Eric Dimbleby - White Out

Fuckin’ righteous.

I count a string of three cars; one motherfucker, two motherfuckers, three motherfuckers that just missed getting all wrapped up in my world. There’s a blue Dodge caravan, a rusted out Cadillac, and a fancy lookin’ four-wheel drive Jeep. In the opposite direction, one car shoots by. It looks like it’s a mile or two away from totally shitting the bed. Probably belongs to somebody who lives on the bad side of the tracks and can’t afford to fix it.

In the same direction the three previous cars went, two more come rip-roarin’ down the road. One of them is a slick looking ride; a white Camaro with a vanity plate that I can’t catch with my eye because he’s burnin’ ass like a real tough guy. The next one is brand new and looks like it just pulled off the car lot. I don’t recognize the model, but it looks Japanese… the headlights are slanted.

Zing.

That there is one of my things. Every now and then, I’ll zing you, just so you don’t get sleepy on me. Look out for the zing , ya hear?

Another car comes by, haulin’ ass. Yep, the jury is in on which way I’m prancing my handsome ass next—towards the nicer cars, away from the shit boxes.

I listen to the click of my leather boots as I get movin’ again. They’re nice boots, probably the best I’ve ever had. Found these boots in a house a few towns over. They were some old folks, didn’t even have to be quiet when I climbed through the window. They didn’t hear me for nothin’. I probably could have walked right behind them, shouted boo , and they wouldn’t have blinked. Nothing like robbing old folks. They’re easy to spot; just look for cars in the driveway that look like they are driven once a week. Big, wide cars that look brandy-spankin’-new.

The boots were a bonus prize. I was only looking for some warm grub and I found a whole lot more.

Old fellow keeled over right off the bat. Didn’t even have to pull out my steel and show it to him like I usually do when somebody catches me in their crib. He was wearing this funny hat, looked a bit like a golfing hat of some sort, with a big pom-pom on top. Maybe it was some sort of kinky old fogey sex parade I walked in on, or maybe he just dressed like an asshole every dang day. Probably figured he was well retired, wringing his wrinkly ol’ hands while he watched television, thinking he had it all figured out.

Fuck that noise. He settled in and settled up , but he didn’t look like he deserved it just yet.

Mister-Wizard-lookin’ dude didn’t see me coming into his life. Remember that show? With the fella always making experiments in his garage? Then he’d bring the kids in and show them his experiments. I bet that wasn’t all he showed them ( ZING! ), if you know what I mean. Anyway, this old fellow—the one I stole the boots from—was wearing this dark blue sweater with a weird triangle shapes on it, kind of like something Mr. Wizard would have worn.

Holy shit, I thought. Did I kill Mr. Wizard when I tapped him on the shoulder? He looked dead. I’m not sure he actually died (who dies from getting tapped on the shoulder anyway?) but he wasn’t looking too hot when I moseyed on out the front door wearing his tan leather boots, a clippin’ and a cloppin’ up and down the street.

I bet you’re wondering about his old lady, aren’t you?

A gentleman never tells, and I’ll leave it at that. Zing.

I said that I’ll leave it at that, ya’ hear?

A fella like me says something borderin’ on mysterious like that, and your brain gets to churning real fast, don’t it? Well, let me tell you this… whatever it is you’re picturing inside your sick little head, it was a whole lot worse than that. Not the kind of thing I’d ever tell my Mama about, God rest her precious soul.

All I can rightly say is this: DAMN, THESE BOOTS LOOK GOOD ON ME.

Here I am, tossing my thumb out to passing traffic, hoping somebody will pick me up and bring a poor bugger into town, and I can’t stop staring at these kick-ass boots. It’s like they’re a part of me, sort of like I was born wearing them. There’s some saying I heard about tough guys who “died with their boots on,” something that gets bandied about when a man becomes a little bigger than just a man. I hope that I die with my boots on, and I don’t mean a met-a-for (or whatever it is those fancy college-thinkin’ boys call it). I mean that I want to die with my actual boots on. What I mean to say, is that these boots are something special and I plan to be buried in them. I don’t care if anybody comes to my funeral. I don’t really know anybody, anyhow. Mama is dead, Daddy is dead, and my uncle is dead.

Just let me keep my boots and my soul will drift all the way to that brotherly fellow named Jesus H. Christ to the tune of Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. One thing you ought to know about me: Jesus and me are right as rain. We got a special kind of thing going on. I got my boots, I got Jesus, and I got a whole lot of love to give to some lucky lady one of these days. All I want is a warm place to live my days, settling in and settling up , to rest my boots and rub my aching toes (these boots are snazzy as hell… I won’t take them off cause they look so fuckin’ spiffy).

Hey now , I mouth towards a Dodge that is drifting by, appearing and disappearing through the blindin’ snow. Cars look like ghosts when you see them comin’ on quick in strange weather like this. I don’t believe much in ghosts, but I think the human eyeball is a tricky bitch when it wants to be. This car comes by, and the next one will come by, just the same, sneaking up on me, pinching my ass, and running away without offering any help. Selfish.

It’s almost zero goddamned degrees, and nobody wants to help this well-booted man out. Ain’t that a bitch and a half? Maybe they’re intimidated by my boots. Maybe they’re—

This son of a bitch in a brown pickup truck just stopped. Right on.

I lean forward, put on my smiling lips, squinting one eye so that I seem a little bit unsure about what I’m about to get doin’. The guy behind the wheel rolls down his window, spying out at me. He doesn’t say anything at first. Sort of like sharks and snakes, how people always say that they’re just as scared of you as you are of them; that’s what hitchhiking feels like every now and then. I’ve been doing it all my life, and it never gets easier. It’s a crapshoot.

“Afternoon,” says the man, leaning his head out the window. He’s balder than a ten-year-old tire, and his eyes are red and stingy looking. He probably has some ripe weed, or he hasn’t slept in a few days. From the smell that drifts out of the cab of his clean as a whistle truck, I am sure that the smell is can-uh-bis , as them college boys call it. Yep, this guy might be a good bet for a home visit, to see what other kind of goodies he has. “You need a lift?” he asks. All too easy.

“I reckon I’d be much obliged,” I say. They love it when you use old-fashioned words like “obliged” or “reckon,” and it’s a homerun when you mash them together in one sentence I find. Makes them feel like they’re in some sort of freakin’ cowboy movie from the good old days, when everybody was nice to each other, not knowing that it’s a big ol’ lie. They usually don’t realize that people have always been horrible to each other, ever since the first caveman fucked up his neighbor’s pretty face with a dinosaur bone. I say, “Just a lift into town would make my day.”

“Hop in,” he says. This isn’t a typical hitchhiking palaver, not by any stretch. Normally, he’d hem and haw for a few minutes, debatin’ whether he should do it or not, wondering what his friends would say, what his wife would say, bugging out over myths about hitchhikers murdering their drivers. But not this fella. “You hungry?” he asks, as I open the door and slide into the passenger street.