Justice

"Excuse me, could you leave your bag by the tables?" requested the clean shaven manager of the Love's where I found myself. "No offense," he added.

"No problem," I responded charitably. Travelers were typically assumed thieves until proven otherwise. I chose not to steal not from fear of God or Karma or getting caught, but because if I stole I justified all the prejudice against me. Regarded with an immoral disposition, I held myself to a greater ethical standard now than when I was still a yuppie. Besides, walking into the Love's I noticed a swarm of upper-management looking types with shit in their eyes as they stared at my pariah existence. I assumed this one only aspired to look good in front of them. I wouldn't hold it against him. I was in far too good a mood.

Place to place, gratitude dominated my obstacles. My day started by taking a fat shit underneath the overpass in true homebum glory. To my credit it was my sphincter's decision and my only say was whether it'd go on the ground or my only shorts. After ruining a pair of pants in Portland a month ago, I'd never choose wrongly in that regard again. This may not sound like the best way to start the morning, and it certainly threw my mood off balance, compounded by the sight of another broke traveler using my on-ramp and the fact that the men's bathroom lacked any toilet paper. But maybe these little frustrations arrived to remind me to count my blessings each morning and take nothing for granted. Besides, my spirit was impervious and I retained an awareness of it. I knew I'd find a way. That bum could be a reason to feel sorry for myself, or a provider of no other option than to open my mouth for a ride at the truckstop. Though I faced some initial rejection it took little time for an elderly man to approach me and ask if I needed a ride. In the car we got to talking and it turned out he was an ex-hitchhiker, traveling to California as a kid only to discover he had itchy feet. He traversed the country twenty five times before he settled down again. Things were different back then, he told me.

"At the very least, there were plenty of queers. One of them would pick you up and I never cared so long as they didn't try nothing on me," he joked. "But you show me somebody who's been on the road a while and says they never let a guy suck their dick for a few dollars and I'll show you a liar."

Ahead of schedule for his work in Conway, he took me to a quiet lake occupied by a couple old fishermen out in their little, wood motor boat and we had a couple beers, sharing stories of our travels and a few good laughs. He dropped me off at what he said was a good on-ramp in Conway. A few minutes later a middle-aged woman picked me up saying it was a terrible on ramp and dropping me off at the Loves where I'd be asked to leave my bag at the tables. I bought a beer, slammed it under the overpass, confronted a black widow spider as big as my thumb and headed to the on-ramp where I got picked up by the same clean shaven manager that told me to leave my bag at the door. Now off work, his tattoos stuck out from his rolled up sleeves and an open beer sat in his lap.

"Fucking cocksuckers," he grumbled a couple miles down the road. "This week I've worked two tens, two thirteens and then six today. And today was supposed to be my day off!"

He apologized for being suspicious of me and let me drink the bottom half of his beer. I told him I understood leeriness toward travelers and fed him some bullshit that I preferred to work rather than panhandle and didn't like causing trouble with the management at the truck stops I depended on.

"Yeah like that fucker earlier, sittin' right outside the door with a dog and an empty gas jug, drunk off his ass," he complained. As we rolled into the next truck stop and I tossed the beer, I couldn't help but notice a traveler sitting outside with a dog and a gas jug.

"How's it going brother?" he called out to me. Covered in tattoos with a half pit, half rotweiler at his side he greeted me with a smiled plastered in drunk charisma and explained how he got a ride in a van but the driver couldn't afford gas.

"Excuse me ma'am could you help me out with some gas? I don't need money just gas. That's okay God Bless," he solicited as various people passed us by. "Yep, tonight we're eatin' T-Bone steaks this thick." He held his finger and thumb nearly three inches from each other. He mentioned having three fifths of booze and told me his dog trained for eight months to be an attack dog. Attempting to help me with a ride, he introduced me to his driver, a stout sixty-one year old Navy Veteran named George who trembled from diabetes induced shakes as he shook my hand. He denied me a ride and I left for the on-ramp. His van passed by a few minutes later, presumably kicked and headed for the truck stop across the overpass. It began to sprinkle rain drops. I prayed for a ride before the rain picked up too heavily. Maybe I should have tried to get a ride from George harder, I thought. But faith was my guide, acceptance my reins. Desperation gave me nothing.

Moments later, George's van flew back across the overpass and barreled for the on-ramp. His breaks squealed and his passenger window rolled down. "Quick, get in!" he commanded. I asked where the man and his dog were.

"God I couldn't take it! He was drinking and stealing too much! He stole these steaks right out of a freezer truck!"

The steak turned out to be brisket, not T-Bone, but regardless we cooked it at the next rest stop then drove another thirty miles to a different rest stop at my suggestion after George informed me his previous rider possessed a thirty-thousand dollar katana, just got out of prison after serving twenty five years and George forgot to give him one of his bottles of rum back. Being five years sober, George intended to toss it. "Unless you want it," he added. Slyly, I stuck it in my bag. He had a little weed and we did our best to stretch it over the two days I spent with him. I listened to his stories but mostly listened to him justifying to himself all the reasons his last rider had to go.

Having suffered the loss of his best friend three weeks prior and turned away by his dying brother he traveled clear across country to see, George had little left to live for. Diabetic quivers disabling him from work, his prospects also appeared hopeless. He told me about his time in the war, his time on a shrimp boat and his religious experience during the '99 San Francisco earthquake; about how he'd seen a ghost and fucked up with alcohol all life's youthful opportunity. He reminded me of one of the many Forest Gumps that may be living out of a van trekking the country. When I sat down to write, he often asked me if I wrote about him. "Not yet," I responded, I realized then his despairing grasp for significance in a world that brushed him aside. I wondered how many more were like him, on the steep downhill slope of a seemingly inconsequential life, challenging God to reveal the purpose in it, give them some meaning so they can close their eyes for the final time in peace.

My heart quivered for him worse than his diabetic tremors. I searched for the right words to explain to him that all God wanted from his was a thankful heart and a pair of eyes willing to witness for God everything God conspires to experience. I filled his gas tank, bought him a quart of oil, a pack of cigarettes and thirty bucks worth of food then we parted ways. I failed to imagine his loneliness, and I feared it. Imagine crawling out of a bottle at fifty-six years with a family that won't talk to you and not a drop of love to be found anywhere. I hoped my kindness could fuel him forward like the clerk did for me at the Shell station outside West Memphis. In the end, I accepted that I did what I could. He had to find the path himself.

Meanwhile, blessings continued to rain upon me. Someone gave me forty five dollars and an elderly couple named Scott and Rose housed me up for a couple days near Hinton, Oklahoma. Rose was a kind old woman but her scowl one evening revealed she didn't care too much for me. Perhaps inadvertently I enabled Scott's underhanded cruelty toward her. Scott used to work on the oil rigs and apparently taught Larry Byrd everything he knows. After admitting I was a Laker's fan he proceeded to show me a special on Larry Byrd's fifty best plays. It stunned me, and as teammates commentated on his confidence I wondered if I saw manifestation in action. I found him inspiring, not in skill but in an attitude I envied and aspired to replicate. Scott shared some pot with me, attempted to buy my pipe and talked about how Obama was a muslim, communist, nigerian prince or some shit. He carried a dry, humorous disposition wherein he could offer you something and insult you at the same time. Refusing to learn my name he accused me of being deaf when I didn't answer to the random names he called me by. At night he'd drink whiskey and coke and drivel on about something before forgetting what he wanted to say next. He attempted to tell me how mature I was for my age and I humbly laughed at his compliments to which accused me of thinking he was crazy and laughing at him.

We watched Tombstone together and he ruined Val Kilmer's performance by preempting his lines to display his familiarity with the film. At some point one of the characters used the phrase, "I don't have the words," to express their gratitude to Wyatt Earp and I used the same phrase when Rose and Scott dropped me off to continue my journey. They gave me a coat with a nametag that read "Ray," and sent me on my way. I wondered if this Ray was the son Scott mentioned one night when some outside noises gave him cause to grab a rifle and peak out the window. Apparently his son got caught stealing meth and fled the state. I wondered if his son's predicament moved him to help travelers the way he did. Perhaps something in him believed if he helped travelers his son would receive help, too, wherever in the world he was. Or perhaps Scott simply carried some sympathy. Only those who knew how hard life could be seemed moved to help me, after all. Only experience appeared to surface the kindness through a sea of fear and indifference. Of all the fools hanging crosses from their rear-views, the ones possessing real faith glimmered like stars in a void.  Incomparably tiny beside the emptiness that surrounds them, but bright enough to be the only significance perceivable. Even as Oklahoma's frigid wind and rain numbed my legs and frosted my bones I remained supported by nearly invisible strings of compassion and blanketed by a fire that sweeps across my spirit like California wilderness in August. While fear and callousness dominates the majority, evil vastly outweighing good, compassion strikes the darkness like a star born to vacuum. The actions of the righteous, no matter how few, prove profoundly necessary. One clerk arguing on my behalf while the other four want to kick me out keeps me warm in a truck stop rather than out in the cold and free of prospect.

If anything, the road taught me the necessity for good people to act. Even if they act alone they still save lives. And good is not defined by whatever symbol hangs from your rear-view or which building you visit weekly. It is not defined by your political affiliation or the width of your smile. Good receives no material gratification nor celestial pats on the back. It is not the donations you give, it is the sacrifices you make. It is not the number of years you've supported your loved ones but the warmth of your hugs and kisses for them. It is not the heat you can provide someone's skin, it is the heat you can provide their heart.  Beneath the harshest winter, the invincible summer beams from within us all but so few notice that every angel weeps for our poor planet. And with doubt plaguing me always, each fear harder to surpass than the last, I wonder if I can make any difference at all. But I know I already have, with every act of kindness as meaningful as the nails that pierced Christ's wrists. The world cannot tolerate my doubt. If any Samaritan I'd come across chose to be indifferent rather than compassionate, I'd have been a goner. That is the importance of kindness, my very life depended on it. And if my life depended on the kindness of others, surely the world depended on the kindness of me.