew. It’s 7:15—I know he’s ditched me! But no, here he comes. I’m relieved. I don’t mention the trouble and just climb in his vehicle, hand him the money, and make small talk until he drops me off at the freeway entrance.

  It’s a bright, hot morning and there’s not a tree around. I can see the sun rising quickly in the sky. I put on more sunblock. I think, well, this spot is okay. Lots of cars coming from the left and trucks coming from the right. The big problem is that every time a truck turns onto my entrance ramp, it has to make a wide turn and almost crushes my bag. I move it back and then jump out of the way as another rig almost runs over my feet.

  I stand there forever. I start to ration my Evian water. My back hurts from standing up straight for such a long time, so I walk down the exit a little and lean up on the NO PEDESTRIANS BEYOND THIS POINT blah blah blah sign. It’s wobbly, though, and the more I lean, the looser in the ground the sign gets. A FedEx Ground transportation truck whizzes by and I wish I were a package inside. Cops pass both ways but ignore me. I’m starting to sweat. I have been here five hours. I’m getting dehydrated. I call my office in misery and tell Susan, “Pretty soon I’m going to have to drink my own urine.” She sort of laughs but hears the despondency in my voice. I tell her if she sees on the Spotter I’m going backward, it’s just that I can’t take the heat anymore and I didn’t get a reverse ride, I’m just a homeless man walking back to the motel area to get supplies.

  Come on, people! Pick me up! I take the last drink of water and really start to worry. I haven’t eaten a thing all day. Okay, now’s the time. Walk back. Swallow your pride and lug that bag and sign with you through the nearby construction site, across the field, over the main road to the service area. I do so and feel exactly like Wanda in the great Barbara Loden film of the same name where she trudges through a Pennsylvania coal mine in a stunning, long, very long tracking shot. Poor Wanda. Poor me.

  I see the dreaded Holiday Inn but don’t go near it. I stumble into a convenience store and buy two giant bottles of Gatorade and another bottle of Evian. Exiting, I spot a Taco Bell, the only fast-food joint I’m ever tempted to patronize in my real life. I enter, plop down my even heavier bags now that the liquids are inside, and get in line to order. I flash on Lana Turner, who, her daughter Cheryl Crane once told me, was an early financial backer of Taco Bell, and think how I couldn’t be any further away from Hollywood glamour than right now. All the normal people on their lunch break look like aliens to me. I’m almost jealous of their lives. I order two tacos and sit by myself in a booth awaiting my number to be called, hoping to be recognized, but customers just stare back at me blankly. I guzzle down an entire bottle of Gatorade, then another. I feel like sobbing as I walk up to get my order but control myself, sit back down, and eat my tacos. With lots of hot sauce, they’re pretty tasty. I hope Lana Turner’s estate made a small profit.

  I go in the men’s room. Now I am Crackers in Pink Flamingos for real, living in public lavatories! Only I don’t feel “much filthier,” I feel much older. I look in the mirror and expect it to scream just like the joke-shop hand mirror on my desk at home does when you pick it up to look at your reflection. God, I look ugly. Weather-beaten, like in a Walker Evans photo.

  I trudge back out, over the highway, back through the field, and onto the construction site. At least there’re no guard dogs. I feel like Isabel Sarli in that other great Armando Bó–directed sexploitation film I forgot to mention to my long-ago fictitious good ride Harris, the film backer. The one entitled Carne, where she’s employed in a rendering plant and gets raped every day walking through the woods to work and yet never changes her path.

  I go back to the exact same hitchhiking spot. I lean back on the highway sign but stand right back up in embarrassment because it’s so loose by now that I’m half reclining. More cops drive by. They ignore me. Everybody does. In desperation I think of The Corvette Kid again. Suddenly he’s my knight in shining armor. “Stuck in Bonner Springs, Missouri—last exit before Kansas toll highway,” I e-mail him. “I’m still looking for your ride Part 2.” A man can hope, can’t he? “Leaving tomorrow!” he Kid responds. “Hang in there and don’t go too much further. LOL.” Yeah, sure. And don’t worry, Corvette Kid, I’m not laughing out loud! I’m fucking stuck!

  But. Still. Yet. Chant again. “It only takes one car to equal a ride,” I tell myself. I almost feel as if it were a hallucination when one finally does. I would get in any vehicle, even if it were Ted Bundy driving a Volkswagen with his arm in a sling. See you later, Bonner Springs! I’m outta here.

  The agony of waiting for a ride turns into a sheer exuberance once you’re inside a new, strange vehicle. My driver is a middle-aged man who at first I think might be gay. But I’m wrong, I guess. He’s another politician—the mayor of a small town in the Southwest and married. I don’t ask him if he’s a Republican. He’s an odd one. When I quiz him on how far he’s going, he says, “Wichita.” I ask him where he’ll be turning off Route 70 and he just points to his GPS and says, “When that tells me to turn,” which isn’t much help to me, but right now I don’t even care. I’m out of Bonner Springs and I pray I never go back.

  We enter the Kansas Turnpike and make small talk; he, about being the mayor of a little town, and I … well, I try to tell him I’m a film director, but I can see that he totally thinks I’m delusional. He ignores every line I try to work in the conversation about my life and then returns the chitchat to his. When I drop the names of my films, he reacts as if I just told him I am Napoleon. After about ten minutes or so of his blank stares to any detail of my career, I give up. So what if he thinks I’m a homeless lunatic. He is still giving me a ride and I couldn’t be more grateful.

  Suddenly the voice of the GPS orders him to turn off Route 70 toward Wichita and I panic. I got Wichita, which is south, mixed up with Topeka, which is west and where I am headed. I explain how I need to find an exit where there’s a good entrance ramp back on where I can stand and how his turnoff ramp to Route 335 South will be high-speed and impossible. He offers nicely to take me past his exit to find a place. We see a sign promising services that are about twenty miles away, and he agrees to take me that far, which is really beyond the call of duty. But as we drive, I see he’s getting impatient and he suggests the exit before “would be just as good.” I can’t really argue, so I say, “I guess so, let’s see.” He pulls off at the next exit and yes, there’s a gas station and some strip malls up the road, but my heart sinks when I realize Topeka isn’t far into Kansas at all, and worse yet, I’m in a shabby suburban neighborhood right before this city—the worst place possible to get a long-distance ride. But at least it’s not Bonner Springs! I thank him and fumble in my pocket to give him my THANKS FOR THE LIFT hitchhiking card. He takes it. I wonder if he will later throw it away. I can’t really blame him for not taking me as far as he had promised. I guess.

  REAL RIDE NUMBER FIFTEEN

  KITTY AND JUPITER

  I stand there hitchhiking for a long time. I don’t know where I am, but the mayor didn’t take me that far—maybe sixty miles. It’s already 3:00 p.m. and I’ve been hitching since almost 7:30 a.m. I’ve only been in a car for an hour total all day. It’s windy
. Really windy. I have to hold my hitching sign with both hands or it will be torn apart by the elements. That’s when I notice my sunburned knuckles, the only part of my exposed body I didn’t coat with sunblock. My stupid hat blows off and I chase it with terror.

  For the first time, I notice, most of the drivers entering the freeway are black. They don’t stop either. I hastily add on I’M SAFE to my sign, but that doesn’t help. I e-mail my office I got a short ride with the mayor, but they already know because of my SPOT tracker and see I haven’t made much progress. Trish e-mails back saying, “Your good rides always come in the afternoon.” It’s true, I never get picked up in the morning. Are early-bird time-manager travelers less willing to take a risk? Make friends with crackpot strangers?

  I hitchhike forever. The wind is whipping my face. For the first time ever, I fantasize that I will get a facial and a massage when I get to San Francisco—something I would never do in real life. I plunge back into despair again and call my office and beg Susan and Trish to find a taxi, but how can they, they ask, when I can’t pinpoint where I am? I grumble and hang up. Stand here longer. Sheer torture! Rush hour is starting. Every driver looks local; they’re just coming home from work. I’m gonna have to sleep here! I look over and see some bushes that I try to imagine curling up under. I drink my last drop of Evian water. I’m so discouraged I litter. Throw the empty Evian bottle right on the ground. Take that, nature.