BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 32. Leon tells his hitchhiking story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchhiking

June 9, 1968

“So I waits all day...thumb stuck out there...getting a thumb-tan until it turned dark, before that car done finally rolled by, hit da brakes, pulled over to the side of da road. A fancy Ford, ‘63 Impala, with headlights hittin’ the overpass up yonder. An’ loud music as da door swung open. Oh yeah! Music an’ nice warm air from da heater...desert was gettin’ cold again. Anyhow, it was a college kid who done stopped right dare, right in da middle ah nowhere, just t’ pick up ol’ Leon, get his sorry self outta Idaho!”

Sarah smiled appreciatively at the story, and so did Dee, as Leon sat there in their Chicago apartment, 49th and Kimbark, a wide grin on his face. Here he was, finally, all snug and cosy on the sofa, his little boys pressing in close to him. Leon had been delivered from his odyssey to the bosom of his family.

“Yes sir. It was a hitch-hiking miracle. A White, college boy picking up a Black man in the middle a da night! ”

Leon said he had a lot more road stories to tell, but Sarah looked at her watch and announced, “Little ears must go to bed.” As soon as she scooped Jackson up off the couch both twins began protesting.

“I want ma daddy!” cried Jackson, stretching out his arms. His brother John started in as well, “NO, MOMMIE!” Leon reached over and grabbed John, pulling him to his chest with one strong movement as he rose from the sofa. Mother and father together carried the children down the hall to bed. When the adults were settled back in the living room, Leon shared one more story, about the ride he got from a Black, ex-track star and his attractive wife, somewhere outside of Wyoming.

“When the driver, Elmer, said he was heading to Chicago for a factory job, I knew I’d see your purty face soon!” Leon told Sarah, enjoying his wife’s lovely presence, with Dee also being attentive.

“Yessir, that’s what I tole Elmer. Ah said, That’s where I’m headed too. Got me a might fine wife and twin boys there! An’ I offered $10 for the gas...ta make sure he wouldn’t just toss me back out again!” Sarah laughed at Leon’s earnestness. Then Dee broke in to excuse herself.

“Got an early call at the shop. You young people have a good time catching up, you hear? See you tomorrow, Leon. Glad you made it here safely. Good night.”

“Good night, Dee,” said Leon. “And thanks for helping with ma family here.”

The door closed to the back room and Leon had Sarah all to himself for the first time in many years. “Want to hear more about the athlete and his wife?” he asked, more tentatively than usual, not wanting to overdo it. Sarah nodded and, reaching over to a nearby shelf, picked up her notebook and pen. She flipped through the pages, to about the half-way point, then made herself comfortable again on the couch. Leon watched as his wife carefully wrote a title in capital letters and neatly underlined it with two thin lines. Years later, on one of his visits home from Brown University, Jackson Little, age 21, would read the entry in his mother’s journal:

LEON LITTLE’S 1968 HITCHHIKE STORY

Here’s what your Daddy Leon told me about being picked up by a young Black couple around Wyoming when he hitchhiked to see us when you were almost 7 years old. He told me this on the first night he arrived, after he and I had carried you boys to bed, around 9:30PM, June 9, 1968.

The young Black man and his wife stopped their car (a light blue 1958 Plymouth with the big fins, he said) and let your Daddy get into the back seat. He had been standing out in the cold for a long time. He was freezing even in his coat that afternoon and he was happy to be in their warm car. As they drove off, the young man at the wheel starts talking about himself. He says at 18 years old he was a champion runner in his high school. He sprinted the hundred yard dash in less than ten seconds. (He was 20 now, said Leon). Anyway, his wife sitting in the front seat didn’t talk much yet, just watched the scenery go by.

And so the young man goes on to tell a story. He says that a very bad thing happened to him one day when he was running near a lake. He was practicing his fast running when a dog snuck up on him, ran up silently and bit his right leg from behind. Because the bad dog bit deep into his muscle, right below the knee, the man couldn’t run fast anymore. And that made him feel real bad.

The man said that when he and his wife had driven through Flagstaff, Arizona, he had felt very sad all over again, because the Olympic team was there to practice their running. And that reminded him that he could have been one of them, gone to the Olympics and maybe won a medal. You see, Jackson and John, any 18-year-old person in high school who can run a hundred-yard dash inlessthantensecondsisoneofthefastestpeopleonearth. Sohewasavery special young man.

Anyway the runner told Daddy he was very sad. He couldn’t go to the Olympics. And he couldn’t win a big gold medal. With a medal he said he could of had his picture on a Wheaties box, or been seen on TV, maybe advertising CocaCola, getting paid lots of money for that and other things. But the dog had ruined his plans. So now he was driving to Chicago, Illinois (where we live) to get a job in a factory. He would have to do a lot of hard work now because of that dog. Your Daddy said this sad man’s wife seemed almost in tears.

After hearing the man’s story about bad luck, your Daddie said some words that surprised both the husband and the wife.

“I think you’re a lucky man,” your Daddie told him.
“WHAT?” the runner said back.
Leon said the car swerved a little when that young man turned his head

suddenly around to look at him in the back seat. Daddy said the man’s wife then turned around too and looked real surprised. You see, she thought the dog bite had been the most terrible thing that had ever happened to her husband...to both of them. She thought that dog had killed all their plans for happiness. Your Daddy said that she quickly brushed her face with her hand to clear the tears, and stared at him.

The driver again asked your Daddy to explain why he thought a terrible thing could possibly be a good thing.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”
Daddy repeated, “I said what happened to you with the dog was a lucky thing.”
Daddy said the driver looked very serious then, and that Daddy could tell by the look on the face of the wife that she was praying he had a good answer for her husband, and that he wasn’t just pretending or fooling around. You see, children, that man and his wife had both been very sad for a very long time about the dog bite on his leg. They waited for Leon to say more, explain his way of thinking, convince them he knew something that they didn’t. And Daddy said he didn’t answer right away. He had to think about what he had just blurted out, put his feeling into words before talking. Finally he spoke up.

“That dog bite saved you twenty years of your life,”

Daddy told me how he’d been thinking about his own life during the many hours of standing besides many different roads hitchhiking, finally realizing how bad things like when he fell off a roof once had helped him learn something new about himself. And that learning was good.

“WHAT’S THAT?” The man swerved the car again, to answeryour Daddy in the back seat.

Daddy said the guy was getting more mad. The man’s wife (who was very pretty, nice brown hair and a bright smile, Daddy said) paid a lot of attention to the conversation. Leon had to talk a lot to convince those folks he was right...right about the man having luck where all he saw was misfortune.

I’ll list all the things Daddy had to say, and put a little number next to each one (he said all this to the Black man, who was a tall, thin, handsome fellow, with hollow cheeks, a large nose and big ears, and real long legs too):

(1) All athletes slow down some day. No one can run fast forever.

(2) Surely by 40 years old his running career would have ended. He would have had to admit defeat then and move on to something else. And that...the end of his running career...would have been hard to face.

(3) But instead, he had to stop running at 18 years old, because of that bad dog.

(4) That made him suddenly think about his life a lot. Lots of serious thinking.

(5) So at 20 he’d had to learn all the things he would have learned later...at 40.

(6) That’s why he’d been a lucky man.

(7) He’d saved 20 years.

Your Daddy said that no one spoke right away after he finished. The people in the car sat silently as several miles of road went flying by. When the driver had to pee a few miles later he stopped the car, got out and ran across the four lanes of highway to get to the service station on the other side. As that tall, young man ran, even with a bad leg, he was so graceful and fast, said Daddy, that he seemed to be floating along through the air like a gazelle (that’s a very quick- footed animal, like a deer). As the man disappeared into the service station, his wife turned around to your Daddy in the back seat. Tears were falling down her cheeks. She smiled and just said, “Thank you.”

You see, Jackson and John, your Daddy, Leon Little, brought the spirit of hope back to that poor, sad, young running man and his wife, gave him some happiness with just a few good words. I hope you will do that for folks, yourselves, when you are all grown up, big men living in the world.

At the bottom of the page, Jackson read a short note his mother had written. It was about the death of Bobby Kennedy:

And poor Bobby Kennedy died in the kitchen of a hotel in Los Angeles last week, shot just like his brother was, by a maniac. Two boys dead after they became men. Please dear Lord, keep mine safe.

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