I don’t want to make this drive from Briggs Junction to San Francisco and driving in the dead of night makes the drudgery of it all even more nightmarish. I already got turned around some by nearly missing the exit to Highway 97. I can’t figure that out. I knew the exit was coming up and I’ve taken it many times. Perhaps being stuck behind an eighteen-wheeler got me disoriented, or the glare on the windshield from oncoming headlights, or maybe that gangling derelict hitchhiking at the Y distracted me for a moment. Who knows? I have too much on my mind lately and Mother’s funeral this morning is an inconvenience, though my attendance there is probably expected. I know, I should be feeling something else here, but this just isn’t a good time for me and I can’t get out of it.

It is an eerie and lonely time this late at night. The earthly shapes are cold and colorless and the night sky is impersonal and vast, filled only with flickering specks of stars. All the vibrancy and glare of the day has faded away and now only a frosty pallor from an unobservable moon faintly illuminates the terrain. Dark, solitary dwellings blotch the hillsides. Some have ghastly wafts of smoke that linger atop their chimneys and some have their paltry yards aglow from lustrous security lights. The black pavement of the highway winds alongside the river down through a desolate and uninviting ravine to the backcountry of Oregon.

The roadway is deserted so I push it some to make up for lost time. Work set me back. I was to leave work at ten, but the boss needed me to stay on until the nightshift fully showed up and that just added to my aggravation. It seems I’m always falling behind lately and rushing to get caught up. I had figured moving to the boonies would slow things down some—become a hick so to speak—and start over. But I’m always starting over and each time I seem to just get more and more bogged down. I never dreamt I was digging myself into a rut. I thought I’d escape all that. Mother wanted me to be an attorney—but Mother was in a rut too.

The car speeds round a curve and the beam from the headlights sweeps over a furry vermin that darts across the road in front of me. The critter startles me and I catch a scary flash of animosity in its eyes. I swerve out into the other lane to avoid hitting it, and then swerve back into my lane. I take a few slow sighs of relief to regain my composure. I’m tired that’s all, and my imagination is running wild. I just thought there was animosity in its eyes. Fortunately another car wasn’t coming. One day I’m going to smash into a huge blank wall and that would be the end of it. I wouldn’t even know what hit me. I could have just run the critter down and that would have been the end of it. I’m tired and need to just concentrate. It’s monotonous driving so late at night. I just need to concentrate and follow the flashing yellow strips that line the center of the roadway.

I shouldn’t have stormed out the way I did. I don’t know why she gets my goat so, although it doesn’t take much lately. She puts way too much importance on the most trivial things. Doesn’t she know that all this doesn’t matter—that her petty, little flare-ups are useless? There was no way I could have gotten back in time for her party. I didn’t plan my Mother’s death! She just doesn’t want me to dally too long and look up some of my old girlfriends. Her intuition is getting old. She doesn’t know what I’m doing. Is she jealous of Elizabeth? Elizabeth is probably a plump married woman by now, with five kids. How many times do I have to tell her that? Then again, there is Debbie. She may still be around. I really did like Debbie. She was just so laid-back and took things in stride. With all the booze, and parties, and fisticuffs back then she’d just sit on my lap and chortle at it all. Nothing would tie her down or get to her. We’d always end up back at her place to kick back for the night. She had a small, funky pad above a garage owned by a kooky, well-off socialite. That landlady was a real hoot and kinky as they come and would at times join us for the night. It was like making love to my mother, but Debbie was there and that made it all worthwhile. I wonder where Debbie is now. Mother hated her.

An emergency vehicle with warning lights twirling atop its roof streaks past me and disappears up ahead. I didn’t even notice it approaching behind me. I must be really out of it.

I rocket along a high ridge as though I’m piloting a spacecraft through deep space then the road precipitously dips down and runs alongside the river again. I find myself following the shimmery white sheen of the moonlight as it rolls along the surface of the wavering, black water. It’s enchanting. I crane my neck to catch sight of the moon, but it remains out of sight somewhere overhead. It’s a spooky thought being buckled in this flimsy car barreling through a vast, black void with only a semblance of a moon as a guide. I’ve grown to dislike the night. Its coldness just adds to my loneliness. If I close my eyes I can hear the soft soughing of the river and the plashing of trout. I pop my eyes back open and shake off the drowsiness. I caution myself to stay alert and keep my eyes on the road.

In the distance a fleet of emergency vehicles flank the roadway. Floodlights on portable towers and flares on the ground light the scene. I slow and come to a stop at the insistence of a police officer waving a flashlight in front of me. There is a car off the road in a ditch with its rear-end sticking up in the air and on the shoulder of the road is a gurney with a bagged body on it. All the respondents seem to be just milling around waiting on something, smoking and murmuring among themselves. A shadowy figure totters up to the passenger side of my car. The light from the flares flickers up on him. It’s the hitchhiker I saw at the Y. He approaches the passenger window and leans down to gesture in at me. He has a sallow face with a wryly, goblin-like grin on it and has a dark watch cap on his head. He taps his knuckle on my window to request a lift. I shake him off and shoo him away from my car as the police officer waves me on. I drive through the trail of dwindling flares and then resume my hasty trek south.

I return to the remote quietude and emptiness of the backcountry. The faint gleam of the moonlight streaks the darkness turning the woody landscape into an x-ray-like tapestry.

Two white, beady headlights emerge in the distance.

How did that vagrant get ahead of me? He must have gotten a lift with one of those emergency vehicles. Probably knew one of the medics. Why did that poor deceased soul go off the road? Did he fall asleep…driving too fast…or got distracted? Who knows? I guess it doesn’t matter much now. I hate driving late at night—there’re no landmarks to go by and the road signs are useless as they just swirl past before I can read them. I just can’t get my bearings this late at night. What’s up—what’s down? It’s all very disorienting.

There is a carcass of a deer sprawled on the side of the road. It has the same animosity in its iridescent eye that the critter had. I shudder at such a creepy thought—that fine line between life and death and how the mind can play tricks on you. The headlights of an eighteen-wheeler grow brighter and more intense as it bears down on me. In the rearview mirror is a ghoulish visage of that hitchhiker hovering in the back of my vehicle. The specter startles me at first then captures my curiosity as I ponder its spooky presence. It’s a figment, a hallucination from my weariness that’s all. It must be a reflection from the blaring lights I finally figure as the huge log truck abruptly booms past. The turbulence from the rig rumbles and shakes my car and draws the car closer to it. I grip the steering wheel to keep the car from hitting it.

The rear of the car is empty and dark and beyond the rear window are two devilish red lights quickly fading off into the night. It dawns on me that I just came within inches of bursting into a ball of flames and being hurled into oblivion. It must be late, as I don’t feel one way or the other about that prospect. Why kid myself? When you’re dead, you’re dead. You won’t even know you’re dead because you’re just dead and you’ll never get to experience all that wonderful relief that’s owed us—death does cheat us all. It’s disheartening though to realize that it will all just vanish someday—that it’s all just a big waste of time. But it is late at night and I’m getting tired.

“Damn it!” I say aloud when I notice a tiny chip in the windshield just off to the side that must have happened when the truck passed. It’s a star-like ding, not deep and should hold up for awhile, but needs to be replaced soon before it shatters. I shouldn’t fret about it, but it does annoy me. It is just another nuisance, another chore that needs to be dealt with.

At 3:a.m., Bend, Oregon is a ghost town. The main thoroughfare through the middle of town is abandoned and still with rows of silent, blinking yellow lights stringed across it that eerily mark the way through it. It must have rained recently as the pavements look damp and my tires slosh as I slowly cruise along. The dimly lit stores and darkened houses along the thoroughfare appear deserted and uninviting. I past a frosty-white wood church with a steeple aglow by floodlights and surrounded by an empty parking lot. Mother took me to church when I was young. I could never figure out why all the fuss and found the excursion a waste of time. The gas gauge is near empty so I need to find a gas station and also get some coffee and grub. I slow down and pass a 7-11 store that is oddly closed, but I see a small gasoline station and mini-mart with its lights on up ahead. I pull in next to a gas pump and turn the engine off. I pause for a second and rest my head on the steering wheel then swing the door open and disembark. I’m sore and stiff and stretch some before I prime the pump and begin filling the tank.

The chilly night air is damp and thick. An uncanny silence and stillness looms all around me. The flat, grey geometric shapes of the structures across the road seem to be tombstones in a darkened cemetery. I leave the gas nozzle unattended to examine the radial-shaped chip in my windshield. I scratch it with my thumbnail to size it up then I catch sight of the hitchhiker that amazingly appears out of nowhere. His appearance fascinates me as I watch him trudge up the sidewalk heading toward the other end of town. He’s a wretched sort with stooped shoulders and darkened features—the most morbid soul if ever there was one. He vanishes beyond a building just as the gas nozzle clicks off. I remount the nozzle on the pump and go into the mini-mart.

The bright, fluorescent-lit store seems unattended. I wander through its aisles in search of the coffee machine that I find near the back. There are just dregs left in the pot. I pour what there is into a cardboard cup and empty some sugar packets in with it. I take a sip, the coffee is stale, cold and bitter, but it is late at night and I don’t have much choice. I put a lid on the cup and go to the unmanned counter. There is a wicker basket on the counter by the register with a few cellophane wrapped sandwich wedges in it. I take one and place it next to my coffee cup. A young store attendant comes rushing out from a back door next to the diary cooler and quickly stations himself behind the register where he rings me up and takes my money, then warily watches me as I leave.

I drive out through the outskirts of town past a few big-box stores surrounded by acres of deserted parking lots lit by a stellar array of lamp poles. I get to the onramp leading to the highway where the hitchhiker awaits. He’s a dismal and meager figure, almost pitiful. As I approach he lifts his thumb up for a lift. In my headlights I can see he’s an old cuss wearing a soiled and worn red-plaid mackinaw jacket and green work pants. He has a bony, narrow face with an ashen complexion and is clean-shaven. I figure I’ll need some company to stay awake so I pull over and offer him a lift. He quietly plops himself in the passenger seat, closes the door, and we head off.

As I drive, I occasionally glance over at him though I can just barely make his form out in the dark interior of the car. He deferentially removes his watch cap and rests his cap and hands on his lap. He has long, matted hair pulled back tight over his knobby skull into a ponytail. He seems intent to just quietly stare straight ahead and has a somber expression on his face. He has a musty stench to him.

“Where you headed?” I ask after awhile to break the silence.

“Got a job in Klamath Falls and need to be there this morning,” he answers in a soft, fluty voice that sounds familiar. “I really appreciate you stopping.”

“This morning, huh?” I scoff. “Cutting it fairly short aren’t you?”

He seems reluctant to answer then says: “The Lord always provides a way.”

“It must be tough leaving it to chance though,” I respond.

“I’ve been hitchhiking this stretch for years with no problems,” he informs me without looking over. “Sooner or later a kind soul will stop and lend a hand.”

The vagrant seems reticent and we travel awhile without speaking. The moon must be down now as the terrain is an inky weave stretching out under a vast, deep blue backdrop. We leave behind the few sparse lights of Bend and tunnel headlong into a patch of smoke-like, swirling fog.

“How about you?” the fellow timidly asks. “Just getting off work?”

“In a way, yeah, I just haven’t had a chance to change.”

“What kind of work are you in?”

“I work at a molding mill in Pasco…it’s just a temporary job until something better comes along.” I look over at the guy to see if he’s a simpatico sort. He seems a harmless rube trying to mind his own business.

“That’s good…having a steady job.”

“Well, that’s not currently correct,” I answer coyly. “I’ll let you in on a little secret since it doesn’t matter much—I quit that job today. Told the boss not to expect me in tomorrow. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes, but I just couldn’t handle it anymore…I was feeling trapped. You can understand.”

“Something else will come along,” my passenger meekly offers up after a brief pause.

“Yeah, we all got to eat, huh?”

“Everybody has a special calling in their life. You’ll find yours.”

“Need to make something of myself, huh? That’s what my Mother always said. I always found that condescending…nothing personal,” I toss in to soften my curt tone.

“I almost had a career as an attorney,” I continue wanting to explain some. “But for some reason after all the schooling and studies I simply choose not to take the bar exam. Go figure.” I add as I try to stay on the road in the dense fog. “Mother nearly had a nervous breakdown over it and disowned me for a year or two. She would send me nasty letters accusing me of being an ungrateful and degenerate son and then postscript how she misses me and wants me to visit her over the holidays. I’m not certain why I’m telling you this or why I need to confide in a stranger just now, but I feel like talking.

“I did a short stint as a police officer—mostly vice—you know, marshalling societies morality on all those poor saps who were just stuck in a deeper rut than their benefactors. Ever had a crazed, doped up drug fiend put a cocked gun to your head? I can tell you it gets the adrenaline going and makes you feel alive. I suppose the best duty was riot control. I thought it was kind of noble to be pushing back against the unruly multitude with shield and nightstick in hand. It was always those unfortunate blokes along the cordon that got battered and blooded the most while their buddies egg them on well out of the reach of the law. What can I say? We are animals…you know…an idiotic and treacherous lot at best. That was a short-lived career though. I got tangled up in a, well…a departmental liaison and when I was to appear in front of the disciplinary committee I figured I wasn’t remorseful enough to grovel so I decided to simply walk away before they could call me into the hearing. Well, there’re six billion people on this planet and I’m certain each one has his or her own hard-luck story to tell.”

The guy seems reluctant to comment and seems fidgety and uncomfortable in his seat as though he’s grown leery of me. The fog dissipates and there is clear sailing ahead that helps to ease the drive. I begin to relax some behind the wheel, but the calf of my right leg has a cramp in it and I lean down to rub it as I watch the road ahead.

“Just got to tell my girl now,” I continue in a more casual tone as I sit back up and look over at the gent. “She expects me back soon and back at the job. I have to tell her in such a way that she doesn’t go ballistic. She has me out as some sort of hero with lots of potential. So much for misapprehensions.”

“Get her something nice,” the fellow offers without looking over, “flowers or candy.”

“No good, I’m not the romantic type, I guess. I value my freedom too much. I mean I like the companionship, but I just don’t see what the big deal is with all that affection stuff. There’re plenty of women in the world and I suppose one is as good as another. My Mother wanted me to marry this gal once.” I continue wanting to gab for some reason. “Thought it would make me settle down and become respectable. Mother always had such high expectations for me. I almost went through with it too, but got drunk the night before and ended up in the hoosegow. Didn’t even show up for my own wedding—now ain’t that a bitch? I don’t know why I do things like that. Well, can’t change any of that now. Life was so much easier when sex was all that mattered.”

I stop and become self-conscious of how hollow I just sounded and figure I should change the topic: “You a family man?”

“I’m a widower,” the passenger answers and finally looks over at me just as a car in the other lane speeds pass. My headlights catch a glimpse of the other driver who has a rotund head and a frosty face with what seems to be bloody lacerations on his cheeks.

“I have a grown son,” the passenger continues with a touch of sadness, “but he lives far away and I don’t see him much anymore.” The guy turns back and stares back out the windshield. He is an obscured and shadowy presence and I figure quite a shallow one too.

“A widower, huh?” I quiz as I examine the specter sitting next to me. He has one hand stuffed in the pocket of his jacket and seems to be fiddling with something in there—maybe it’s a switchblade or maybe a crucifix, who knows, but I do know I don’t want to delve into his personal life, though curious how his wife died.

“So why are you headed south?” my newly found companion asks.

I take a final sip of the cold coffee and then throw the cup out the window. I roll the window back up and turn the heater higher as there is a deathly chill in the night air.

“Do you want this sandwich?” I ask the fellow motioning to the cellophane-wrapped bread concoction resting on the armrest between our seats. “I’m not hungry.”

“No thanks, I’m fine,” the guy politely answers.

“Got some family business in California I need to go to.” I reveal after a slight pause.

“Family business, huh, I can appreciate that.”

“My Mother died yesterday,” I disclose feeling somewhat obliged to continue, “and they are having a funeral for her. She had always surrounded herself with many friends, so it will be a large, formal occasion. I guess I’m expected. You see, I’m sort of frowned upon as the wayward son by her group of friends and I’m really not looking forward to attending though I guess I need to make a showing, it’s expected.”

“I’m sorry to hear of your mother passing away,” the fellow says. “Mothers are such important parts of our lives.”

“Yes, Mother made her presence known and meant well, I guess, in her own special way. I guess she only wanted the best for me though I never really understood what that all was. You would think after all this time I would have figured that out. I do remember she used to make happy faces in my mash potatoes with peas and clean my room though I think she just did that to keep tabs on me. And I remember how she would remind me many times about her 28 hours of labor and the gift of life she gave me implying that somehow I owed her and I should appreciate her situation. I guess you could say we had an adversarial relationship being we saw things differently. Mother was looking for a loving and obedient child and I was just looking for a way out. When my father died, she took over the purse strings and shortly there after I left home for good.”

I glance down at the green glow of the dashboard and see I’m speeding nearly ninety so I let up on the gas pedal some. I look over at the fellow and he seems to ease some as I reduce the speed.

“I remember I use to sit in the den, watching television,” I continue not really caring much about what I’m saying, “while Mother repeatedly beckoned for me to come and join her in the other room. Somehow I simply refused to budge—I refused to go or even answer her. I didn’t want to answer her. I suppose that was cruel of me at the time. I suppose she was just lonely, but I guess we can’t change those things. I guess forgiveness is out now for me.”

“My Mother is still alive,” the passenger tells me. “She lives with me. She’s 92—a frail, wizened wisp of a soul, but can still get around and keeps house for me. I don’t know where I’d be without her…being on the road so much.”

The highway cuts through the dense, dark forest of the backcountry. Tall, shadowy pine trees are crunched together and line the roadway like walls of a cathedral.

“Are you a religious man?” I ask him.

“Yes, I try to be.”

“Did your mother take you to church every Sunday?”

“We still attend church together. You need to believe in something larger than yourself, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I believe in something larger than myself and it’s cold and empty and there’s no happy face looking back at me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the voice in the dark answers. “How can you ever find comfort in such a world?”

“I can’t. I just try to stay active that’s all and try not to think about it much.”

“Doppelganger!” the hitchhiker enunciates slowly the bizarre-sounding word as though conjuring it up out of thin air.

“What?” I ask taken aback by his abrupt, odd utterance.

“My doppelganger. That’s what I call my Mother,” he explains. “She’s my kindred soul that keeps me company and shares my life with me.”

This dude is creepy. I’m not certain why I stopped and picked him up now. I know his type, though, a lost soul that still believes in a dream that he’s on some sort of special mission where he is somehow being a good son. For me, life has become just one big chore leaving me to chase down all those loose ends that seemingly need to be taken care of. I’m not certain why I’m here, but I’m certain when I die all those loose ends will remain undone. I’m tired—tired and worn out, I guess. I’ve been driving for a long time and it’s starting to catch up with me. I feel the car drift onto the graveled shoulder of the road that jars me back to the roadway.

“You want me to drive?” the passenger offers.

“No, I can handle it,” I answer shaking off his offer as unnecessary.

“So, my Mother’s funeral is today,” I reiterate, reminding myself almost subconsciously, wanting to come to grip with the purpose of my journey while trying to focus my attention on the road. “I gather it will be a marvelous celebration of her life—Mother wouldn’t have it any other way. There will be a multitude of mourners making their appearance to bid her farewell and partake in the pageantry. Father Mathew will be there in his finest vestments to intone passages from the bible and lead in the hymns. There will be eulogies and remembrances offered up by the participants. I suppose I’d need to dress for the service and put on a good performance for the many attending viewers. I will mouth the many amens required for the occasion and will most likely need to attend up through the burial. I will most likely be expected to say some words about my Mother, but…I don’t have much to say.”

“You can tell them the truth!” the voice of the transient rings in. “That your Mother was one of a kind—a special woman like no other. That she gave you the miracle of life and nursed you and fed you and cleaned up after you and made happy faces in your mashed potatoes and took you to church and taught you right from wrong and looked out for you and taught you how to care and respect yourself and others and how to work hard and how to hope and dream and believe in things larger than yourself and how to be part of this glorious world and walk tall among your fellow man and how to love and be happy, and how to find purpose and meaning in your life and she gave you….”

“Happy,” I murmur to myself as I stare out at the black, desolate forest that veils both sides of highway. I’m nothing more than another glob of life on a god-forsaken orb and I’m supposed to be happy. “You see, and here is the difficulty,” I earnestly confide to myself, “and contrary to Mother’s insistence, I never really liked this life and have become quite indifferent to it all. And now I’m expected at my Mother’s funeral and to say something substantial about her passing…and all I can think about is how to get out of it.”

Four small, circled lights from the front-end of a monstrous, pug-nose tractor barrels toward me. I watch it through the crosshairs of the crack in my windshield as it nears and as the other voice in the dark continues to exhort that I must have some feelings about it all and how I need to show some decency and respect and how I must feel terrible and how God should have mercy on my soul. The tractor’s glaring headlights whiten everything in the car and its blaring air horn bears down on me. I fixate on that damn chip in the windshield as the whole world rumbles and shakes under me. Then I helplessly watch as the cracks from the chip spread out over the windshield until the glass bursts shattering its shards in at me just when the steering wheel is jerked from my control and the car careens off the road onto the dirt shoulder. I slam on the brakes and the car comes sliding to a stop in a cloud of dust.

“What the hell are you doing?” the passenger excoriates as he bails from the car and staggers off to its rear.

In a stupor, I slowly open my door and wobble out to my feet then bowed over and spew out on the ground the dark fluids that are in me.

“Are you okay, man?”

“I’m okay, man, just need some time to catch my thoughts.” I stagger to the front of the car and toss myself up atop the hood. I’m exhausted and recline back against the windshield to stare up at the sky.

“Sometimes,” I confess, “I feel as though I’m only half here—just going through the motion as though on auto-pilot. I thought I was a rebel but now I find myself stuck with my rebellious nature that leaves me in a god-forsaken limbo. I suppose we all suffer half-baked destinies that we believed would lead us to paradise. Well, I guess the saddest thing in the world is our own personal plight.

“It’s funny,” I continue in a dreamy state, “I’m remembering a summer when I refurbished an old jalopy. I spent weeks on it getting it shined up and running like a top—cruising the scene with my high school sweetheart senior year with the top down and the radio blaring. It was a great car and wonderful times back then. When I sold the car—practically gave it away—my friends couldn’t believe I sold it for so little, but I needed the money for something or other and I remember at the time I just wanted to get rid of it. I wish I had kept it, wish I had it now. It was a good car.”

I gaze up at the vaulted, jet-black sky and its uncountable tiny stars. “You know,” I grumble to myself, “all the fight is out of me now and for the first time I’m at peace.” I take a deep breath of the chilly evening air that is clean and fresh. I hold the breath for a second and then exhale. The tall, blackened trees are dwarfed by the expanse of the night sky that soars well beyond their reach.

“Well, shit,” I vociferously utter as I slide off the hood of the car and stand facing the stranger. “Listen man, take the key and drive yourself to Klamath. I don’t want anything anymore and I just need to get out of here.”

I toss the key to the hitchhiker and he catches it and then gives me a perplexed look “Are you sure, man?”

“Yes, I’m as sure as I’ve ever been.”

The guy tentatively gets into the car and rolls the window down. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reassure the bloke as I rest my hands on the door panel. “I’ll catch up with you in Klamath,” I add stepping back from the car.

“I’m curious, buddy,” the guy inquires, “if only half of you is here—where’s the other half?”

“The other half?” I ponder for a second. “It’s been hurled far off into space. So far away that even the universe has disappeared from view.” I give him a wryly grin to humor him and to lighten things up some. He nods supportively and rolls the window up and drives back onto the road and heads off through the forest and disappears. I watch as the beady red taillights fade into the dark corridor that cuts through the night then I stroll across the highway toward the other side. I recall the accident scene I witnessed earlier this evening—the crews sweeping the shards of glass off the road, the sputtering of flares lining the roadway, and a tow truck hauling the wrecked vehicle away. I settle on the other shoulder of the road and zip up my jacket and flip the collar up round my neck. I glance up at the sliver of night sky that arcs high above the shadowy treetops and I exhale a hoary breath. I’m chilled to the bone. In the distance, white specks of headlights appear. It’s funny, I muse to myself as I wait, it’s as though I’ve been here in this exact spot many times before. I proffer up my thumb as the headlights approach.