I Knew You Were Coming

The afternoon sun blazed over Saint Louis, pouring gold onto the highway, flashing off chrome and windshields. Traffic hummed in a restless current, engines merging into a low metallic roar.

My friend and I were gliding through the stream when I saw him.

A lone figure sat in the shade beneath an overpass—thumb out, head bowed, half-hidden in shadow. A hitchhiker. Middle-aged, wearing a faded jacket, shrinking from the punishing heat.

Before I could think, my hands turned the wheel. I was already in the right lane. No one behind us. I pulled over and stopped a few yards ahead.

My friend turned to me, startled, his voice sharp with concern.
“What are you doing?”

The hitchhiker was already moving, his walk unsteady. He opened the back door and slid in, sitting directly behind me. The air filled with the sharp, sour scent of liquor.

“Where to?” I asked.

He muttered the name of a place I didn’t know, just lifted a hand and pointed straight ahead. His voice was low, almost buried in his throat.

My friend—who had never imagined picking up a stranger—shifted uneasily in his seat. The silence pressed in. Only the hum of the tires and the soft rattle of the road filled the space.

Then, without warning, I felt it—two heavy hands on my shoulders. Firm. Cold. His grip pressed through my shirt, anchoring me in place.

My friend gasped.

The hitchhiker’s voice came low and thunderous, as if rising from the center of the earth.
“I knew you were coming,” he said. “God takes care of all of us. He told me you would come, so I waited. I waited five hours while every car passed me by. But I knew you were coming.”

The weight of his hands held me still. The air thickened—dense, electric. Even the traffic noise outside seemed to vanish.

For a moment, time stopped.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the moment passed. The hitchhiker slumped back and drifted into sleep. For the next hour, he would stir and murmur, again and again—
“I knew you were coming…”
“God told me so…”
“I knew you were coming…”

Only his voice filled the car—deep, echoing, unshakable.

That was the last time my friend ever drove with me.