Biker Chick

I don’t remember her name, but in my mind she will always be “biker chick”.

I first saw her one night standing with her thumb out on a corner of a busy intersection in San Francisco, and I stopped and offered her a ride. She was in her early twenties, attractive, with blond hair, wearing jeans, work boots, and a denim jacket over a halter top. She sat behind me in my camper van on a little sofa. She was quiet. I stopped at a convenience store and bought a box of donuts. As I pointed my van back onto California route 1, I removed a donut for myself and passed the box to her. A few minutes later I looked behind me and saw her lying down, asleep. The donut box was empty. She must have been hungry and exhausted.

I was hoping to make it to Big Sur that night, but I was tired, too. The highway was dark, and I found a place where I could pull off the road. I quickly fell asleep.

The next day my hitch-hiking passenger was more talkative. She was a “biker chick”, the girlfriend of a biker. She had a four year old daughter in Florida that she missed and she was on her way there to see her. We talked all the way to Los Angeles.

It was late afternoon when we got to L.A., and I pulled my van off the road and into a parking area next to a public beach. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next, and while I stood on the beach and pondered my next step, my passenger got out of the van, walked to the edge of the highway, and stuck out her thumb. Two minutes later she had found a ride and was gone.

Florida was three thousand miles away, and I felt some regret that I let her slip away so quickly. I wasn’t responsible for her but, even so, I felt I should have taken her at least part way home. I’ll never know what happened to her, but I’ve always hoped she made it home safely, back to her little girl.

 

Bixby Creek Bridge, about 14 miles north of Big Sur