In the Midst of the Maelstrom

In the Midst of the Maelstrom

Four months into his grand hitchhiking tour to 'do' America Jack found himself in the Florida lakelands, stuck on the side of Interstate I-4, in the dark, heading east. Dropped at a lonely turnoff in daylight he felt the hope of an easy lift evaporate like mist as the evening rolled in. His immediate destination, tomorrow, was Tomorrowland, but if a driver couldn't spot him, and have a safe place to pull over, there'd be no lift.

Save for the paltry fluorescents above the approaches and exits to this highway, all light had been sucked from this scene. As he faced back towards Tampa a thick concrete overpass dominated his view, beneath it a wide concrete highway stretched. It was not yet late, maybe eight, but, unusually for a Saturday night, passing vehicles were few and far between.

He was hungry, thirsty and weary, but, Jack conceded, at least it wasn't cold, it wasn't raining and his map showed accommodation choices at an intersection not fifteen minutes ahead. Fifteen minutes? Five hours? The fates had one sick sense of humour.

So why hitch at all? The question had been asked of him many times. Why stand out in the rain and sun, for hours, alone? Why take the risk? Jack’s answer, as always, was that risk is the reason. Catch a bus? Huh! Risk is opportunity. Place yourself at the mercy of the gods, the roll of the dice, who knows what new road will open up for you.

But who'd stop for him now? Who’d pull over here? Why does a driver ever pick up a hitchhiker? Why take the risk? Pity, benevolence, loneliness or the need for a shoulder? The ancient Greeks had a word for it, Xenia; hospitality, generosity and courtesy to those far from home - almost a religious obligation to be good to travellers. Maybe that was it. But the reasons, he well knew, were as many as drivers on the road and as fickle as the wind. There was the college girl from Bowling Green, who'd shot through his shell of celibacy like a silver rocket, the softly-spoken black man west of Nashville, just diagnosed with cancer and confiding in Jack before telling his own family, the young lovers eloping to New Mexico, high on hooch and Hank Williams Jr., the trucker craving company and defying company regulations for it and the young family on the move to a new life, station wagon packed to the gunnels but still happy to squeeze one more in. Travellers all, trading distance for dialogue.

But as Jack stood ready - his army-green duffle bag at his feet - to flag his next chance, a dream from the previous night returned, clear as a movie on a screen. In the dream a flaming candle stands on a rough concrete floor, its light a beacon to every bug, beetle and flying insect. Amongst the menagerie a small ant circles, on a mission, defending the territory it has commandeered. Streams of melted wax run down the candle, flowing out around the base and cooling, a hardening skin forming on the surface. In one swift skirmish with a black-shelled beetle, the smaller ant sustains a crippling injury. One leg badly broken, the ant can only stagger and sway. It lurches too close to the cooling wax and breaks the thin skin, every movement thereafter dragging it further in, trapping the ant in the setting wax. Suddenly a flow of molten liquid courses down over the ant, searing the very life from it. The clear wax hardens, sealing the ant in, its head wrenched on a crooked angle and the broken leg jutting up like a solitary pole stripped of its flag.

Just as Jack shook himself from the grotesque image, and without warning, his entire world turned red, snapping him from the moving pictures in his mind. The overpass before him, the grass to his left, the gravel beneath his feet, his own visage and every object and surface around him was suddenly washed in crimson. He swung around and staggered backwards, wrongfooted by the bag at his feet. Not ten yards behind him the burning break lights of a stationary car. How was a car here when he'd not seen or heard it approach, out on this lonely highway? The white late-model Cadillac seemed alien, like a spaceship had floated in. This does not bode well.

With its engine idling, whisps of smoke emitting from its exhaust, the car seemed to smoulder where it sat. But still, Jack saw, the car was newish, clean and well-maintained.

At least this bodes well, he thought. Now, to move towards it, or to run? Both choices had their merits. In his present circumstances, however, in the dark, on the highway, there was nothing for it. Pragmatism can be bitch sometimes.

Leaving his bag where it lay - to not seem presumptive or desperate - Jack approached, repeating the mantra he'd long kept - take the upper hand - ask first - gauge the colour of their answer - accept or decline.

As he approached, a warm wind swept beneath the undercarriage of the vehicle. The passenger-side window remained up, black, revealing nothing. As he reached for the door-handle he stooped to peer inside, dashboard lights and the silhouette of a head and shoulders. A middle-aged man? Jack pulled the latch, felt the door release with a padded ker-lunck and the suck of atmosphere. He peered in.

"Hi," Jack spoke immediately. "How far are you going?"

"Er..., Orlando." Yes, a man, maybe sixty or more, but the image still so indistinct. No greeting.

"I'm only going to the next intersection. Just up the road."

"Get in." Instructive. Accept? Well… when would I get another lift?

"I'll put my bag in the back, yeah?" Did my voice raise too high in pitch at the end?

"Go on."

Jack moved to the rear passenger door, opened it, again the solid ker-lunk, walked back to retrieve his bag (Am I doing the right thing here?), carried it to the car. Not wanting to mark the cream leather upholstery, he placed the bag carefully onto the back seat. Who had been the last passenger in here, he wondered, a child, family member, friend, another hitch-hiker? He closed the heavy door and moved to the open front door again, placed his left leg inside and eased himself into the passenger seat, sensing the nearness to the darkened driver. As Jack pulled the passenger door closed he detected, with reassurance, the smell of perfume. His wife's? This bodes well, Jack thought as the driver shifted the car into gear and guided the Cadillac onto the motorway.

After the cavernous open skies, thick breezes wafting across orange orchards, the cabin suddenly felt capsule-like to Jack - tight, sealed, scented. The pace was steady, cautious even, the motorway clear, no vehicles approached or passed.

Make conversation, now. "I thought there'd be more traffic. Being Saturday night."

A long pause. "No... there's the game on tonight." The driver's voice was soft, almost raspy. Was he unwell?

"Ah... yes, OK. Are you on your way home? From work?" No response, in the dark. "Oh, yeah, it's Saturday.”

Then a lull, the faint hiss of rubber on tarmac. Jack had never heard such silence in a sound so familiar.

It was only then, the headlights of an approaching vehicle beaming into the cabin, that Jack saw the side of the driver's face, just as it turned from him. What was that? Did he turn to avoid being seen? Another vehicle, another beam of light. In that instant, the man facing him, Jack recalled that the interior light had not come on when he'd opened the door, realised the fragrance he'd sensed was not that of a woman and knew now that he, Jack, was a fly trapped in ointment.

The driver's face was a garish shock of purple eyeshadow, candy-red lips and hot-flush cheeks, war-paint daubed with a heavy hand. The driver, too, had seen that Jack had seen and the man's now pungent perfume became omnipresent, the fragrance of desire, now fused with the stink of fear.

"I'll drive you in to Orlando tonight. We'll go out... have some fun. I'll show you around the traps. My friends will like you."

"Oh, no, umm, I'm only going to the next intersection. Yeah, it's about ten minutes ahead? You can let me out there." Jack stated weakly.

"I want to undo those little buttons down the front of your shirt. I want to undo YOU."

"Awww, hey, nooo, that's not... I'm not into that, at all..."

"I want to suck your..."

"No! Hey! Whao! As I said man, I have to get out, just up here. It's not far, about ten minutes. I've got... friends waiting for me there," he lied. "I just called them from a pay-phone at the... the gas station back there, not long ago".

"We won't be stopping. You don't have any friends. We're going to Orlando."

"No, they're expecting me, my friends. And if I don't turn up soon, they'll... get worried." Jack was scrambling now. "They'll call the police!" His voice wavered, sounded desperate, he knew. 

The driver's glance, faintly lit by the dashboard lights, dropped to Jack's crotch. "We're going to have some fun." A slow, slavering, deadpan voice. "I know some places. My friends and I will..." As the driver continued Jack realised his only recourse was to drown out the noise, counter the man's suggestions. For the next few minutes, in a battle of wills, each tried to cancel out the other. "You're a very pretty..." / "Orchards! So many orange orchards... along this road!" / "I want to put my hands down inside..." / "I've never seen so much water - lakes! It must rain... a lot… so much! And all those fans! - huge fans! - above the orchards! - what do they do?"

Jack saw the glow of lights above a row of trees and realised the time had come to change tack, to present an ultimatum. He'd prepared for this, rehearsed it in his mind, knew he had to do it - and do it now, there was no other way.

He turned to the driver. "OK, so, you want me to go with you?" Jack began.

The driver hesitated, perplexed at the change. "Yes," he whispered, his voice hoarse, breathless.

"You want to have some fun with me?"

"Yes," a little more hopeful now.

"Well, OK, I'm up for some fun. In fact, we're going to have some fun - right now."

The driver's eyes turned from the road to Jack. "What? Now? What do you mean?"

As the car traced the motorway around a long righthand sweep, they could both see the lights of the intersection ahead - gas stations, motels, shops.

"You think you have me now." Jack continued, "That you have all the power. But you didn't think it through. I'll be honest with you. I don't have any friends waiting at the intersection. I made that up - thought I'd give it a try. But we're getting close now. That's the intersection I want to get out at. That’s where you're going to stop. At the crossroads, YOUR crossroads." he said with intent. 

The driver looked puzzled now, laughed nervously. "Huh, huh. I said I'm not stopping here. I'm taking you into Orlando. My friends... We're going to..."

"Ohhh, nooo, we're not. You're mistaken. If you had asked me nicely, then maybe I'd have gone with you. If you hadn't been so greedy, hadn't presumed that I was yours, hadn't threatened me, then... maybe. I'll admit, I'm not carrying anything, nothing on me, to defend myself with, but I do have weapons..."

Jack paused. Another silence, the man perplexed.

"Yes, this vehicle is my weapon. Speed is, momentum is my weapon. Your painted face is my weapon, and your dirty threats are your downfall."

"What? What do you mean? We're going into..."

Jack spoke very slowly now. He needed to get this right...

"So now, I'm going to count to three. If, when I say the word 'three', you haven't stopped this car at the offramp - and we're nearly there - I will reach over, take hold of that gearstick right there... between us... and pull it hard into reverse."

The traffic was thicker now, lighting up the car interior more often, the intersection closing in. The older man suddenly looked pained. It was obvious to Jack that he had never considered this a possibility. In less than half a minute the car would be at the offramp.

"Think about it," Jack cautioned. "Sixty miles-an-hour, the gearbox explodes into a thousand pieces, maybe the whole car explodes, it grinds to a very messy halt, lots of smoke, you are miles from home and your face looks like you're a circus idiot looking for a carnival."

"You can't fool me." They were approaching the exit ramp.

"Oh yeah? I don't know what will happen. I've never done this before, but if you think about my alternatives... One..."

Five more seconds passed. Jack prepared himself for what might happen soon.

"You couldn't do it. You wouldn't dare," his voice shaking.

"Oh yeah, I don't have a choice. Two..."

Jack and the driver plunged forward with the sudden jolt, the seatbelts barely saving them from headbutting the windshield. The car skidded along the asphalt, finishing diagonally across the shoulder of the road. The stinking fumes of burning rubber filled the cabin from all four tyres locked in unison. The front passenger door swung open and Jack leapt out. He jagged open the back door and dragged his bag across the soft leather seat. As he skirted the rear of the car, Jack took a second to memorise the registration plate, sent a hefty boot into the taillight, smashing it, heaved his luggage over his shoulder and scrambled up the bank onto the exit ramp. He had fought, now it was time to flee.

Glancing back from time to time he reached the top of the ramp. The Cadillac still sat on the roadside shoulder, smoke from the tyres drifting off towards Orlando, the two doors open still and the driver's blotchy clown face turned away. Jack zig-zagged and weaved between the junction gas stations, streets and alleyways till he was sure he was not being followed. Finally, in a secluded diner, he ate a hasty meal, at a liquor shop purchased an armload of beer and bourbon and found a motel where he slept late and little. After a ride that chilling, he imagined, Tomorrowland could only be a disappointment.

Finding a secluded place to think, and to not think, Jack sat, placed his head in his hands and drew in a long, slow stream of fragrant Florida air. Strange to find himself here in the whirlpool that is Disney World. All around him the squeals, the booms and clangs, the laughter of a joyous carnival symphony, but even in the bright heat of day he could not shake the flashbacks, or stop the events of the night coming fully alive again in his head. He held his breath inside his breast, and with it all the angst and anger of the world, felt it still, settle.

As he expelled the beath in a rush, now warmer and more fragrant, the echoes inside his head receded, cleansed in some small way.

He drew another breath, held it in, felt it still inside him, then blew it out into the vastness of the world, as if extinguishing a candle.

© Owen Smith 2023