Escape from LA

(2018. This is one of the first hitchhiking stories I ever wrote, back when I was 19. Please forgive how juvenile it is; I’m sure that what I’m writing now in 2022 will look juvenile to me in 2026, but it’s still worth sharing.)

Escape From LA

When you’re two-thirds of the way through something, you sometimes get overconfident. Halfways are hard lines, but once you’ve taken some significant steps into the world of mostly, the world of rounding up instead of down, and the imaginary mean disappears below the hills of the horizon behind and the only absolute left is the end ahead, then it becomes quite easy to feel emboldened in erroneous certainty. With situations like these, both large and small, it is often impossible to tell whether your eyes are glued to the approaching horizon by faith, stupidity, or the subtle calculus of someone who doesn’t really mind failure as long as the suffering won’t be fatal. With me, it’s usually a mix of all three. 

I had been on the road for over five weeks; I had zigzagged across the north half of the country; I had surfed the asphalt of the Pacific Coast from Seattle to Los Angeles; now it was time to cross the American South heading east, a direction I did not yet have a romantic idea of in my mind. I had two weeks to make it through the whole blazing South and see all the wild shit I could find before swinging up to Eastern Tennessee and my celestial destiny, the Great American Eclipse. But first, I had to escape LA.

My aunt warned me that escaping greater Los Angeles as a hitchhiker would be awful through the urban sprawl, with its absurd suburbs and malls. Mollifying, I assured her that I was damn good at this, that I kept getting better and better. My friend Blake went to school near Phoenix for audio engineering, and I’d stay with him. The trip was projected to take a little over six hours long, driving, which of course meant much longer hitching, but I was confident that once I burst out past the bullshit I’d bag one long ride through the whole Sonoran Desert, since almost every eastbound car would be shooting straight across to Phoenix after a certain point. I would just need to get that ride before sundown. Of course, on my way down Northern California I had faced another supposedly six hour journey straight down 101 to San Francisco with similar confidence in the singular destination of the traffic, believing in That One Ride, and you all know how that turned out. But that was then, and this was now, and I’ve made longer journeys in a day. As long as I wake up early, I can ride the waves of the day’s traffic anywhere.

So I woke up early. My aunt dropped me off in West Covina a little ways down I-10 to give me a head start away from LA itself. It was the second ramp area we tried, and I deemed it suitable. She stayed put while I scavenged for cardboard; the Mobil we parked at “didn’t have any,” so I went next door to a small chain called Tacos El Gavilan. They weren’t open yet, but I loitered outside the window looking cute and inquiring until an employee came out and leaned against the half-open door. He had some fly long dreads and was chewing gum. I asked for cardboard, which he apprehensively denied, but I sustained the conversation long enough to get through. 

“So, like really hitchhiking? With your thumb out n shit?” He stuck his thumb out, and leaned his head while widening his eyes.

“Yeahahaha, exactly, well except usually with like a cardboard sign you know, not just thumb, but like writing where I’m goin n shit.” I mimed scribble-writing in the air, flourishing on the last word.

“Fuckin wiiiiiild,” he laughed. “Lemme look what I can do.” He went back inside and disappeared for a moment, returning with a pizza box. I have no idea why a taco place had a pizza box. It made me think of the Pizza Delivery episode of Spongebob. Classic. “This cool? Lil cheese stain,” he said, offering.

“PERFECT yes thanks! That’s real as fuck man.”

“No problem brotha, just don’t do nothin headass, aight?”

“I mean I’ll try,” I slowly smiled.

“Aight.” He closed the door chuckling, shaking his head. 

I will, I thought, floating away with that soft feeling of easy human connection. People can be so real. I returned to my aunt’s car to cut and write my sign. We were gonna miss each other. After hugging, she took a picture of me with my backpack and sign and thumb— I think it’s the only picture of me about to hitch that exists, besides a few hilarious selfies. I actually don’t hate it.

She left and I assumed my post at the I-10 East entrance, at the back end of a concrete barrier curve where people could see me while slowing down or stopping before their right turn. I felt good. On the road, the only worry is time, and even that resets every day. There were so many free hours ahead of me that I didn’t even know the exact amount, and that’s a great time to be— when finite masquerades as infinite. A San Salvadoran father picked me up. His English was pretty good, he had immigrated here 9 years ago, and he was heading home to his daughter. The tender way he talked about her told me that she was a lucky little girl.

He dropped me off in Fontana. I didn’t like the looks of the freeway entrance there, so I walked several blocks towards another entrance. While walking, I got a phone call from my dad who attempted again to get me to give up and fly home. He was angry, and entirely unreasonable. After a few minutes of holding the phone slightly away from my ear while he ranted about how the entire South was a ‘shithole,’ I interrupted. “Dad dad dad dad, I have to go dad.” 

“Don’t you dare don’t you f—” 

“Dad I’m sorry, I’ll be safe but I need to keep moving” 

“—ULCER and if I fucking die it’s on YOU” 

“That’s not my fault dad you’re doing this to yourself” 

“FUCK! YOU!” 

“I love you.” I quickly hung up, pressing the little red circle while some more noise escaped the phone. I hated being rude and hanging up without permission, and I felt bad that he was hurting, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought of Dylan— oh, the times they are a-changin’. Sometimes, the young have to walk over the old if that’s the right way to walk. But that doesn’t mean we can’t empathize with those souls stuck between concrete and our boots. My heart ached purple for the rest of the walk, about half an hour. 

After refilling my water bottle at an Arco, I walked up Citrus Street onto the overpass and found my spot. It was a luxuriously wide on ramp with a butt-ton of shoulder space, although I annoyingly had to stay in front of the ‘pedestrians prohibited’ sign. The busy overpass had stoplights ensuring that I would receive measured waves of previously-stopped cars. Eventually I got the rhythm of the waves down, and I scanned the windshields of each upcoming wave with a congenial face, letting the eyes inside get acclimated to me. Time went by, enough time for my enthusiasm to wear thin and for my smile to get less heartfelt. No rides. A car did pull over down the ramp, then revved away as I was running closer, just to be mean. I don’t know why someone would want to do that. A truck stopped too, apparently a trucker who just didn’t get the deal, because after a confusing conversation he pulled away. It was afternoon now, and my confidence was slightly setting.

During this whole time, my train-lust went wild. You see, there were train tracks to my left down on the ground, and there happened to be a big trainyard just east of where I was. A Union-Pacific train pulled in while I was waiting. It stopped for a long time, and occasionally shuffled back and forth slowly, but it had originally come in from the east. I bet it was gonna keep going east. I was going east. Everything I’d researched and learned about trainhopping kept running through my head as I kept glancing back at the train during lulls in traffic. The engine is so far down. Would they see me? Would car people see me? Would they care? Oh, I could absoluuuutely be safe under the lip of that gondola. Should I?! Nooooo… Should I? I wanted to hop on so so badly. I’d been romanticizing it for weeks. But no, I had to get to Blake, and hitching was way faster and more reliable. I knew what I was doing with hitching; I’d wait to trainhop for the first time with someone experienced, like I’d planned. As that train pulled away for good, I felt a twinge of relieved regret.

Of course, I eventually got a ride. You always eventually get a ride. Two middle aged dudes picked me up. They gave me a beer on the ride, which was cool, just another little human kindness. They brought me to Loma Linda, south of San Bernardino, a little past the intersection of the 10 and the 215. I tried hitching from there, but quickly decided I’d be better off going east about a mile along Redlands Boulevard to another on-ramp, one promising to be bigger and more trafficked due to its proximity to a massive area of consumer shit. I alternatingly ran and walked, knowing I was losing time. When I arrived, I decided I needed to eat and got some In-n-Out, figuring that I would soon leave its reach. Eating quickly, I saved most of the fries to use as a gimmick. The new freeway entrance was long and big and straight, but it was one prong of a massive concrete area which was hostile to anyone without aluminum armor. Near the corner of the shoulder, I held my sign out with one hand and offered my paper boat of fries with another, in a gesture of good will. I thought it was kind of cute. A few drivers smiled, but not as many as I expected. A homeless man diagonally across from me might have colored their perception, priming them to dismiss sign-holders as a blind spot. I put the sign down and went instead with a thumb-and-fries approach, eating a few more. After a longer time than I’d have liked, I got picked up by a couple who had once been vagabonds themselves. They told me that hitchers ought to be heading north, since it was summer, and that I was missing out on “the party.” I think they were a bit more on the scummy side back in the day, the heroiny side, but now they were in their late twenties and they had a baby boy, so they had cleaned up their act. I had nothing but respect for them, and I was thankful. But boy, did they take a long time running errands. They spent about 30 minutes just in a skateboard shop in Redlands, then another 30 on groceries. I didn’t complain— after all, they were doing me a favor— but I was getting a bit antsy about the time. They were headed to Joshua Tree National Park, which sounded incredible based on their descriptions. They dropped me at a gas station area with a Pilot truck stop off the highway in North Palm Springs, and I thanked them. It was 6.

I wasted some time because there were two on ramps too far apart from each other, and I went for the one behind the Pilot first hoping to lasso a truck. But it was late for many trucks to be leaving here headed east, and the traffic was sparse to nothing. So, I went to the normal onramp off the main road, North Indian Canyon Drive. There was alright traffic here, not constant but steady, a car every minute or so. I looked as cheerful as possible. I knew that here was where I’d find That Ride. It was four hours to Phoenix, to an air mattress, to my friend. But time passed, and the trickle of cars trickled more intermittently. It got to be 7. I started really worrying. 

Now, you should understand that this was not a nice place. This wasn’t your Oprah Palm Springs; this was a lifeless place that had popped up because a highway popped up. The curving freeway entrance bounded an otherwise heartless wasteland of pebbles, broken bottles, garbage, and dry earth of the ugliest sickliest beige. Next to that was a Del Taco. I was absolutely not sleeping here. I guessed that worst case I could pay for a motel nearby, but I really didn’t wanna waste a night in this crappy place, and I didn’t want to shell out $50, knowing that I could only afford to do that a couple more times before getting home. Desperately, I cashed in some of my human capital, some of my pride, and went over to the gas station where families were filling up. I timidly approached a few people and asked politely and sincerely for a ride if they were heading east. Nothing. I returned to my post, and kept trying to smile at drivers, trying to swallow my increasing sense of desolation. It was now 7:45, and even the late desert sun was starting to set. I tried to enjoy the sunset, and I did because sunsets are beautiful, and this one was especially so, deeply orange and wide and wavy over the arid horizon. But the beauty was a sad swan song, my clock running out. The air felt hollow, the light was dimming, and my throat felt like it was closing. I despaired. I despaired to a depth that middle class American white boys rarely reach. This was real. I was in an unfriendly wasteland, darkness was now minutes away, and I was alone. I kept my thumb out as the sky darkened.

A white pickup pulled over. Deliverance! Religious ecstasy! Smiling like a simpleton, I ran to the window. The five seats of the cab were packed tight with a Mexican family, and the father said he could bring me to Phoenix if I didn’t mind lying down in the truckbed without poking my head up, because of course it was illegal. I didn’t even need to think. “Yes absolutely oh thank you so much sir, muchas muchas gracias, bless you, really!” He waved his right hand, and I moved to get in the back, but not before one of his daughters yelped. She handed me a blanket out the window, a fluffy thick blanket! God! I could have wept! Gratitude drenched me, like a cold shower that makes you laugh at yourself. I got in the back and laid down on my side atop the blanket, bracing my feet against the left side wall and my back against an enormous industrial size rubber tire. I put my thumb up, and we took off. He drove over the speed limit, but it was a straight line and he had his children on board as well as an illegal passenger, so I felt confident in this kind stranger’s driving. The old me would have never done anything like this, I realized, but I was damn glad I wasn’t him. After a few minutes of rushing adrenaline, I settled into a strange feeling of exhilarated safety. I was gonna see Blake by midnight, safe and sound! I’d escaped LA! I must have cackled like a maniac a half dozen times during those four hours of rushing at 85 mph in a safe straight line across the desert, carried by family.

Night fell. There were pretty decent stars despite some fog. The great Sonoran Desert flew by me and underneath me, and the warm night sky rushed over between myself and the midnight of space. As orange light after orange light fell away, the velvet air enveloped me like a soft blanket. It was a loving embrace.