Chapter 10
The Way Forward



Here’s what I know. Boston is about 170 miles from Rutland. New York City is about 220 miles away. It takes less than three hours to drive to Boston, nearly four and a half to drive to New York. I checked Google Maps at the library in Burlington, and none of this information made the choice any easier. I’ve been thinking about it up until now, but now I have to decide.
In New York’s favor is that it’s bigger, so there have to be more jobs there. There must be ten thousand restaurants that need dish washers or table cleaners, and probably no one will ask me any questions, only can I get the plates clean.
In Boston’s favor is that it’s smaller and I’ve been there a few times, enough to know where the main streets are. And there are lots of colleges, so there’s lots of teen aged kids. I can maybe blend in better in certain parts of town.
I like the fact that Boston is familiar. That should count for a lot. New York actually gives me an uneasy feeling, probably because it’s foreign to me. I guess that decides it, then. I’ll head to Boston, and that means finding the road east, to White River Junction.
Route 4 heading east is called Woodstock Avenue. It goes generally uphill, toward the Green Mountains. It’s a wide road with a lot of businesses along it and some homes. I begin walking east on the edge of the road under the street lights, and when I hear a car behind me, I turn to see what’s coming. Obviously, I won’t be taking any rides in Porsches. And if it is a police car, I won’t put out my thumb. I’ll just try to act calm and let it pass.
Right now, there isn’t much traffic. I guess that’s normal after ten o’clock at night, although I would have thought a Saturday night would have been busier. A taxi passes going toward the center of town. I don’t want that, either. Under the street lights, I can see into the cab and notice the driver is looking back toward me. I look away.
But now some kind of pickup is headed my way. I stick out my thumb and face the truck, standing as tall as I can. As it comes closer, I can see that it is an old Chevy. We used to have one like it on the farm. The windows are so old they are not tinted and I can see into the cab. The driver is looking at me. There is a woman in the passenger’s seat and a dog between them, but still he’s slowing down. He stops beside me, and the lady cranks down her window. The man leans across her lap. He has a thick beard. She has long, blond hair and a thick neck. She smiles.
“Where you headed?” the man asks. His voice is gruff. I can tell he’s from Vermont by the way he paces his words and the way he says “where” – whey-ah. The dog tries to get in front of him, stepping on the lady’s lap to get to the window and me. The dog’s yellow – part golden retriever but with short hair and a longer nose – and his tongue is hanging out and dripping saliva.
“Boston,” I say, “But I’ll take a ride as far as you’re going.”
Almost as soon as I’ve said that, I wonder if I should have. I smell an odor coming from the truck. I think it may be beer.
“We’re going up the road a piece,” the man says. “You’re welcome to climb in the back if you want to. We’re a might crowded in here, as you can see.”
There is so little traffic, I decide to chance it. First I swing my backpack into the truck bed. Then I go around to the rear and begin climbing up the bumper and over the tail gate. Only then do I notice the red and blue lights flashing off the back of the pickup cab.
I swear I don’t know where that cop came from.
“Step down,” the voice directly behind my head says. I reach forward and grab my pack, then obey the command.
When I turn around, there is a police officer only a little taller than I. His blond hair is short above his ears – the part of his hair that isn’t under his hat. He’s shining a flashlight in my face. He doesn’t say anything at first, just looks straight into my eyes. I can’t see his eyes because of the flashing lights of his car behind his head. Then he swings the beam of his flashlight toward the curb – there is a sidewalk here.
“You go over there and sit on the curb and wait,” he says.
I do as I’m told. Now the cop puts the heel of his right hand on the grip of a pistol in a holster on his thick black leather belt and begins to step around toward the front of the pickup. I remember what I smelled a moment ago and I think: This isn’t going to go too well for me or my ride.
Just then, there is gravel spraying everywhere, clattering off the metal of the pickup body, and the pickup is moving forward, its rear wheels skidding sideways, toward the sidewalk.
The cop jumps back from the truck. I see his mouth open and watch as he draws his pistol from the holster and aims at the back of the truck. He is screaming something, but the roar of the truck’s engine drowns his words.
I look toward the truck and see the dog’s yellow face looking back through the rear window, barking, as his owners try to make their escape, try to out-race a brand new police car by getting a head start in their old Chevy pickup with a big eight cylinder engine. I see the pickup swerve left and then dart right into a side street, and it strikes me now that there was no license plate on the bumper I’d been climbing.
Looking back at the cop, I see him trying to stuff his pistol back in its holster as he fumbles with a microphone clipped to his chest.
“I need a backup on Woodstock, eastbound past the funeral home,” he yells as he turns to get back to his cruiser, his legs tangling together like old vines in a hedgerow. “Chevy pickup fleeing the scene. I’m in pursuit. One hitchhiker in custody, waiting on the curb.”
He gets in his cruiser, floors the gas pedal and punches his siren on. In a moment, he is turning right on the same side street the pickup took, and I’m running across Woodstock to the far side, looking to lose myself on another street, unnoticed like loose change that falls through a hole in your pocket.