Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America

by John Waters

  I awake to the stench of the hotel’s cigarette smoke and realize today, Day Nine, could be my last day on the road if I’m lucky and get a ride quickly once The Kid lets me out at a new hitchhiking ramp. I’ve studied the maps and am pretty sure it’s a bad idea to try for a ride in Reno. A town called Truckee is about fifteen miles away, right across the California border, which looks promising. Besides, I like the name. Truckee. My kind of town? I’m so optimistic I throw away two more pairs of worn boxer shorts and a pair of dirty socks.

  I’m excited to see that for once, the hotel I’m staying in has room service. I talk to The Kid on the hotel phone and tell him to order in, too. He surprises me by laughing and telling me that Rollo called his room late last night and asked him if he “needed anything.” Like what!? A blow job?! I wonder. “He was still working at that hour?” I marvel. “No, he called me on my cell phone,” The Kid answers. “You gave him your cell phone number?” I roar. “Well, yes,” he mumbles, realizing how naive he could be. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say to The Kid, and he agrees. We have breakfast (awful!) and check out.

  In the car on the way to Truckee, The Kid tells me that he told his mom this morning he was headed to my apartment in San Francisco and he will be staying there even though I will not be arriving until later. Stunned silence on her part. “Repeat what you just said on speakerphone so your father can hear,” she managed to sputter, he tells me. The Kid seems bewildered in a humorous way that his family is so concerned. Me too. We’re just appearing on a reality show that’s not being filmed. Why is everyone not tuned in?

  We pull off Route 80 in Truckee and I like what I see. It’s ski country. Beautiful. Evergreens, mountains. It’s clear and crisp out. Plus there’s a bridge right nearby that I could go under if it starts raining. I hand The Corvette Kid my keys. My office has already called ahead and told my doorman in San Francisco to let him in and give him a parking place in the garage. It’s weird getting out to hitchhike again after the comfort of being with such a good traveling companion on the highway. We bid farewell and I look forward to seeing him again in San Francisco at our journey’s end. He pulls off. I wish I could somehow get there first! I stand there for a while but I don’t get that sinking feeling the way I usually do at the start of every hitchhiking morning. I’m in California. The drivers I see look either upscale liberal or hippie-friendly. It’s only been about ten minutes but a car has already pulled over. I grab my bag hopefully but instantly realize it’s The Corvette Kid again! “I’m sorry!” he yells. “I knew you’d think a new person had stopped, but I forgot to take a picture of you hitchhiking.” I could kill him for a second but then laugh and give him my best hitching pose. He snaps the photo, honks affirmatively, and pulls away, totally unafraid to enter phase three of our time together. I had asked The Corvette Kid earlier in the hotel, “If they make a movie out of my book, who do you want to play you?” “Justin Bieber,” he announced without even hesitating.

  REAL RIDE NUMBER NINETEEN

  RESTAURANT OWNER AND WIFE

  I don’t stand there for long. I get a ride! Behind the wheel is a cool guy wearing sunglasses and beside him is a pregnant woman who is just as sexy and confident. I say, “Hi, I’m John Waters,” and he says, “Hi, I’m Mark and this is my wife, Ali, and you ate in my restaurant last night in Reno.” Unbelievable! He even remembers what I ordered for dinner! Yes, he had stopped by our table and I had told him I was hitchhiking, but he had no idea I’d be doing so thirty miles outside of town in Truckee, California, at this time or location. What a fluke.

  Mark and Ali are on their way to Napa for a week’s vacation and agree to take me all the way there. Yay! One hundred sixty miles or so. Their restaurant, Campo, had been the only bright spot in Reno for me, so I feel guilty thinking so negatively of the town as Mark explains, “Reno is on the upswing.” He tells me his bistro is all organic and only uses meat from local butchers. Vegetables are grown nearby, too. You can tell he is a real foodie, yet rugged in a Western way. Obviously he is a famous chef here and a community activist anytime farming is mentioned. Ali was originally from the Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco, and you can tell she is a thoroughbred.

  We stop in Granite Bay, California, to get gas and I offer to fill it up or buy them lunch, but they decline, saying, “We wouldn’t take anything from a normal hitchhiker, so we won’t take anything from you.” We talk about mountain roads and I mention my obsession with emergency truck “escape ramps,” usually located on a steep, sustained downhill grade in elevated areas. The kind of exit lanes that just veer off the interstate and are graded up a hill so if a truck’s brakes fail going down, the driver, in a last-ditch effort, just aims into this escape lane and prays the upgrade will slow down his rig and soften the impact of the upcoming crash. Mark tells me the story of a friend who built his house on property right on the other side of one of those mountain emergency stops in Incline Village, Nevada. Never having actually seen a truck use one of these lanes, despite living in the Rockies his whole life, Mark’s friend figured, what the hell? He’d build a house here on Mt. Rose anyway. Maybe that’s why he got such a good deal on the property. But the unthinkable did happen. A runaway truck lost its brakes and the driver veered into the lane hoping for the best. The best didn’t happen. The entire truck smashed, flipped over, landed on Mark’s friend’s house, exploded, and killed all his pets! His daughter did see it coming—imagine that horror!—and ran out just in time and lived. Mark said his friend never got over it. No wonder! I’m so excited I almost start belting out the lyrics to “Runaway Truck” by Red Simpson, that wonderfully descriptive hillbilly tune with the chorus “Dangerous curves all around,” but decide to spare my host my unmelodious singing voice.

  We keep going on Route 80 past their intended turnoff so Mark can find me a good rest area to hitch. We go even farther and I feel guilty they’re going so far out of their way, but we finally find the perfect one—Hunter Hill Safety Roadside Rest Area. And it has a view. In the distance I can actually see the Golden Gate Bridge. I can almost taste San Francisco.

  Mark and Ali drop me off at the parking-lot-exit hitchhiking spot, and Ali takes a photo of Mark and me. Naturally, I’m holding my prop—the new 80-W SAN FRANCISCO sign that I made in my hotel last night. We wave goodbye and I know I’m going to make it. I’m almost there.

  REAL RIDE NUMBER TWENTY

  RELUCTANT HEIR

  It’s a busy rest area and for once I’m not worried; I’m going to get a ride here easily—I can just feel it. From my viewpoint I can see all those who exit their vehicle and walk to the restroom. By their expression you can tell if they are going to shit or piss, and I try to predict the bathroom activity of each and receive the verdict by how long they stay inside.

  I don’t have time to play my little toilet game long, though. I get a ride right away. In a van packed with camping equipment, a canoe, maybe even a dog in a kennel—I don’t look back for long. The reluctant-heir type who picks me up is the perfect Bay Area man. A handsome seemingly onetime hippie; a fifty-six-year-old guy who “spends most of his time camping” and lives “between Washington State and the Bay Area” (in this van?) and is “on the way to pick up my mom at the Oakland airport.” You can tell he’s been around but has good breeding. Nice cheekbones. Uses proper grammar. Even though I imagine my ride is straight (a checkered history with both women and mental-health issues, I’d bet), he reminds me of one of my first boyfriends, Tom Houseman, who also at the time was a boyfriend of my best female friend, Pat Moran. Sadly, Tom overdosed in the seventies, but Pat and I are still best friends. My driver confides, “I had a DUI in the past,” “I like Ecstasy,” and “I still do LSD.” God, I think, maybe I should take LSD again. Could that be my next book? I’ll retake every drug I ever took, in order (hash, pot, LSD, amphetamine, morning-glory seeds, glue, heroin, MDA, opium, mushrooms, cocaine) and then do bath salts? Maybe not.

  Old money, plus drugs, plus manners, equals a m
an who is compassionate. He tells me about the homeless family he had been talking to in the rest area before he picked me up. A black and white straight couple with two kids who had a meth-head roommate who drove them out of their house and now, even though they had nowhere to go, were having a picnic in the roadside rest area. What great optimists! Why can’t we all be this happy in the face of sudden misfortune? Is this what my rider is trying to tell me, or am I just liberally profiling the man behind the steering wheel? How do I know what I’m surmising about this guy is true? Maybe he’s planning on killing his mother once he picks her up at the airport. It doesn’t really matter, though, because since he’s not going into San Francisco, he asks me at which exit I’d like to be dropped. “University Avenue exit in Berkeley,” I shout happily. If I can’t get a ride there, I ought to shoot myself.

  REAL RIDE NUMBER TWENTY-ONE

  CRAIGSLIST PAUL

  Ah, the great Bay Area weather! It’s chilly as I walk over to the entrance ramp. I am ecstatic. Will this be my last ride or will I have to actually hitchhike locally once I do get a lift into the city of San Francisco? I put out my best hippie vibes and it works. Another great guy in a van picks me up. He doesn’t recognize me until I get in. He explains he hasn’t picked up a hitchhiker in ten years and thought at first, like everybody else, that I was a homeless beggar. He was surprised I wasn’t standing at the intersection like other panhandlers. “Why would he be begging this far down the ramp?” he debated in the “split-second decision” it took him to pull over and stop.

  His name is Paul and he is yet another cool, kind, middle-aged married guy. He is on his way into the city to pick up a table he bought on Craigslist. When I ask him where, he gives me an address two blocks from my apartment. “Yes! You are my last ride!” I tell him with excitement. “If you’re not a killer,” he says with a hint of seriousness. “Don’t worry, I’m not!” I assure him as we stop at the Bay Bridge tollbooth. I am so happy to pay that I don’t even get a receipt.

  Paul is English but has been living in this country for twenty years. He says he “used to hitchhike in London myself until people stopped picking me up.” I feel incredibly safe as the breathtaking panorama of the San Francisco skyline that no one could ever get sick of comes into view. I immediately visualize that great YouTube clip of Judy Garland singing “San Francisco” on her 1963 TV show, and once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand how crazily focused, insanely optimistic, and spiritually privileged I feel at this exact moment in my life. I call my friend Vincent Fecteau, who had agreed months ago to be on hand to snap the photo of my final ride and me outside my apartment building. Vincent says he’s on the way, but when we hang up, I wonder how he’ll ever get there first. He travels by bicycle and we are making great time—there’s no traffic.

  Paul and I pull into the city and drive by the bus stops I use daily here—my training grounds for this finally about-to-be-completed hitchhiking trip. I almost feel giddy. Shocked that I’ve actually done this. “From my Baltimore house to the door of my San Francisco apartment building”—the book pitch is finally going to be a reality.

  We pull up and Vincent is not here yet. That’s okay—I’ll get the doorman to take the photo. I can’t expect Paul, who seems game, to stick around forever for a photo shoot. I barge into the lobby still carrying my sign, and there’s a doorman I don’t really know as well as the others. I must look unreasonably excited, beyond nuts. He eyes my sign quizzically as I hastily explain, “I’ve just hitchhiked across the country,” and ask, “Would you take my photo outside with my last ride if the guy who was supposed to show up to take it doesn’t arrive soon?” The doorman agrees without comment, maybe thinking I’m kidding. I call my office and tell Susan and Trish, “I have arrived!” They seem incredibly relieved and send out an e-mail to all my friends: “He just called from the lobby of his building in San Francisco. He made it!”

  I go back outside and no Vincent, so I figure, let poor Paul go pick up his table. His ride was a short but momentous one for me. I can’t hold up the gracious, good-humored man’s life much longer. I get the doorman, and Paul and I pose beside his van as I hold my 80-W SAN FRANCISCO sign for the final time. The doorman snaps a few different shots and it’s done. Paul chuckles at the whole situation and we shake hands goodbye and he pulls off. I walk, stunned, inside my building to the elevator.

  The Corvette Kid is safely inside my apartment, sitting in the dark, seemingly too nervous to touch anything, even a light switch. Vincent shows up and laughs at the missed photo opportunity, and I introduce him to The Corvette Kid. It’s almost as if I don’t know how to act or speak anymore back in my real life. Susan e-mails that “if it was my unknown ass, I’d still be [hitching] in West Virginia.” I check my San Francisco answering machine and hear Mink Stole sobbing in relief that I made it. I am moved and shocked to realize she was this concerned. I weigh myself. I have lost one pound.

  Playlist (Go ahead! Find them online and listen.)

  1. Hitch Hike

  Marvin Gaye

  2. Transfusion

  Nervous Norvus

  3. Looking at the World

  Through a Windshield

  Del Reeves

  4. The Giggler

  Pat and the Wildcats

  5. Loco Moto

  Cornbread and Jerry

  6. Witch Doctor

  David Seville and the Chipmunks

  7. Chain Gang

  Bobby Scott

  8. Travelin’ Boogie

  Zeb Turner

  9. Swingin’ Down the Lane

  Jerry Wallace

  10. Hot Wheels

  Stan Farlow

  11. Flying Saucer Rock and Roll

  Billy Lee Riley

  12. V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

  Connie Francis

  13. Hitchhiker

  Bobby Curtola

  14. Bumming Around

  Jimmy Dean

  15. There Stands the Glass

  Webb Pierce

  16. Hitchin’ and Hikin’

  Johnny Sea

  17. You Are the Finger of God

  The Addicts

  18. Torture

  Everly Brothers

  19. Tofurky Song

  Joanie Leeds

  20. I’m a Lone Wolf

  Leon Payne

  21. Riot in Cell Block #9

  The Robins

  22. Strychnine

  The Sonics

  23. Lonesome Drifter

  Jericho Brown

  24. Jingle Bells

  The Singing Dogs

  25. Cross-Ties

  Dale Hawkins

  26. Baby Sittin’ Boogie

  Buzz Clifford

  27. Who Killed Teddy Bear

  Josie Cotton

  28. Ohio

  Doris Day

  29. Runaway Truck

  Red Simpson

  30. San Francisco

  Judy Garland

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Of course, I would like to thank my two assistants, Susan Allenback and Trish Schweers, not only for being characters in this book, but also for running Hitchhiker Central in my office for the two and a half years it took to write and live this adventure. They did endless research, sometimes on joyful subjects, but more often on hideous ones, without the blinking of an eye (or at least ones I saw). Trish plotted my fictional geographical route better than AAA ever could have, and Susan tracked down devices to safely monitor me and forced me to realize I had to go shopping for sensible hitchhiker supplies before I left nonfictionally. Once I was out on the highway, they were my lifeline to reality and were there for me in times of despair. Most important, they kept the secret of my hitchhiking trip until after it had been completed.

  Both typed the manuscript from my Twombly-esque handwritten first drafts and, most embarrassing for me, had to read the sex parts concerning their own boss. Susan commented it was hard for her “to tell the difference between ‘the Best That Could Happen’ parts and ‘the Worst’” in
the fictional sections of the book. Susan and Trish are both incredibly skilled at editing and did so with me endlessly before we turned in the manuscript to the publisher. Carsick is their book, too.

  The music playlist was also a group effort. Larry Benicewicz, who has helped me find music for all my movies and the A John Waters Christmas and A Date with John Waters CD compilations, led me to hitchhiking songs I never knew existed. Pauline Fisher and Mike Page also found me tunes that made the final cut. Jill Fannon hunted down all the selections online and made me endless versions of Carsick’s soundtrack so I could audition each number.

  My literary agent, Bill Clegg, was the first to hear of my hitchhiking idea, but I begged him not to reveal it yet to Farrar, Straus and Giroux because, first, I wanted to be sure I had the nerve to do it. He kept nagging me to at least let him “tease the concept” and I vaguely said yes, and the next day he called to say they wanted to do it. Gulp.