A Broken Promise - Chapter Two

Chapter Two

It had been two days since he climbed out his bathroom window and scaled the wall from the second story, only to fall in to the trash dumpster below.
Two days and he still smelled of stale beer and rotten food. Two days and he found himself just a mere 47 miles away from his abandoned apartment. That's what the highway mile marker said the distance back to home was.

Not much distance was travelled by both his own feet and the occasional passerby that would give him a ride for a few miles. And now he found himself sitting on an orange highway construction barrel in the middle of the night on I-84, just a short distance from Multnomah Falls. Although he couldn't see in the pitch blackness of the night, he could hear the rush of the water. The sound conjured scenes of wildlife videos and salmon swimming up torrential raging waters to find that place they were born. So they can spawn and then die, all in the same waters.

The rush of water was in the near distance. But closer he could hear the rustling of real wildlife in the thick pine trees behind him. Here he was on the desolate highway, in the middle of the night, stinking of garbage and beckoning to be a bear's after dinner mint.

"What am I doing?", he asked himself aloud. His answer was the faint beam of car headlights rounding a bend in the distance.

He stood up from the barrel and assumed the position of token hitchhiker with his thumb sticking upward. The car was now about a hundred yards away and could see the hitchhiker in the darkness, for it turned down its high beams and began to slow down. Out of reflex, the hitchhiker jerked his thumb towards the direction he wished to go a few times. The car came to a stop far enough from him to give off an unwelcomed feel.

He stood there with the lights shining on him, with the feel of fear and dread building in his gut. What was just a moment, seemed like an eternity to him. Scenarios of survival mode raced through his mind. He tried to assess the situation. And just when his feet were about to take over and dart him into the woods, and fend for survival with the grizzlies and brown bears and elk, the top of the car lit up red to enlighten him on what the situation really was.

The state patrol officer stepped out of the vehicle and pointed a flashlight at the hitchhiker. Now this young man had had many flashlights pointed at him from men with guns and badges. All those times the flashlight would be pointed directly in his eyes to see how dillated they were and for the sheer thrill of power it gave the men with guns and badges. This time the state trooper pointed so the arc of light shone on his mouth, saving his eyes from momentary blindness.

"Evening there," the officer greeted him in a superficial manner.

"Evening," he returned.

"I'll have you know, it's against the law to hitchhike in the state of Oregon."

"Oh," is all he could get out, before biting off a sarcastic retort that would surely get him thrown into the county poke.

"Where you going?" This was said with a genuine texture behind the words. Not at all like a typical cop. It caught him off guard. He looked east as far as his eyes could before the darkness took over the terrain. He grasped for the answer. Where was he going? What do you say to that when you find yourself on a dark highway in the middle of the night, with a state trooper pointing a flashlight at you?

He stared at the emptiness of the void eastward and the rush of the falls in the distance. Salmon swam in his head. Up over the waters, with all their might. Without looking back at the trooper, he said, "I don't know."