THE DOG BITE

This story wraps up my 1968 hitchhiking saga. Next I'm posting the miraculous tale of getting my "Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices" ms. published at Viking Penguin (1988).

THE DOG BITE 

The last long ride I got during my eight-day round trip hitchhike journey was in the car of a black man and his wife in their mid-twenties. She informed me that they were heading for LA where he had a factory job waiting. After my previous long cold night of hitching, it was a relief to be traveling in the daytime, and it felt great that I might be able to stay in the same car for a while. As the man drove on, giving off a kind of aloofness, his wife struck up a conversation, turning almost completely around to face me in the back seat. She was extremely attractive and easy to talk to, asking where I was going, what it was like hitching, about my kids and family (I skipped the heavy stuff, just explained that I was heading home). The miles flew by, and before I knew it I started seeing signs for Flagstaff. I couldn’t help telling my story of being searched and hassled by a cop there a few days earlier. Just seeing the name of that city on a sign had made me wince. 

After I related my tale of interrogation, hours of walking through town and final paranoia (would I end up in jail for hitching too soon?), the black man at the wheel started telling his own Flagstaff story. He said the place made him think of the track and field athletes who were working out there at that very moment, getting ready for the Olympics. He then explained how he could have been one of them, because he had been the fastest runner in his high school, doing the hundred yard dash in under ten seconds. I told him that, though I’d never been an athlete myself, I knew enough to be tremendously impressed with that fast time. He added that he probably could have made thousands of dollars per year endorsing soft drinks or other products...“If only it hadn’t been for the accident." What accident, I wondered to myself? 

By this point in the conversation, I noticed from the back seat that his formerly gregarious wife was suddenly very quiet and still, almost holding her breath. I could tell by her body language that his story was terribly important to her. I finally asked him what happened, and he continued. 

He said that one day, as he was completing a fast jog around a lake, a large Doberman Pinscher had silently stalked him then attacked, taking a huge bite right out of the back of his left leg. The damaged muscles and tendons were beyond repair, he said. In an instant the good life had been snatched away, and now he would have to pay for it for the rest of his life. I was surprised that he could still drive the car straight on the road, so agitated had he become as he described the incident and its aftermath. He was obviously extremely bitter. Although I couldn’t see her face, I knew his wife must be devastated, living with this man haunted by his unfulfilled dreams. Given the fact that I had just come off about six days of non- stop soul searching, I was a strangely receptive audience for his hard-luck tale. There was no lag time between my gut reaction and my response. 

“That was probably the best thing that could have happened,” I said suddenly and automatically, almost like thinking out loud to myself. My words shattered the quietude of the previous moment, rippled through the car’s interior like a bullet, The car swerved for a second as the driver turned his body to catch a quick glance of me, wondering if he’d heard me right. His wife immediately rotated her head to the rear, a glimmer of hope sparking in her moist eyes. 

“What do you mean,” he said, angrily, wondering if I knew. The sound of the tires spinning on the pavement suddenly seemed more pronounced as his question hung in the air. The seconds counted off as the wife’s beautiful face silently beseeched me – awaiting a crazed hippie in her back seat – to continue my thought, add smart words to those already spoken, elaborate on my odd rationale, pour forth a clear explanation as salve to her husband’s wounds. Believe me, I felt the pressure. 

“You’ve gained an extra 20 years of your life,” I said, believing it. 

“All those other athletes in Flagstaff, your friends, will go through the same readjustment you’re doing now, only at age 40. You’ve been given a special gift.” Then, repeating the corresponding logic, I finished up. “So you’ve saved 20 years.” 

No one spoke for several minutes. The traffic streamed by across the divide as the landscape remained constant, mostly flat except for few small tufts of vegetation peeking up here and there. A few miles later he pulled the car over, across the street from a gas station where he needed to use a bathroom. Without any hesitation he opened his door, got out, closed it and, at the first break in traffic started running. I watched as he stretched out his long legs, propelled himself forward with a seemingly effortless gate, needing only a few powerful strides to get himself across the lanes. He seemed half-human, half-gazelle. I vaguely remembered some Greek poem that I had studied in high school, something about an athlete dying young, in the flame of glory. I felt honored to be a witness to that legend come to life – a hero’s sprint, spring and dance before the gods. 

As soon as the man disappeared inside the bath-room door his wife turned around toward me, her eyes wet with tears. “Thank you.”

NOTE: For more great stories from life on the road, hitchhiking in the 1960s, please check out noted author Tamim Ansary’s book, “Road Trips, Becoming an American in the vapor trail of The Sixties.” <https://www.amazon.com/Trips-Becoming-American-vapor-Sixties/dp/0578185261>. It’s got “communes and collectives, Woodstock and Watergate, sex, dope, acid, rock’n’roll, and the end of civilization as we know it.”