GAS, GRASS, OR ASS

“Come on,” said Veronica. “Kerouac and Gary Snyder used to hitch hike up to Oregon all the time.”

“I don’t care,” said Alison. “That was like 50 years ago, and they were guys. I’m all for like girl power and shit, but come on. Be serious. We’ll take the Greyhound.”

“The Greyhound sucks. Where’s your adventure? Where’s the Open Road?”

“This isn’t the Beat Generation. You can’t find America out on the road anymore. You just find Walmart.”

“Fine, you can take the bus. I’m hitchin.”

Alison knew that Veronica would go alone. She also knew that if anything happened to Veronica, she’d never be able to live with the guilt. She reluctantly agreed.

Veronica wanted to go north, to Eugene, Oregon, to check out some annual hippie music festival called the “country fair.” She had a backpack and a tattered paperback copy of Kerouac’s One the Road and Dharma Bums and a vague idea that "the Open Road" still had lessons to offer the young who went looking.

So they set off, and stood beside the highway for the entire morning.

“Seriously, what they hell are two young hot ass chicks supposed to do?” complained Veronica.

“I told you this wasn’t the Beat Generation,” said Alison. She hoped Veronica would finally give up and they’d just walk back into town and buy a bus ticket.

Veronica lifted her skirt at the passing cars.

“Are you fucking insane?” yelled Alison. “You want to attract the pervs and the serial killers?”

“Oh come on,” said Veronica, “I’m just having fun.”

She had pulled her skirt back down by the time a trucker puller over to offer them a lift. He had red hair that stuck out from under his greasy ball cap, a mustache that hadn’t changed since the early 80s, and a pair of cheap mirrored aviator sunglasses. Veronica was quick to hop up into the cab. Alison gave her a look, but it was missed. She climbed up and they were off. As the driver shifted through his gears, she noticed that he was missing half of his fingers. They didn't say much as jammed the gears back up to 70 mph. Alison immediately mistrusted him. He’s the type to cut our throats, fuck our corpses, and then leave us in a roadside ditch, she thought. Or maybe he’d sell them to a truckload of farm laborers to for a nighttime gang rape in a field just off the freeway. Growing up in Red Bluff, her parents had warmed her about such things. According to them, it happened. Alison didn’t want to be a statistic of a cautionary tale told to other young women against the perils of hitch-hiking.


As soon as the driver had the truck going full speed, he looked at the girls with a smile and said, “Gas, grass, or ass, girls."

“Well, we don’t have any money,” said Veronica, as she pulled a zip-lock bag form her pack and began rolling a joint. "But the other two are negotiable."

The trucker laughed. Veronica rolled her joint, lit it, and passed it to the driver. Alison was terrified. She figured she was either going to get raped by a trucker, or that the stoned trucker would crash them all into a firey death. She secretly hoped for the later, as she could not imagine living with herself after a rape.

"We'll both make out with you," said Veronica.

Alison wanted to shout her objection over the drone of the engine, but mouth wouldn't even move to form the words.

"Fuck that," sad the trucker, exhaling a huge cloud of pot.

Veronica pulled a hit from the joint and held it in. The cab was hazy with smoke. Alison rolled down the window a crack. The roar of the freeway got louder, and she couldn't hear any of the conversation between Veronica and the trucker. She looked out at the pavement passing 70 mph below them. If she jumped, she would be killed. That would be her plan, she decided. Better than rape.

When she turned back, she saw that Veronica had unzipped the trucker's pants, taken out his cock, and was jacking him, as they drove. She kept her pace steady as they climbed over the Siskiyou Pass. As they crested and then rolled down the pass toward Medford, Veronica said, "This is where we get off, and where you get off, too." She turned in the seat, and went down on him. With gulps and slurps, and her head bouncing with the sway of the cab, she sucked him off.

The driver dropped them off in Medford. He hadn't turned out to be a killer. In fact, he said that usually he only had sex with guys, but that he would never turn down a hand-job or a blow-job. He thanked the girls for the ride and the pot and the "happy ending." He even gave them $100 to get a hot meal and a motel for the night. "You can't be too careful," he said.