Chapter 11
Beyond the City Lights



I’m east of Rutland on Route 7. I walked past a sign that said welcome to Rutland, so I hope I’m beyond the reach of the local police. I know I’ve left behind most of the street lights. I’m finding that it is very dark up here, on the hillside approaching the Green Mountains. (Actually, I’m standing under a street light in front of a motel that has only two cars in its parking lot under its dimly lit sign.) When there are no lights nearby, you can look up and see so many stars that you’d think someone salted the black sky. I just stopped under this light hoping it will help someone driving by to see me and my thumb, so right now I can’t see the stars. There is one other street light, just down the road and closer to Rutland, so I can see what kind of car is approaching. If it’s a cop, I can duck out of sight.
If I get lucky, I’ll catch a ride all the way to Boston. At first, I was disappointed that the cop came along back there. I was happy to be climbing into that pickup. By now, I’d have been half way across the state and Boston would be maybe only two more hours away.
But hiking out of Rutland gave me time to think. The pickup would probably have left me in the middle of nowhere. And that is if we didn’t end up wrecked in some ditch beside the highway. Riding in the truck bed, I’d probably have been killed. The more I think about it, that guy probably took off from the cop because he had been drinking. That and the fact the truck wasn’t registered. He was facing some serious trouble.
So as I was walking through the back streets in Rutland, I decided that I would be more particular about whose car I get into. Right now my batting average stinks, if you think about the three rides I’ve been offered. The only good one was with the ladies in the Chrysler.
But it must be close to midnight now and it’s starting to get chilly. I zipped my fleece a little bit ago, here in front of the motel. I have my hands shoved in the pockets of my jeans. My feet are warm, I’ll say that. I put two pair of socks on under my hiking boots before I left Harwich. But I wish I’d brought a cap of some kind – preferably a ski cap.
So I’m looking forward to getting inside any decent looking car. So far, not a single car has passed going my way, only a couple of trucks going down the hill toward Rutland.
I don’t know exactly what time it is because I left my cell phone in my dorm room. That was on purpose. I didn’t want to be able to call for help if things got difficult. I remember one time Grandpa Maurice told me that self-reliance is a quality among men that is hard earned. You have to start early thinking for yourself, he says.
Anyway, I use my cell phone as a watch, and I don’t really know what time it is so I’m guessing it’s around midnight. I’m lucky there’s no wind blowing tonight, or I’d be really cold. When those trucks went by, they pushed a blast of air in front of them that rocked me where I’m standing and sent cold air up under my fleece. No, I’ll probably take the first ride that comes along.
I keep thinking about Jen. She was really nice to talk to, very easy. And her smile! Wow! I wonder why dimples make you think happy thoughts. I’d like to get back to Rutland, maybe once I have a job and have some days off. I could hitchhike back to Rutland. I’d be coming down this hill just like those trucks, and I’d find Jen working at the diner just like tonight.
Hey, headlights! Looks like a car, a big car. It’s passing under the distant street light and I don’t see any police lights on the roof. Time to stick out the old thumb.
The car is slowing and as it gets closer, I can see it’s an old Cadillac – really old, maybe a 1970s model. Just like the Chrysler, it’s hard to tell what color it is because of the street lights and how they wash away colors and leave everything sort of a muddy gray. As the car pulls up beside me, I hear its tires crunching in the roadside sand. The windows are all up, so I open the passenger’s door and look in. There is an old man driving and I don’t see anyone else in the car.
“You lookin’ fo-ah a ride?” he asks, speaking real Vermont. He has longer hair than I would have expected, long and white, with whiskers that come down in front of his ears to his jaw, but no beard. His mouth looks sunken. He’s probably missing some teeth.
I have an impulse to make a joke of his question. Like: No, I was just cooling my hand. It got too hot in my pocket.” But I really want a ride, so I stifle myself.
“Sure,” I say.
“Ain’t goin’ too fah,” the old man says, “but yo-ah welcome to come as fah as I go.”
“Thanks,” I say, unslinging my pack and settling into the front seat as I pull the door shut with a solid thunk. The seat is leather and it’s wide, but it’s worn. My butt seems to sink into it. I’m almost looking up at the dashboard, like a little kid. It’s just now that I notice it, dangling on a string from the rear view mirror – the shrunken head!
I glance sideways at the old man. He’s looking up at the road and he, too, looks like he has to peek over the top of his steering wheel. His head – visualize this – because his cheeks and mouth are sunken, he looks like the head hanging from the mirror. I wonder if it’s a relative. His head is tilted a little away from me and his eyelids, which are thin as chicken skin, droop low, like he’s about to drift into sleep. I figure it wouldn’t hurt if I could get him talking.
“You live around he’ah?” I say, slipping into my own Vermont accent, which constant immersion at Harwich has nearly eliminated from my speaking as a river polishes smooth great boulders.
“Got a fahm up side the mountain,” he replies. I notice his eyelids don’t rise any with his effort at speaking. Nor does he add any more information to this brief remark. I need to stir him a bit.
“Dairy fahm?” I ask, hoping I’ll strike on a topic we can discuss.
“Small herd,” he says, and leaves it at that. I decide I can be terse, too.
“Holsteins?”
He nods. Man, this isn’t getting far. I push ahead, though.
“Same’s us,” I say. Then I look straight ahead into the blackness that’s barely illuminated by the feeble, old headlights of the Cadillac. I’m not going to push this old guy. Maybe he just doesn’t like to talk.
It is a full minute later or more when he clears his throat.
“Used to have Gurnseys,” he says. “A bit skimpy on th’ milk, though.”
Just like fishing, I think. Got to give them some bait before they’ll bite. Now the old guy starts talking about his farm, about the hard work keeping it going. He talks about the two sons who moved away and won’t help with the cattle or the fields, despite his wish for them to take over the farm.
I think about how happy I’d be if Mom and Dad came to me to ask if I’d want to run the farm. They know how I’d answer. I’ve never kept it a secret from them that I plan to be a dairyman. I can’t imagine why the old guy’s sons wouldn’t want his farm, unless it is one of those ragged pieces of land, all stone and mud, with the boards on the side of the barn rotted from the ground up and a herd of scrawny, filthy cows who’ve never been tended in their lives. I glance at the old guy and can imagine him having just such a farm. I wouldn’t want it either.
He’s rambling on with his life’s story, and there’s no one else on the road and except for his scratchy voice, it’s quiet in the car. Suddenly from the back seat there’s a yawn and then a voice.
“Gramps, you talkin’ to yourself or what?” I look around, surprised to say the least, and see a small girl sitting up, rubbing her eyes. When her little fists separate and she opens her eyes, she gasps at the sight of me. Moving up behind the old guy’s headrest, she whispers: “Who’s he?”
“Hitchhiker,” the old guy says.
“Where’s he going?” she whispers again, darting a quick look at me and then away.
“I was just goin’ t’ ask him,” he says and, without looking at me, continues: “We’re tuh’nin off up he’ah just ahead. Yo’ah welcome to come home with us and stay the night. Got plenty ‘a room.”
“No, but thanks anyway,” I say. With the visions of his farm that are already filling my imagination, I don’t want to discover the real thing for myself. “I’ve got to get to Boston tomorrow morning.”
“Suit y’self,” he says. “Just thought I’d offah. We’ah up he’ah on the left.”
The Cadillac rumble’s to a stop just as some high beam headlights from behind ignite the car’s interior. Precisely as we come to a halt, the Caddy rocks with the wind blast from the speeding car. I look ahead quick enough to see what’s racing by – a silver Porsche Carrera.
Cold rivulets of sweat trickle down my armpits as the Porsche’s tail lights disappear up the hill where the highway bends to the right. I start to open the door, the pack still on my lap, when I turn to the old man. “I really want to thank you for the lift,” I say, trying to smile and not noticing that I’m slipping back into my Harwich accent. “Good luck with the farm.”
The Cadillac’s front wheels turn slowly on the gravel and then the big car rolls in an arc across the climbing pavement. On the far side of the highway, it bows down onto a dirt road that heads north from here. I watch its red lights and the dim patch of white where the headlights are barely illuminating the road in front of it as the old guy and the girl slowly make their way into the mountainside woods and, somewhere in the darkness, their farm.
Once the car lights are completely gone, I find myself in utter darkness. Only by tilting my head back and looking straight up can I see anything – the stars, throwing in all futility their insignificant light. They don’t give so much of a glow that I can actually tell where the treetops end and the sky begins except that at a certain angle, I see nothing. I raise my hand before my eyes and cannot see it. Nor can I tell where to step. I finally locate the Big Dipper with its two stars that point to the North Star. I know Route 7 goes east and west, generally, so I know which way should be uphill, or east, my direction of travel. I remember that when we pulled over, I saw a steel guardrail on the side of the road. I need to find that in the darkness, if only to have a place to sit – and to hide if I need to.