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by Richard S. Crawford

“You won’t remember this,” the hitchhiker said. He delivered the statement with a yawn, as if were old news.

Jack Parker jumped, startled, splashing cold coffee from his travel mug onto his leg. He’d driven this stretch of highway so often that he was on autopilot, letting his mind wander. And between the oppressive central California summer heat — made even worse by the car’s broken air conditioner — and the stop and go rush hour traffic, he’d forgotten about the hitchhiker he’d picked up in San Augustin. He was focused on getting home to Laura, and just relaxing. “Uh. What?”

The hitchhiker smiled and stared out the windshield. “I said, you won’t remember any of this.”

“Any of what?” Jack felt a vague tightening in his chest. It had been building up since he’d let the skinny man, with his unkempt hair and black T-shirt, into his new red Ford pickup truck.

The hitchhiker stared at the shimmering blacktop. “This conversation. Your life. Everything. But it’s okay. I can’t help it.”

Jack tried to remember. He’d picked up the hitchhiker an hour before, hoping for company and good conversation to distract him from the heat. Instead the hitchhiker had talked about —

About what?

Jack’s head pounded. Restaurants. Yes, that was it. The man had settled down in the passenger seat and then started to relate every single meal he’d eaten at every single restaurant in San Augustin over the past three weeks. In detail. With commentary.

But no, he’d talked about more than that. Hadn’t he?

Jack wiped sweat from his forehead. His memory was better than this. Best to bluff, he decided. “Of course I’ll remember it. We’ve been having fascinating conversation, for example.”

“Really? We have?”

“Sure.”

“So what have we been talking about?”

Jack opened his mouth to answer, but still nothing came. He hadn’t paid much attention to the small man. The heat was distracting. “Well,” he hazarded at last, “you told me about how you didn’t have to pay for your dinner when you went to Vito’s.”

The hitchhiker — damn, what was his name again? — shrugged. “See what I mean? It was the Dead Cat Brewery. Not Vito’s. But you’re close. They’re both downtown.”

“Oh.” Jack tried to think of where, exactly, the Dead Cat Brewery was. He drew a blank.

To his left, a white convertible Camaro braked to a stop. Jack glanced over. The driver was a young woman, no more than twenty, very attractive. Blond hair tied into a thick ponytail poked out through the back of her baseball cap. The neckline of her white t-shirt swooped dangerously low, displaying perfect, tanned cleavage. And was there — yes, the hem of her short black skirt was just visible, baring a few inches of smooth, brown thigh.

The woman turned, saw Jack staring at her, and, to his surprise, smiled. He smiled back.

“This traffic sucks,” the woman called over to him. Her voice was nearly lost in the sounds of the traffic.

Jack’s heart jumped. At thirty-seven Jack didn’t think he was old, but he knew his days of being flirted with by attractive young women in sports cars were over. He cleared his throat. “There must be an accident ahead.”

“I heard on the radio that a car flipped over the divider or something.”

“Wow. Hope no one’s hurt.”

“Me too.” Her lane started to move again. She waved at Jack, then pulled forward a few yards.

Jack’s lane was still locked in place. He watched the convertible move, admired the curve of the woman’s shoulder as she lifted up her arm and rested it on the back of the passenger seat.

He shifted uncomfortably; he tended to load up his pants pockets with the detritus of the day: notes, pens, crumpled up change from the coffee shop in his building. Something sharp was poking through the material into his thigh.

“…and a lot of little dogs with bows.”

Again, Jack jumped. What the hell? Who was —

Oh yeah. The hitchhiker. “What?”

“You weren’t listening to me,” the other accused.

“Yeah I was…” Jack sighed. No use pretending. “I mean, no, I wasn’t, not really. Sorry.”

“You were looking at that girl.”

Jack shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I was thinking about what my wife wanted me to bring home for dinner.” He didn’t know why he was defending himself. Laura would throw a fit if she saw him looking at another woman, but she wasn’t here now.

The hitchhiker scoffed. “You’re a liar. But it’s okay. She’s cute, isn’t she?”

The hitchhiker had seen through the lie, of course, but Jack kept it up anyway. “My wife? How would you know?”

“No, dumbass, that girl. I bet she had great tits. I couldn’t see them from here, but I bet you could.”

Jack felt his face go red. “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t looking.”

“You were, I saw you. I didn’t see much of her myself. Was she wearing pants or a skirt? Could you see?”

Jack didn’t answer. The conversation was making him uncomfortable. He tried to concentrate on the road ahead of him, strained to see any flashing lights along the road that could indicate an accident up ahead.

The Garrick exit was less than a quarter mile away, but there were still ten miles between Jack and Snowy Rock. He decided to stop in Garrick and drop the hitchhiker off there; let him find another ride. He flipped on his right blinker and began to look for a opening into the next lane.

The hitchhiker kept yammering on. “She was wearing a skirt, wasn’t she? Was it black? Did she have nice legs? I bet she had great legs. I really wish I could have seen her tits.”

Jack tried to think of who the hitchhiker was talking about. “I wasn’t paying attention,” he said, but he was distracted.

The hitchhiker grinned. “Yes you were. But you’re married, so you pretend that you weren’t, even though Laura’s a bitch.”

“Who?”

The stranger smirked. “Laura. Your wife. She’s a bitch.”

Jack restrained the urge to reach over and punch the man in the face. “How the hell would you know?” He tried not to think of his pounding heart or his sweating palms. He honestly didn’t know if his wife was a bitch or not. She must be a good person, he thought. Or I wouldn’t have married her.

Would I?

“Hey, don’t be pissed. It’s not important.”

“It’s not important that I’m faithful to my wife?”

“You’re already forgetting everything anyway, so you might as well be honest. Besides, I understand. I’m married too.”

“Oh?” Jack tried to sound disinterested. He didn’t want to encourage the man.

“Yeah. That’s why I’m going to Snowy Rock. So I can catch up with my wife. Here, I’ll show you.” He lifted himself off his seat and pulled a worn leather wallet from his back pocket.

The man opened the wallet and removed a photograph which he held in front of Jack. Jack looked; the woman in the photograph was almost painfully beautiful. Long fire-red hair framed a smooth, thin face. She smiled demurely, lips slightly parted, from a leather couch on which she had stretched full length. Her short, almost gossamer-like skirt and her thin peasant-style blouse had separated, revealing an expanse of smooth, white midriff. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old.

Something about the look around her eyes, though, and the way she clenched her right hand, tendons prominent in her wrist, disturbed. She looked ready to reach out through the photograph’s shiny surface and strangle him.

The picture looked staged. She can’t really married to this guy, Jack thought; he probably stole this picture from someone else, or found it on some website.

Jack nodded anyway. “She’s… She’s pretty.” He glanced quickly at the road, then looked back at the picture. Damn. Why couldn’t… Why couldn’t… Why couldn’t his own wife look like that?

“You’d better watch the road.” The man put the photograph back into the wallet, then leaned back and closed his eyes. The woman’s face lingered in Jack’s mind. She had looked familiar to him.

“Hey, you know what you tell a woman with two black eyes?” the man said suddenly.

Jack did not respond. He just wanted this man out of his truck.

“Nothing,” the man said. “You told her twice already.” He began to laugh, a wet, wheezing sound that made Jack cringe.

A opening appeared in the next lane; Jack moved over. The Garrick exit was closer, but it would still take a few minutes to get there.

Jack decided to change the subject. “So. What do you do?”

The hitchhiker smiled. “Right on target.”

“Hey, it’s not small talk. I’m always interested in what people do.”

“We already talked about it.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Yes. You did. Half an hour ago.”

Jack said nothing. This whole experience was creeping him out. He rubbed his face, scratching at a pimple on his left cheek. He looked out the window to his left; a flock of white birds circled lazily over the wetlands preserve.

He was almost at the Garrick exit; he knew that he had to pull off here, but couldn’t remember why.

“I’m a poet.”

The voice startled him; Jack turned and saw a stranger sitting in the passenger seat. He could have sworn he was alone in the car.

Then he remembered: the hitchhiker. “Well. What kind of poetry do you write?”

“What do you mean, what kind of poetry?”

“Oh, um. I mean, lyrical, prose poetry. That sort of thing. I got my English degree at Berkeley.”

“No you didn’t.”

“What?”

“No, you got your degree in Irvine. Remember? It was Laura who got her degree in Berkeley. Laura. Not you.”

“Who?” What the hell was the man talking about?

“Lot of cute girls in Berkeley,” the hitchhiker said. “Do you suppose that girl in the convertible went to Berkeley? She was pretty hot, wasn’t she? I mean, even I could tell, and all I saw was the back of her head.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

The hitchhiker shrugged, still grinning. “Nothing. Never mind.”

Minutes passed. Traffic was creeping along at two, maybe three miles an hour, when it did move at all. Finally, though, there was an opening. Jack flipped the blinker on again.

The hitchhiker glared at him. “Aren’t we going to Snowy Rock?”

“I have an errand to run in Garrick,” Jack replied. “I’ll just be a minute.” But what was the errand? Something for around the house maybe? Or perhaps something for the cats? Yes, that was it. Cat litter.

“What kind of errand?”

“Cat litter,” Jack said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

“Oh. That sucks. Cat litter really stinks.”

“I guess.”

More uncomfortable silence as Jack pulled the car up to the traffic light. The pet store was to the left.

“So what kind of stories do you write?” Jack wanted to keep the man talking, keep him calm. Don’t agitate him.

“I don’t write stories.”

“I thought you said you were a writer.”

“I’m a poet. A poet. I write poems.” The man seemed tired. “And not just any poetry. Good poetry. Really good.”

“Oh. Um. Has any of it been published?”

“Oh, yeah. A few times.”

“Anything I might have heard of?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why don’t you recite some?”

“No. Not now. There’s no need.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

There was the parking lot for Animal Heaven. The brakes of his pickup truck squeaked slightly as he parked in front of the shop. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said.

The man smiled. “I’ll just wait for you.”

Jack got out of the car, and went into the pet store. Cat litter was in the back, past the bird cages and the dog toys. A reek of dust and feathers hung in the air. Half-dead fluorescent lights dimly illuminated the litter and other supplies. He grunted as he hefted up a 50-pound bag of cat litter over his shoulder and made his way to the counter.

The clerk was a very young Asian girl. She blinked as the bag dropped onto the counter. “Wow, you’ve got a lot of cats, huh.”

How many cats did he have? He couldn’t remember. They were always coming and going. He shrugged. “I’ve got enough, I guess. This is the best cat litter.”

“Oh, I know,” the clerk said sagely, punching buttons on the register. She had a pierced eyebrow. What did that feel like? Why would anyone want to do that? Jack fingered his own eyebrow idly and grinned. He supposed that his… wife? boss? Well, someone would definitely not approve.

“Thirty-seven dollars,” the clerk said.

Jack reached to his hip pocket for his wallet; it wasn’t there. “I don’t have my wallet,” he explained. And now he wasn’t sure why he needed it.

The girl shrugged and punched some more keys on the cash register. “That’s okay. I’ll put this back. You have a nice day.”

He nodded, his head feeling like a heavy weight on his neck. He walked away from the counter and the huge bag of cat litter that someone had dumped there, went back into the parking lot.

Where was his car? He felt around in his pocket for the keys he was sure should have been there, but he found nothing.

In front of him, a red Ford pickup truck, so shiny it must have been brand new, rumbled into life. He stared at the car’s owner, a young man with scraggly blond hair and a black T-shirt. He looked familiar. Shouldn’t he know him from somewhere?

The driver leaned out the window of the truck and grinned. “I’m really going to enjoy being you,” he said. “Laura’s great in bed, isn’t she?”

Laura… Who?

“Yeah,” the man continued, staring blankly upward, “that Laura. Still, she’s kind of a bitch. You should have taught her a few lessons.” He shrugged. “Guess it’s up to me now. See ya.”

The truck’s engine revved, and then the truck lurched backward with a crunch. The engine died. “Shit,” the driver said. “God damned stick shift.”

“No one’s going to hurt Laura.”

The driver looked up from the gear shift. “What?”

Jack… My name is Jack. He stood up straighter. He didn’t know who Laura was, but he did know this: “No one is going to hurt my wife.”

The man in the driver’s seat visibly paled. “Oh. It didn’t take, did it?”

Jack took a few steps forward. “Get the hell out of my truck.” He felt his fists clenching. He glanced down, saw the wedding band on his left hand. Yeah. Laura. He was starting to get an image of her now.

The truck door opened and the man started to get out. “Okay. Okay. We’re cool, right? Look, I’m just getting out of here. No harm done, right?”

Jack took another step and took the door handle in his hand. The man turned and started to walk away.

“Hey,” Jack said after him. “What do you tell an asshole with a broken face?”

The man stopped and turned. “Huh?”

It happened before Jack had even thought that hard about it; his arm reached out, fast and hard, almost as if it had a mind of its own. His fist connected with the man’s nose, and he heard a satisfying crunch. Then pain shot through his knuckles.

The man stumbled backwards, bumped against another car, his hands pressed to his face. He cried out. “Bastard!”

Jack grinned. “Nothing,” he said, answering his own question. “You already told him once.”

He climbed into his truck and drove away, grinning to himself. The man still leaned on the other car, glaring after him. Jack flipped him off.

Things came back, quickly. His hand still hurt by the time he took the onramp back to the highway, and he wondered why.

And then the pain didn’t matter; he was distracted by a blond girl in a white Camaro.  She waved, smiling. Jack waved back.

Fiction © Copyright Richard S. Crawford
Original Image by Anja-#pray for ukraine# #helping hands# stop the war from Pixabay

Richard S. Crawford lives in Northern California in an appropriately ancient and drafty house with his wife and five nearly normal cats. He does web development and programming by day, and writes stories by night. His fiction has been published in Shimmer, Pseudopod, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Sci Fi Lampoon, and other venues. You can find out all about him at his website, https://www.underpope.com.