Hitchhiking

The only time I ever hitchhiked,
my thumb attracted the driver
of a sixteen wheeler.
He said he needed
company to stay awake,
been on the road for eighteen hours,
hauling a huge caterpillar
on the back of his rig.

I was headed to my home town
a hundred miles away
to visit friends,
cruise familiar streets,
and dance to rock and roll.

Nodding his head
for me to climb in,
he reached for second gear,
then slumped forward
onto the steering wheel.

Panicked he might be dead,
I shouted and shook
his shoulder fiercely.

In one smooth move, he woke,
stopped the truck and asked,
Do you know how to drive?
I said I’d driven grain trucks on farms.
We exchanged places, and he told me
to double clutch between forward gears.
Then he fell asleep.

When I reached forty miles per hour,
the road looked narrow like a path on the prairies,
and the speed seemed like sixty.

The first town I entered, and the only one
I would pass through with a stoplight,
I tried to slow,
but I didn’t think to double clutch
down through the gears.
Thank goodness it was dinnertime
and few drivers were on the main street.

The next stop was my hometown.
I managed to halt the truck on the outskirts.
The driver awakened and thanked me.
I was still shaking as I climbed out of the truck
and stepped down onto the safety of solid ground.

 

David Hecker, Natural Affinities (Moon Path Press, 2017)