The Boy Who Would Rule the World

by Brian Toal

  He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. That's life. While you ponder all the options, check out all alternatives and deliberate all the possibilities, the deadline for actually doing anything about it passes you by and you are fucked again. Oh well... he was only twenty-two, he figured another year of screwing around wouldn't matter much.

  Jon reached across the dash and into the open glove compartment, where a dial and light encrusted Alpine stereo rested upon a pile of folded maps. Wheeling the aging Datsun back across the line, he cranked the volume and Led Zeppelin screamed from the four speakers laying across the back deck. He inched the peddle down just a bit more.

  Chris stood on the gravel shoulder of I-5, both hands shoved deep into the pockets of his blue jeans. The couple from Oregon who had turned off on another highway towards their home, had told him that it was illegal to hitchhike on the Interstates. But, what was he supposed to do? He didn't have a map. Didn't know which other roads ran north and wasn't even sure exactly where he was. Still in California, he knew that, as the big green sign overhead indicated the turn off for California Highway 299. Which, according to the couple who had dropped him where he now stood, continued east and north through Northern California and up towards central Oregon. Not towards Seattle, where he was heading.

  But, he was not sure if the middle aged couple who ran a variety store in Burns, Oregon, had told him the truth. They had been keenly interested in why he was all alone and hitchhiking north through California. He had done his best, making up a tale as he spoke, but he figured he hadn't done a very good job. He wasn't real good at lying as he hadn't had much of a need to practice before. He supposed they probably hadn't believed him. There had been long silences and strange lingering looks between the two adults, up front. Finally, the man had said Chris had to get out, because they were taking another highway towards home, and it didn't go up to Seattle.

  Chris dug his shoe into the gravel and kicked some stones onto the pavement. Up ahead, he could see the beginnings of what looked like a fair-sized town, maybe a city. He might be able to walk that far. Maybe look at a map and then hitchhike the back roads.

  He shook his head in confusion and kicked another load of gravel onto the highway. But if the police saw him, they would probably arrest him anyway. Maybe they even knew it was him that had caused all that stuff to happen back at the truck stop and had an APB out for him even now. Idly he wondered what APB stood for. All Person...All Police...All Police Broadcast maybe.

  Angrily he shook his head to clear his thoughts. If the police were going to arrest him anyway, for doing that thing at the truck stop or at the very least for travelling all alone and not being in school, he might as well hitchhike. It all amounted to the same thing. If a police car came by and the cop saw him, he would be in trouble, no matter what he was doing.

  Resolved in his decision, he turned to face the oncoming traffic.

  Jon slid into the curve dropping his speed down to sixty-five because the sign said fifty and then tromped on the gas again as it straightened out. David Bowie was screaming about Modern Love as he noticed the girl standing on the shoulder ahead.

  "Ohooo, baby!" Jon murmured as he took his foot off the gas and punched down hard on the brake pedal, running his hand quickly through his long, blond hair, hanging down between his shoulder blades. The car bucked and heaved as he slewed the car onto the shoulder, its speed dropping rapidly. Too late he realized it wasn't a girl at all, just a boy, standing with his thumb outstretched.

  Jon's eyes narrowed as the car came to a stop fifty or sixty feet away from the kid. "Shit!" He muttered, his hopes of sharing a ride with some babe destroyed. Briefly, he considered stomping his foot down on the gas and pulling back out onto the highway. But, he remembered four years ago, when he and Joey Thompson had hitchhiked east, as far as Texas, to celebrate the summer of their nineteenth birthdays. Twice, in that trip, once on the way there and once on the way back, cars had pulled over, usually loaded with young guys like themselves, and he and Joey had run down the hot, sweltering pavement towards them and just as they had got there - gravel spitting, tires burning the car had pulled away - the white faces of laughing teenagers, looking rearward over the back dash as they sped away. No, he'd already stopped. He'd wait for the kid. Besides, Jon's face brightened, kids are always into music and he had a shit-load of music.

  "Hi." The boy pulled open the passenger door, the leading edge of the door squealing against the front quarter panel, reminding Jon of the damage he had done to that side of the car, a week ago.

  "Hi." Jon replied as the kid slid into the passenger seat. "Where’re you going?"

  "Ummm...Seattle." The boy replied, pulling on the door handle. The door crashed against the frame and then popped back open again. "Ooops." The boy muttered and tried again. Bwaaang. The door sprung back open.

  "Here. Let me get it." Jon reached across the car and grabbed the door handle, smashing the door closed. "There."

  "Thanks." The boy muttered. His eyes lingering on the broken door of the glove compartment hanging down between his knees and the empty coffee cups and beer cans littering the floor.

  "No, problem." Jon said easily, moving the car back onto the highway.

  "So, you’re heading up Seattle way, are ya?"

  "Ahhh...yeah."

  "Wow, that’s a long trip."

  "How far are you going?" The kid asked, as he leaned forward his eyes fixed on the stereo in the glove compartment.

  "Not to Seattle, but I'm going as far as Portland, which will get you a fair piece of the way."

  "Would you take me as far as Portland?" The boy turned to face Jon for the first time, his blue eyes wide and serious.

  "Hey, no problem. I'm always into some company." Jon smiled at the kid. "So what brings you down to good old California?

  The boy looked away, staring intently out the side window. "I was visiting some friends."

  "Hey, that's cool. That's what friends are for." When there was no response Jon continued. "Hell, used to be I spent most weekends hitch'in here, hitch'in there. Parties all over. That's the problem with these parts. Everything is so damn spread out." There was silence in the car and Jon groaned inwardly. He hated picking up hitchhikers that wouldn't talk. Might as well drive alone, than with somebody who can't put more than three words into a string. He tried again. “So...what do you and your buddies do?"

  "Ahhh...not much." The boy turned from the window and faced him. "Did you used to hitchhike on the Interstates, when you went to parties and...and travelled around.?"

  "Yeah. Sometimes. We'd try and take the back roads if we could. Cops don't like ya hitch'in on the I's."

  "What do they do if they catch you?"

  "Oh, shit, not much. Tell you it's illegal and all that. Give you a lecture and shit. Sometimes they pat you down too. Look'in for dope and stuff." Jon smiled, his lips drawing back in a big grin. "You carrying dope, kid?"

  "What!?" The boy's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean drugs?"

  Jon laughed at his reaction. "Just kidding kid. Hey! What's your name?"

  The boy paused for a moment looking questionably up at Jon. Then a small smile brightened his face. "Chris. And dope is marijuana, right?"

  "Right-o-kiddo. Marijuana, Mar-G-wana, Mary-Jane, Grass, Reefer, Dope, Smoke, any of the names will do, and by the way, my name is Jon." He reached out awkwardly with his right hand, across the small gap between them, and shook Chris' hand.

  "Hi." Chris answered shyly.

  "So..." Jon began, pulling into the left lane to pass a slow-moving Cadillac. The car was shuddering and shaking again as he reached seventy-five and he could see the kid beside him looking about the interior of the car uncertainly. "...you're mighty lucky your folks let you travel around all on your own. My folks were pretty fair, but they didn't let me go out hitch'in till I was...well I guess, until I just began to do it. But, I was probably fifteen by then."

  Chris was looking down between the seat and the passenger door.
"No, my parents don't care."

  "Hey. Forget the seatbelt. I cut em all out. They were always getting in the way. Pain in the ass when people are trying to get into the back seats."

  "Oh." Chris sat back upright in his seat.

  "Don't, worry. She won't fall apart. She's just a little rough, right now. I rolled it on its side last week and bent the back rim and a bit of the body. You might have noticed that, when you were getting in."

  Chris nodded.

  "Yep, a bit of excitement that was. A buddy and me were heading on over to a place in Washington, called Walla, Walla. A hell of a name for a place, ain't it? Anyway, we were taking the gravel back roads, cause we had been drinking a few, and then we pull onto this two lane blacktop and my buddy says, 'trompe her.' And I do and we are just motoring along, seventy or eighty, having a just fine old time, when the road ends. Just fuck'in ends! Next thing I know we are soaring over somebody's corn field. My buddy's yelling, spilling beer all over the place, and wham...we hit the ground." Jon reached forward and affectionately patted the dust covered dash. "Yep, banged her up pretty good. But, she is a good old babe and when we got her pulled out, she ran like a dream - excepting the bent rim." He stopped and looked over at the kid sitting beside him.

  The kid was staring up at him with a deadly serious look, like Jon had just told him a tale about robbing a little old lady for her Social Security check. "Anyway...it was real exciting." He finished.

  There was silence in the car as Jon switched hands on the wheel. It was hard to hold the car in its lane and he found his fingers cramped up quickly. Then he changed the subject. "So, your parents don't care if you are out hitch'in around to places?" He asked, although he thought Chris' newer clothes and his refined manner seemed to be at odds with the type of parents that would let one of their young hitchhike a few hundred miles across the country.

  "No, they don't mind. Just as long as they know where I’m going."

  "Hey, that's cool. It builds character and all."

  Chris nodded. "I guess."

  "Hell yeah. That's the problem with kids today. They are too coddled, too protected. Everybody tells them: don't go to the park, don't go out after dark, don't do this, don't do that, cause there are bad guys all around and they’ll get you. Hell, there were bad guys around when I was young and there’re probably just as many around now as there was then, unless the world's taken on a recruiting campaign for bad guys. You got'a learn to deal with the bad and the good and if ya never get out and explore - how are you ever going to learn which is which? That's what I figure anyway."

  Chris nodded and repeated, "I guess."

  "Hell, my sister has got a couple of kids. Eight and ten. A boy and a girl. Apple of your eye and all of that sort of stuff. You know the type, moma's little girl and her little boy can do no wrong. But you should hear the things she tells em. Don't talk to strangers, don't open the door, don't answer the phone, don't even walk alone...shit! She's got those kids believing that every soul that walks the streets is some sort of kiddie rapist and behind every bush lurks a monster with a knife and every man that wears a raincoat has his pecker dangling in the breeze. Shit...poor kids, they don't know what to think. The hell of it is, Ellenor, the ten-year-old, got lost when they went out to a camping park this summer, and then went just about fucking ape-shit-crazy, cause she wouldn't talk to nobody or ask nobody and ended up wandering around the camping area for about a fucking hour cause she was too damn scared to ask for directions."

  "How did she get back?" Chris asked, turned in his seat, his eyes on Jon.

  "My sister found her. But all she needed to do was ask somebody and they could have helped her out or least calmed her down. Shit...what the hell is the chance of some kid who is lost, asking a pervert for help? How many perverts are there in the world? Fuck...I don't know, but it can't be that many. If I was a parent, I'd teach my kids how to recognize how a pervert works, not make’em frightened of the whole damn world."

  "I suppose..." Chris spoke hesitantly "...but sometimes I have trouble telling if someone is a good person or not."

  "Yeah well, that comes with practice. Best thing to do is, if you got a bad feeling inside about somebody, and usually you know within a couple minutes of meeting them. Then be careful, don't trust’em. Maybe they’ll be alright, but if you got a choice, move on." Jon waved one arm towards the countryside passing by outside. "But my experience has been, the world is chock full of good people, ready and willing to help you out if you got a problem. You just got to ask them."

  "I suppose. But there really are bad people." Chris paused turning away from Jon, then in a lower voice continued, "I know there are."

  Jon looked quickly over at Chris' dark head, his eyes fixated on the dust covered dash ahead of him. "Yeah, well...there are. That's true. You just try to do your best not to have much to do with them."

  "What if you have to?"

  "What if you have to deal with bad people? Is that what you mean?"

  "Yeah." Chris muttered, still staring forward.

  "Well...I guess it depends, on how bad they are and what they want to do to you."

  Chris nodded.

  "But my advice is - try to avoid them if you can."

  "Have you ever met any really bad people?" Chris asked, his voice serious.

  "Yeah, I've met a few bad asses. But, I can usually run faster than most everybody else. So when the shit hits the fan - I'm out of there." Jon smiled and glanced over at the small boy sitting beside him. "Not that I am a coward or nothing..." He made a fist and waved it playfully in front of Chris' face "...but why get the shit beaten out of ya, if you can just move on and party with the good guys."

  Chris looked over and cracked a small smile. "Yeah, I guess."

  Jon waved his fist once more in Chris' direction and laughed. "There you go. First real happy smile I've seen from ya." He reached in between the seat and grabbed a handful of tapes. "So! What do ya wanna listen to?"

  Chris plugged in a cassette tape and Jon reached over and cranked the volume, leaving them both in a cocoon of noise. Chris hadn't met many people like this Jon guy. Maybe it was his age. He glanced over at his companion, who was rapping one hand against the wheel, while the other maintained a firm grip on the direction of the vehicle. He kind of looked like a hippie. His dad would have called him one anyway. Long, dark blonde hair, falling over his shoulders and down his back. A flannel shirt tucked into a pair of faded and ripped blue jeans ending in a pair of high-topped sneakers. He was probably older than nineteen, but not much more than twenty-five. Closer to twenty-five, Chris figured, he spoke with so much intensity and conviction. His tirade about over-protective parents, had been given in the same tone and with equal vigour as many of the one-on-one lectures he had received from his father. But this Jon guy was friendly. Not overbearing and he didn't talk down to him, like many of the adults in his life. Jon just said what he believed - but he said it with conviction.

  "Hey, Chris!" Jon interrupted his thoughts, reaching into the glove box to turn down the volume. "I got to get some gas and I figured we might as well get some lunch while we’re stopped. A couple of miles up the road, there’s a McDonald's and a place that sells gas. Wanna get a burg?"

  Chris hadn't eaten since last night. The last meal he had with his parents. He swallowed down the choking anguish that constricted his throat. He must not think of that. He couldn't think of that! He reached behind him and felt the bulge of his wallet. He normally didn't carry it with him. But, last night at the Truck stop, he had bought the California Pin, and the leather billfold was still jammed into his rear pocket. He took it out and counted the bills. A ten, two fives and four ones. Twenty-four dollars. "Sure, let's eat."

  They sat at the rear of the parking lot, the cars on I-5 tearing past in front of them. Jon, sat with his arm outside the window while he puffed at a crumpled Camel. His eyes turned to the boy beside him, chewing on a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. The boy's jacket was unzipped down the front, a cl
utter of state pins along the collar. Again, he noticed the newness of Chris' jeans and the clean white of his T-shirt. A real serious one, he thought, got a nice smile when he wants to use it, but this kid ain't real happy about something.

  Jon had volunteered for two years when he was seventeen and eighteen as a counsellor at the neighbourhood Boy's and Girl's Club. Mostly he had volunteered because it gave him the opportunity to use the pool as much as he wanted and play as many games of basketball as the muscles in his legs could tolerate. The kids at the club hadn't been all that messed up. Jon's Dad had been a fire-fighter and even after his parents had divorced, he had always lived in an average middle-class neighbourhood. But Jon had talked with enough kids that did have problems, to be able to spot the signs. The downcast eyes, the hesitation, the short answers.

  Jon threw his cigarette butt out the window and leaned back against the door. "You know, I've worked with a lot of kids..." He began as Chris looked up at him, his mouth still working on the burger. "...and I've got to the point where I can spot a kid that has got some shitty happenings going on in his life. And you’re one of them."

  Chris stopped chewing, his eyes focussed on Jon.

  "That's a new pair of jeans, those aren't bad shoes you got on your feet and somebody cared enough to buy all those state pins on your jacket. My experience tells me, rich kids may be neglected emotionally. You know, their parents don't have the time to talk with them, but all the same, rich kids don't hitchhike a few hundred miles to visit with some buddies."

  He stopped. Waiting. But Chris just looked up at him, slowly forcing down the food in his mouth. "So, I figure you ain't hitchhiking to someplace. I figure you are hitchhiking away from someplace. Someplace you don't want to be."

  The boy finished swallowing his food and turned his eyes towards his lap, where he folded the remains of his hamburger into its paper.

  "So...I don't mean to pry Chris...but I guess I am. I think you are probably an alright guy and I’ll help you out if I can. Now, I don't know if you are really going to Seattle or not. But, if you are just travelling to get away from some bad times at home, I don't figure that is a real good idea. If your mother or father are beating you or...doing other things. There are people that can deal with those sort of problems. If you want, I'll stick with you until we can get you hooked up with some folks who can help ya. But running away ain't going to help. Not in the long term anyway."