Last we left him, our hero had accepted a ride in northern New Brunswick, with a 50-something truck driver named Ed , on his way north of Toronto.

Ed looked like your typical older truck driver. Three days worth of stubble, 50 pounds overweight, and a plaid shirt and trucker hat. Ed and I talked about all the usual topics for a few hours, and exchanged travel stories. I find that people usually like to reminisce about the old days when they used to hitchhike themselves. Ed told me about his first hitchhiking trip when he was seventeen in Newfoundland:

“My mom sent me down to the store to get some smokes, eh. An my buddy jus’ so happen to be standing ‘ere in front of the store with a big ol’ bottle o’ screech. An’ so we get to drinkin’ an’ — it seems like a good idea at the time, yaknow — and we decide to go for a hitchhikin’.”

“Well, I guess we got a little too into the booze, ’cause I can’t remember actually leavin’ the island, or even the people that woulda picked up a couple o’ drunk kids like us, but when I woke up… When I woke up it was a week and a half later and I was in Edmonton. I guess we had quite the bender! And the hotel room was all smashed up, and a girl was passed out on the floor with my buddy… And I tried, really tried to remember what had happened and how we had got to Edmonton, but I could only get bits and pieces, eh.”

“Turns out, on the ride back east, when we stopped in Winnipeg, a few folks recognized us from the pub and told us there was some hotel manager looking for us ’cause we recked a room and we didn’t pay for the night. Hahaa! Well, we got outta there pretty quick!”

“And when we got back to the rock (Newfoundland) two weeks later, the first thing my mom says to me is, ‘where’s my smokes?!”

He had some good stories. Although I got this feeling that he was living in the past. Whenever I asked him about his wife or kids (he had two), he’d say “ah, they’re a half-decent bunch!” and then quickly change the subject.

After a couple of hours, despite him saying a few borderline creepy things about women he’d cheated on his wife with, I had the feeling that he was a weird, yet half-decent guy, and so I moved to the back of the cab to sleep while Ed drove on.

When I woke up it was 4 am, and he was still driving. “Amphetamines, man. These things are great. Keep me up all night. ‘Specially if I drink a coffee or two wit’ ‘em!”

I asked him if a lot of truck drivers these days use drugs to drive longer. “Ha! We all do. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be makin’ any money. It’s like, once a few guys started doing drugs and driving longer hours, we couldn’t stay competitive, so we started doing ‘em too. Now you’d be ‘ard pressed to find a driver out there that doesn’t.”

We talked for a while, with the usual long pauses that come with a long hitchhiking ride. I used to try to fill up that space with talk, but I realized it just exhausted me to keep conversation for a whole day. Now I just enjoy the silence and the scenery. We talked mostly about women, Ed recounting his conquests from his early twenties.

Then the topic took a hairpin turn for the worse. “You know, it’s weird. I’ve always wanted to go down… on a guy…” he said. Boom. Out of near nowhere.

” Excuse me?” I thought I had misheard.

“Yeah, well, I’m not gay or anything. I just always wanted to know what it would be like to… you know… go down on a guy.” He laughed nervously. And before I could react, he said “what if I offered you $50?” He let his foot off the accelerator for a moment.

“What? No! What the hell do I look like?!” I was insulted, and more than a little bit scared. He was quiet, watching the road.

“I don’t know, you just looked like you might be into that kind of thing…”

“What? Listen, I have a girlfriend. I’m straight, 100%.” I lied. (About the girlfriend.)

I thought for a minute. I remembered my dad telling me a story about my uncle Paul hitchhiking to Ontario when he was young. He had a “bad experience” with some truck drivers took the bus home, was all he’d say. I wondered what ‘bad experience’ meant. Immediately my mind went into self-defense mode. Could I fight this guy if I had to?

“I think you should let me out here.” I said.

Ed said he was sorry if he offended me, and that he would drop the topic all together. I sat quietly, thinking about how I could get him to pull over and get the hell out of that truck. A few long, silent minutes passed. What did I look like? $50 for some guy to go down on me? What the f*ck?!

More awkward silence.

“So… I was thinking…” he started, “I didn’t mean to insult you….”

He paused, then continued “….what about $100?”

“That’s it. Stop the fucking truck and let me out. NOW.” I was pissed.

He stopped, I grabbed my backpack, and jumped out the second the tires came to a stop. No handshake, no thanks for the ride.

And so there I was, on the shoulder of the 401 just east of Toronto, at 2am. On the road again.

Lesson learned: trust my intuition. Truck drivers that seem a little creepy, are usually a lot creepy.

(to be continued…)