When I was 16 in 2002 I discovered Kerouac and, like so many others before and after me, fell in love. In the '90s, hip cynicism was the default mode of expression (Reality Bites, oh well whatever nevermind). So discovering Kerouac was a breath of fresh air. He had so much enthusiasm and such a compelling vision of life.
I took a cross-country road trip in an old van when I was 17 in summer 2003 with three friends but it didn't satiate me, so I went hitchhiking for four months in summer 2007. I was somewhere in the prairies during the first leg of the latter trip when I met Jan.
Jan was about a year older than me. She said she was hitchhiking to Los Angeles and then planned to head north up the Pacific Coast Highway to Vancouver. We hung out for about four hours, first on the highway shoulder and then in a coffee shop, and she told me about a number of close calls she'd had. I'd already had a few myself as well - a few creepy truck drivers and one older man who started out friendly but then became monosyllabic and angry after I got into his vehicle. I was lucky enough to get out unscathed but I was worried about Jan because of how physically small she was.
Jan was the one who advised me to ALWAYS ask a driver who has stopped for you where they are headed.(Before that I would just get into their vehicle, without asking anything, afraid they would change their minds if I didn't move fast.) "If they don't have an answer or they hesitate, tell them 'thanks but I'll get the next one.' You only have a few seconds to sniff out a bad vibe. Trust your gut."
We'd both been bitten by the Kerouac bug so we talked about him for a while. She also loved Bukowski, which was a big reason she was going to L.A. Neither of us knew what we were looking for. We only knew that we wouldn't find it staying at home.
It's not a good idea to try and hitchhike with somebody. Very few people will stop for even one hitchhiker. Even less will stop for two. We both knew this so we said goodbye and went our separate ways.
I spent the next three months on the road, working random jobs for a week or two and then moving on. I sat on countless dew-soaked fence posts at dawn, scribbling in the notebook I kept in my backpack. (Months later, on my way home I would get caught in a thunderstorm and get so saturated, all the ink would run off the pages of my notebook. I see this as a blessing now. I'm sure my "poetry" was awful.) I met a lot of wonderful people, worked a lot of random jobs, and just generally had the time of my life.
I ran into Jan again in Victoria a lot over three months after first meeting her. I was freakin' ecstatic to see that she'd made it to L.A. and all the way up the west coast, as I'd been worried about her. We both looked and felt incalculably older, like we'd lived many years' worth of experiences since we'd last seen each other. Jan had given herself a close-cropped flattop buzz cut and now dressed like a boy. She also traveled with a screwdriver she'd taken to a belt sander and shaved down to a razor sharp point. Traveling with a knife for protection can be trick, hence the screwdriver.
I've never had to move through the world as a woman but the dim notion I do have of what it must be like comes from knowing Jan. There's no doubt in my mind that her advice helped keep me safe out there. Most people are good but some just aren't.
Before I went hitchhiking, I'd always thought evil was a sinister outside force that rolled through the world like a storm front. If you could just somehow not be there when it brushed past you, you'd be okay. I don't have the space here to describe my or Jan's close brushes with danger but after that trip, I had to admit that evil is within us, not without. It's a feature of humankind, not a bug.
I still talk to Jan. We write each other long emails every 3-4 months. We don't hitchhike anymore but we're both glad we did it. We've talked about Leah Roberts before. Neither of us knew what to make of the cryptic letter she left behind, but it sounds like she was on a journey of self-discovery when she ran into someone bent on doing her harm. It's a heartbreaking story. I hope that one day her remaining family members find peace and some semblance of closure.
This story is heartbreaking.
When I was 16 in 2002 I discovered Kerouac and, like so many others before and after me, fell in love. In the '90s, hip cynicism was the default mode of expression (Reality Bites, oh well whatever nevermind). So discovering Kerouac was a breath of fresh air. He had so much enthusiasm and such a compelling vision of life.
I took a cross-country road trip in an old van when I was 17 in summer 2003 with three friends but it didn't satiate me, so I went hitchhiking for four months in summer 2007. I was somewhere in the prairies during the first leg of the latter trip when I met Jan.
Jan was about a year older than me. She said she was hitchhiking to Los Angeles and then planned to head north up the Pacific Coast Highway to Vancouver. We hung out for about four hours, first on the highway shoulder and then in a coffee shop, and she told me about a number of close calls she'd had. I'd already had a few myself as well - a few creepy truck drivers and one older man who started out friendly but then became monosyllabic and angry after I got into his vehicle. I was lucky enough to get out unscathed but I was worried about Jan because of how physically small she was.
Jan was the one who advised me to ALWAYS ask a driver who has stopped for you where they are headed.(Before that I would just get into their vehicle, without asking anything, afraid they would change their minds if I didn't move fast.) "If they don't have an answer or they hesitate, tell them 'thanks but I'll get the next one.' You only have a few seconds to sniff out a bad vibe. Trust your gut."
We'd both been bitten by the Kerouac bug so we talked about him for a while. She also loved Bukowski, which was a big reason she was going to L.A. Neither of us knew what we were looking for. We only knew that we wouldn't find it staying at home.
It's not a good idea to try and hitchhike with somebody. Very few people will stop for even one hitchhiker. Even less will stop for two. We both knew this so we said goodbye and went our separate ways.
I spent the next three months on the road, working random jobs for a week or two and then moving on. I sat on countless dew-soaked fence posts at dawn, scribbling in the notebook I kept in my backpack. (Months later, on my way home I would get caught in a thunderstorm and get so saturated, all the ink would run off the pages of my notebook. I see this as a blessing now. I'm sure my "poetry" was awful.) I met a lot of wonderful people, worked a lot of random jobs, and just generally had the time of my life.
I ran into Jan again in Victoria a lot over three months after first meeting her. I was freakin' ecstatic to see that she'd made it to L.A. and all the way up the west coast, as I'd been worried about her. We both looked and felt incalculably older, like we'd lived many years' worth of experiences since we'd last seen each other. Jan had given herself a close-cropped flattop buzz cut and now dressed like a boy. She also traveled with a screwdriver she'd taken to a belt sander and shaved down to a razor sharp point. Traveling with a knife for protection can be trick, hence the screwdriver.
I've never had to move through the world as a woman but the dim notion I do have of what it must be like comes from knowing Jan. There's no doubt in my mind that her advice helped keep me safe out there. Most people are good but some just aren't.
Before I went hitchhiking, I'd always thought evil was a sinister outside force that rolled through the world like a storm front. If you could just somehow not be there when it brushed past you, you'd be okay. I don't have the space here to describe my or Jan's close brushes with danger but after that trip, I had to admit that evil is within us, not without. It's a feature of humankind, not a bug.
I still talk to Jan. We write each other long emails every 3-4 months. We don't hitchhike anymore but we're both glad we did it. We've talked about Leah Roberts before. Neither of us knew what to make of the cryptic letter she left behind, but it sounds like she was on a journey of self-discovery when she ran into someone bent on doing her harm. It's a heartbreaking story. I hope that one day her remaining family members find peace and some semblance of closure.
R.I.P. Leah Roberts.
Stories like these are so sad, especially when they remain unsolved.