johnbyronkuhner.com

I picked up a hitchhiker a few nights ago.  I picked him up a long straightaway in the woods, where it was obvious we were going in the same direction.  He said his girlfriend had hit a bear and for some reason as a result of this he had to walk home.  Seemed a bit odd.  I asked if the bear had been killed – I’d have gotten him to help me toss that thing into the back of my truck and make a rug out of it (though it would be bad if the bear woke up while you were trying to do that) – but he said no, it limped off.  He asked me my age, which seemed odd to me.  When I told him thirty-five, he said he was nineteen.  He said he was in the marines, and was currently stationed in the Mojave Desert, just back to see his family for Thanksgiving.  I asked him the name of the camp.  He couldn’t remember.  This also seemed strange.  I asked him if it was the base Patton had done his tank maneuvers at, but he didn’t know this either.  I was pretty sure it was somewhere out there.  He asked me to drop him off at the head of a branch road, and I did, and he saluted as I drove off.