“I don’t know why,” Frieda said, “but I’m restless today.” She moved in the bucket seat, her inside foot close to his on the accelerator. “It must be the weather. Something interesting and out of the ordinary absolutely has to happen.”
“Mmm.”
“Not going anywhere special. Just going! That’s one of the things about hitching. A car stops, you get in, and you never know if it’s going to be nothing or something.”
He delivered another all-purpose grunt. After half a mile more she tried again.
“Times have certainly changed. People have begun to open up, finally, after so many centuries. Freedom! It’s wonderful.” She stretched her arms over her head. “This is a neat car. Can I drive?”
“Of course not,” he said sharply.
The window on his side was closed. She waved at the smoke that drifted in front of her, to leave by her window. She told him she didn’t believe in putting anything down that gave people pleasure, but the one thing that made her feel like throwing up was cigar smoke, and she didn’t want to mess up his nicely maintained automobile. Would he mind letting her out?
It made no difference to him, and he replied to her thanks with another abbreviated grunt.
A man and a woman, with children in the back seat, were the next to stop. Conceivably a schizophrenic could be a rapist by day and a family man by night, but Frieda thought it was unlikely that the two roles would overlap. She told them she was waiting for someone her own age, with a tape deck. A truck driver was next. He gave her breasts, in the tight sweater, more than one look. He started talking at once. Some of what he said was inaudible. She thought for a time that he was talking about women who had let him love them, for his tone was husky and sensual. Actually, she learned, he was telling her about different vehicles he had owned or driven. He was keeping a schedule, watching the time and the odometer, and he didn’t pick up on her hints that she was bored, ready to listen to any reasonable suggestion for getting off the hot highway.
So she left him.
Now she had a half-hour wait, while hundreds of cars boomed past, without slackening speed. She found a spot with a sliver of shade and tied the bright scarf around her forehead. The sun was like brass. Sweat ran down her legs.
A clean-shaven young man pulled over finally, and she felt a quick flicker of apprehension as he opened the door. She had been looking too long at the sundrenched concrete. There was a hot glitter in his eyes. She pulled her scarf free and let it catch in the door as it slammed.
His first remark after rejoining the traffic was: “You can thank Jesus for this.”
“I can? In what way?”
“He told me to pick you up.”
She shifted her shoulder bag to her lap so she could get to her gun quickly. “Why do you think he did that?”
The eyes, a very pale flat blue, red-rimmed, touched her again and slid along her body. He seemed to be disgusted with what he saw. He looked somewhat weatherbeaten, with a radiation of sun wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His arms, emerging from the tight sleeves of a T-shirt, were like twists of bridge cable. In any physical struggle with this man, she would lose.
“Jesus,” he said lovingly. “The wind was in my ears. It was hard to hear all the exact words. I get flashes sometimes. The sky opens. Light blazes up, the breath is knocked out of my body, and I hear the voice. I believe you’ve been waiting to have Jesus Christ the Savior revealed to you.”
“Not consciously.”
“Jesus has his eye on girls on the highway. All the traveling girls — fleeing from something. They are ready for the flash, like Saul on the road to Damascus.”
Seeming to share his excitement, the speedometer needle had continued to climb until it stood straight up.
“Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel it? See the shimmer rising from the roadway. What do you think that is, girl? Heat refractions? It’s the Holy Ghost. Open yourself. You’ll thank me. Consider the way you’re sitting there in the seat. So tense and unwelcoming. Part your knees. Prepare yourself to receive.”
“If you don’t slow down, you’re going to meet your maker quicker than you think. We’re twenty-five over the limit.”
“I live my life over the limit,” he said. “I get away with it because I believe in the power of prayer. Pray with me, all will be well.”
“We might have a better chance of being saved at seventy.”
“Those little details aren’t important. Sin is what matters. It’s sin that leads to hellfire. Thank you, Jesus.”
“I’ve done quite a bit of sinning, I’m afraid.” Her hands were tightly clenched. “It comes over me, and I think, ‘Why not?’ Slow down and tell me what I have to do to change.”
“Love Jesus!” he explained. “Unlock your knees and let the sweetness in. The honey of his love, let it fill you. He died for you. And what do you do for him? Stand at the roadside with the outlines of your body showing through your clothes. Girl, do you realize that your nipples are sticking out? That I can see the very hair on your sweet mount under the tight pants? You drink, you dope, you fornicate, you stay up late picking at that guitar.”
As the pressure grew inside his head, so did the pressure of his foot on the gas pedal.
“I feel it preparing to enter!” he shouted, gripping the wheel. “The truth! I see it. Oh!”
He closed his eyes and reared back. Fortunately they were alone on a straight stretch of concrete, and the seizure passed before their wickedness caught up to them and the ride came to a flaming finish. He blinked and said softly, “Wow.”
To Frieda’s relief, he began to slow down. The car was shaking, as though trying to shed its skin.
“That was far out,” he said. “Real communication that time. A flight of angels, their wings stretched out to us. I felt something delicate brush my face. Did you feel any of it?”
“I was too scared.”
“Scared!” he said, surprised. “Of the angels of Jesus?”
“Or something.”
He laughed, and in a changed voice said, “Turn the mirror and look at yourself. You’re as white as a painted wall.”
“You were going a hundred and five with your eyes closed.”
He went on laughing. “I may have peeked a little. With the off-eye.” His accent had changed slightly and was less rural. “How far are you traveling with me, girl?”
“Not far,” she said grimly. “I haven’t been to church for years, but I’m an Episcopalian and we don’t believe in enthusiasm.”
“But are you happy? Look at those tight thighs. You’re not happy. I’d say you’re about ripe for the kiss of Jesus.”
She gave him a closer look. “You’ve been putting me on.”
“What are you doing hitching without a bra, dummy? Haven’t you heard there’s a rapist prowling the interstate? Now I’m serious! Don’t you listen to the news, or what?”
“I’m into sensory awakening and Hermann Hesse. What can a news broadcaster say to me?”
“I thought that was it. For your information, people have been getting killed lately. How much have you got with you, in the way of cash?”
“I don’t carry money. It distorts the real things. Just a dollar for fruit and milk.”
“A dollar won’t buy you much public transportation.”
They were now moving at a legal speed. He glanced at her, shaking his head.
“Jesus wouldn’t want me to pass on the other side of the road, would you, Jesus?” He looked aloft. “I’m getting off at Pompano, and I really do mean it’s a damn-fool thing for you to be out doing right now, hitching. O.K., chances are that most of it’s propaganda, but it gives people ideas. Like somebody hijacks an airplane in a certain way, and all the copy-cats go to work and do just exactly the same thing. Everybody driving an automobile these days has to be a little cracked.” He hooted sharply. “Except me! And with all these rapists around who dig the sight of a couple of nice tits, you’ve got the only two on the road today, and the guys are going to be bumping fenders to get first crack at you.”