the hitchhiker

A girl stood on the side of the exit ramp, one mittened thumb sticking towards the sky. She had a backpack on, and several layered jackets, and a scarf that was too long. What got my attention was the bouquet of flowers she held in one hand. Roses, it looked like. But then I was no expert on flowers anyway.

I pulled to the side and slowed to a stop next to the girl. She pulled open the door to my truck and took a good look at me and the inside of the car before pulling herself up into the passenger's seat. At first I thought she wouldn't come in. After all, I was a big guy with a lot of tats, and I probably didn't look half-way next to reassuring. "Queens?" she asked. I nodded.

"Thanks for picking me up!" she said, positioning the bouquet between her knees. "I was standing there for an hour forty-five and not one person stopped.  You're an angel! Or maybe the devil. I figure people who pick up hitch-hikers are either one or the other. But just to let you know: if you try to rape me or rob me or murder me, I have a black belt in tae-kwon-do and I carry pepper-spray."

I smiled wryly and looked at her out of the corner of my mind. "I don't think I'm either. I'm not that exciting," I said. She was African American, probably from the goddamn suburb nearby, which was more like a slum from the pit of hell if you asked me. She had big lips and bigger eyes and she was pushing her hair out of her face and then pulling her mittens off her hands and blowing on her fingertips. I cranked up the heat for her.

"What're the roses for?" I asked.
"My girlfriend," she said, burying her nose in the petals.
"I need to get me one of those," I said.
She laughed.
"She lives in Queens?"
"Yeah. My parents don't let me visit her. They say they believe in marriage, though not their own, and they obviously don't believe in love. I'm all for marriage too, for everyone, but they don't know what to say at that point. So I'm moving out for a bit."
"Running away?"
"Yeah. I mean, they don't care. One less mouth to feed. I'm gonna be 17 in a month, and my girlfriend is 19, and we knew this was going to happen eventually."

She was unwinding her long scarf from around her neck, and taking off one brightly colored jacket after another. She was wearing several flannels; each one checkered varies shades of green, blue, and orange.

"You don't sound as bitter as I'd expect," I said.

"Yeah." She tossed her jacket and her scarf into the back of my truck over her North-Face back-pack and then rested her booted feet up on my dashboard. At least I made her comfortable. "I used to be. But I learned something: someones' lack of love shouldn't keep you from loving."

"I think love is a lesson most people never learn," I said with a snort. I could tell there was bitterness in my tone, and I hoped it wasn't as apparent to her.

"Love isn't learned," she laughed, "It's found. It's found in each and every person and in everything, if you just know where to look. But most people just don't go that deep. The thing is, everyone is seeking for love. They seek for it by spending and whoring and consuming and oppressing and religion and politics and war and education and money and gangs and drugs and art. People seek love by seeking god, but love is god and god is love and it's exchanged between people, (and I'm not talking about just sex) and the more it's done the closest you get to god and life because the purpose of life is to love others."

"That's a lot to believe," I said.

"It's harder to live than to believe. But it all starts with believing."

"I don't know," I said. "I don't believe there's hope for the world. I don't think love on a large scale is possible. There's too much oppression, and people are too greedy and selfish and power-hungry and pleasure-seeking. Whenever I read the news and hear of the countless people starving in Africa while we burn their corn for fuel, and the girls getting acid thrown in their faces in Saudi Arabia because they want to learn to read, and how there are two point four million people trafficked for sex and labor, I just want to shoot down myself and the world as well. And then, when I look out the window, and I see a girl on the street who is exploited because she loves, it all kicks home. And I think, what's the point of love, anyway? Hate will never be obliterated."

She twirled the roses in her hand and stared absent-mindedly out the window. "It took an hour forty-five, but you still picked me up," she whispered.