LONG NIGHT IN A GARLIC FIELD

LONG NIGHT IN A GARLIC FIELD(L DOUGLAS ST OURS) LONG NIGHT IN A GARLIC FIELD


It was the last time I hitchhiked coast to coast to visit the Buffalo Child who became the Island Girl.

And I came within a close shaved whisker of ending up a stiff on a slab in a morgue.

She lived on the ocean side of plaid flanked Mount Madonna in a cannery town of a predominantly Asian immigrant community swaddled by vast and glistening strawberry farms.

I was getting nowhere fast thumbing along Highway 101 on a night so dark that the garlic, artichoke, and lettuce fields seemed to merge into the stars of a vacant sky over a land as deep and murky as a scary sea...at least from my haggard road weary east coast perspective. Except for the dust, the road was also like the sky, empty of everything, until a clunky jalopy pickup eerily rattled towards me. Its one dim headlight snaring me as sure as the devil would a sinner.

The driver was a behemoth pot bellied broad shouldered unshaven Chicano. I at first figured him for a field hand, but in the glow of a lit match I could see the cruel stare of an overseer. His swarthy visage sucking in the heat of the cigarette like it was fuel for an awful evil. The filthy cab like the surrounding fields smelled of leaking gas.

I got in and there were no lights on the dashboard as the gears groaned and the brakes screamed as if in pain. Riding shotgun all I could make out was the white trembling tunnel of that lone head beam and that mean silhouette breathing fire and smoke.

He peppered me with questions..."Where are you from?"..."Virginia." I said..."You must carry a lot of bread to come this far." And from there on his line of inquiry kept focusing on my pocket money. I pretended not to understand the implied drift of his bore hole interrogation. Though a sudden vision popped in my head of me lifeless and battered...robbed by a pirate picker on a typically misty morning face down in an irrigation trench...my skull lost among thousands of lettuce heads.

Unexpectedly and without warning he slammed to a stop...claimed he was tired and told me to drive. When we switched positions I kicked a massive wrench onto the pavement...that floor was crammed with tools. He retrieved the wrench and held it across his lap as if he was getting ready to tap it on a drum. I pretended not to notice...but I discreetly kept my door unlatched a jar should I have to leap. It was an iffy clutch but we bounced forward...rolling...and before I could grind it into second gear, I swerved the truck back to the shoulder to pick up a hitchhiker who appeared as if like an angel. Before the big Mexican could react, the unknown traveler had already hopped aboard with his backpack...he crawled over the cluttered bed and leaned against the rear window behind me and the monster who had intended to kill me...with him watching over us the mad as hell Mexican could do nothing but seethe.

Finally I pulled us into an isolated service station...nonchalantly I quipped “this is where I get off”...right then the other hitchhiker climbed off the bed into the relative comfort of the cab. As I attempted to move away from the truck...the big Mexican grabbed my shirt, lifted me off the ground and pinned me against the gas pumps..."wait wait...what do want?...money?"...I must have looked scared...cause he let up as I kicked him hard in the nuts...and then I ran for the hills...no looking back...once again dodging death...traveling hard and a lot cheaper than a fare on Trailways bus.

by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
August 2011