Author: Balbir Mathur

Ring, ring, ring. The old black rotary phone in my living room must have sounded four times before I reached it. I lifted  the receiver, still a bit out of breath. A woman’s voice — steady, official — came on the line.

“Sir…. do you have a young man named Ken — ” the last name blurred — “at your house?”

“No, ma’am. No one by that name lives here.”

She didn’t pause. “Sir, this is the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. We’ve received a request from the Texas Highway Patrol. A young man by that name has left his home. His family believes he may be trying to reach you.”

Shock rolled through me. Why would a runaway be heading to my house? Why involve two states? As she continued, the memory surfaced — bright as the afternoon when I first saw him.

The Hitchhiker

I had been driving from Wichita toward Des Moines when I saw him: a teenage boy on the shoulder of the highway, thumb out, sneakers dusty from long miles.

I pulled over. He told me his name was Ken. He said he was headed to Des Moines. That happened to be my destination too. He was polite, soft-spoken — the tentative confidence of a teenager trying to stand taller than his years. He said he lived with his grandparents in Texas and was traveling north to see his parents. I found myself liking him.

When we reached my cousin’s home, I told Ken to wait on the porch while I went inside to call his parents for their address. My cousin’s wife was at the stove, her expression tight. She didn’t have to say how she felt about the hitchhiker on her porch.

I dialed the number Ken gave me. Invalid. My cousin suggested adding a prefix. I tried again. A woman answered. “Ma’am, I have your son Ken with me,” I said. “I picked him up hitchhiking and__

“He is not my son,” she snapped, and hung up.

I stared at the receiver.

Outside, Ken insisted I had dialed correctly. So, I tried again. This time the woman’s anger was unmistakable.

My cousin and uncle joined me on the porch. After hearing the story, they exchanged a quiet, knowing look.

“Most likely he’s a runaway,” my uncle said gently. I walked back outside and told Ken. His shoulders fell. He lowered his eyes. Then the truth came out. Yes, he was a runaway. Yes, the number was false. No, his parents were not in Des Moines. He had left his grandparents’ home in Texas. His voice trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of a lie he could no longer carry.

Shelter

He needed safety, rest, and someone who didn’t see him as trouble. My cousin’s wife — still wary, but compassionate — mentioned a youth shelter. I called; they said to bring him to the shelter.

On the drive over, he grew quiet. The evening light gentled everything — the sky, the fields, even his worry. I bought him a hamburger and a drink. When we arrived, the staff greeted him with unexpected warmth. The shelter sat in part of a manufacturing building, transformed by a local businessman into a haven for runaways.

I gave Ken my name and Wichita number. “Call if you ever need me,” I said. Two days later, I learned he’d been returned safely to his grandparents. Later, I visited the businessman who had founded the shelter. I told him briefly how I had brought them a runaway and how grateful I was for what he’d created. He listened quietly, hands folded, eyes soft. Then he said, with a gentleness that went straight through me: “Isn’t that what we’re all called to do?”

Emotion rose in my throat. His eyes glistened too. We shook hands for a long moment — two strangers sharing a quiet truth. When I left his office, tears finally broke free. I whispered to myself, “I hope someday I will be like him.”

The Call Back

And now — more than a year later — the Highway Patrol was calling my house about the same boy. I asked them to call me when they found the boy. Within the hour they called back to tell me they had found Ken within fifty miles outside Wichita. I thanked them and asked if the boy’s family would call me.

When the phone rang it was the grandmother. Her voice was warm, weathered, thick with a Texas drawl. She thanked me again and again. Then she said, “We are grandparents, and we are old. We don’t always understand the needs of a teenager.” Her voice broke. She told me that whenever Ken became upset or troubled, he would say, “The only one who understands me is Balbir, so I’m going to go live with him.” Then she began to cry. “God bless you,” she said. “God bless you.”

I felt the ache of her gratitude, and the distance between our two lives closed for a moment. I told her the same words that had once been spoken to me, by a man who built a shelter just because it needed to exist: “Isn’t that what we’re all called to do?”

Early in the morning, the sun had just risen. The air was fresh and cool, the promise of a warm day ahead. Treva and I were driving to the office about a mile from the house, when I turned onto Main Street and stopped abruptly.

A young man stood at the corner with his thumb out.

“Why are you stopping?” Treva asked.

“There’s someone who needs a ride,” I said.

I reached back and opened the rear door. The young man slid in. “Where to?” I asked.

“The courthouse,” he said. “I’m supposed to report to my parole officer.” He’d been standing there more than two hours, he told us—no car, no ride, no luck. Our office was on the way, so I said we would take him that far.

After a moment he asked quietly if we might go the extra mile and drop him at the courthouse first. We had an early meeting, and I hesitated. But then I looked at the time, looked at him, and said, “We’ll make it work.” I dropped Treva at the office so she could start the meeting, then drove him the rest of the way.

When we reached the courthouse, he turned to me and said, “You got me here exactly on time. I won’t be late. You’re a good Christian.”

I took it as a kind compliment.

Back at the office, when I told the story, my friend Kathy smiled and said, “Good Christian… or maybe just a good human being.”

Treva and I had recently gotten engaged. I’d given a talk out of town, and we were driving back that evening—tired, happy, ready to be home—when we pulled into a rest stop on the Turnpike. I went into the men’s restroom, and as I was washing my hands a young man approached me.

“Where you headed?” he asked.

“To Wichita,” I said.

He nodded toward another fellow lingering nearby, both of them in their twenties. “My friend and I are going that way too. Could you give us a ride?”

I didn’t think twice. “Sure,” I said. Only after the word left my mouth did I remember: I wasn’t alone. I was traveling with my fiancée.

“I’d better check with her,” I added quickly.

When Treva came out of the restroom, I told her what I’d offered. Her face reddened with alarm.

“Honey,” she said quietly, “you can’t just offer rides to strangers when I’m with you. That’s dangerous. Please tell them no.”

I didn’t see the harm, but I respected her instincts.

The two men were watching me from across the room, their eyes fixed on us. When I told them my fiancée wasn’t comfortable, and they’d need to find another ride, one of them snapped. His face tightened with contempt.

He mocked me loudly for “needing permission,” his voice sharp enough that a few heads turned.

And in that moment, two things struck me at once: I had been careless, and Treva was right.

I turned my back to them and walked away. Even then, the men continued to watch us, their attention unsettlingly sharp. A few minutes later they moved to stand near the Wichita exit. A cold fear swept over me—the irrational but unmistakable thought that they might try to jump into our car the moment we opened the doors.

So I came up with a plan. I asked Treva to take the car and pull out in the opposite direction, toward Kansas City instead of Wichita, and wait for me around the curve. I would linger by the Wichita exit a few minutes, keep the men’s eyes on me, and then slip out.

Treva followed the plan. I stayed where they could see me, pretending to wait for someone, feeling their gaze pin me in place. After several tense minutes, I walked calmly to the opposite exit, then broke into a quick stride, slid into the passenger seat of our waiting car, and we pulled out fast.

Only once we merged back onto the Turnpike did we finally breathe.

I apologized to Treva. She had sensed the risk long before I did. I promised her I would never again pick up hitchhikers while she was with me.

And I kept that promise. I only picked up one hitchhiker after that—with her beside me—and that time it turned out to be a wonderful experience.

But that, as they say, is another story.

The late afternoon sun spilled gold over the rolling fields as I turned off the highway onto a narrow, county road in southern Kentucky. Dust swirled behind my rented car.

Up ahead, a young man stood by the roadside, thumb out, a small duffel bag at his feet. His clothes were worn, his posture guarded. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped some fifteen yards ahead of him. 

He came running, breathless. I reached over and unlocked the passenger‘s  door.

 “Hop in,” I said.

“Thanks,” he muttered, sliding into the passenger’s seat.

“Where to?”

“Just keep going this way. I’ll tell you where I have to get out,” he replied, staring out the window.

We rode in silence for several long minutes, the hum of tires filling the space. I didn’t press him.

Then he turned toward me, eyes narrowed.

“You a minister?”

I chuckled. “No. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “Ministers… they always want to fix you. Convert you.”

“Well,” I said gently, “I’m just a driver on this road today.”

He hesitated, then spoke. “I just got outta jail in Lexington. Been in and out for years. Step-dad was rough on me and used his belt. My dad left when I was little, and Mom……she just looked the other way. I wasn’t a good student. Got into fights. Started stealing when I was twelve. Guess it just stuck.”

I glanced at him briefly. “That’s a lot for anyone to carry.”

He looked away. “Yeah. Trouble finds me. Or I find it. Either way, I figure I’ll be back inside in two weeks.”

We rode a bit longer in silence. I reached into my bag.

“You eaten today?”

He shook his head. “Not in a while. But I don’t wanna take what’s yours.”

“My wife packed more than I need,” I said, offering him a sandwich and a bottle of water.

He looked at it for a moment, fingers twitching near his lap, as though weighing the dignity of refusal against the pull of hunger. Then, with a slow nod, he reached out and took it. “Thanks.”

For the rest of the ride he talked to me freely, sharing details of his life. He asked me questions and I replied with stories about my life.  Before we knew it, he stopped me and told me to slow down, as his stop had arrived. I got out of the car and went to the other side. 

I pulled a few dollars from my pocket and gave it to him. “Here, take this.”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t—”

“Please. Just a little something for the road ahead.”

He reached out his hand and took it reluctantly. 

I saw his body move as if he wanted to give me a hug. I reached over and embraced him. 

“Take care of yourself,” I said.

“You too,” he replied, voice low.

As I drove away down that dusky road, my eyes blurred—not from the setting sun, but from the ache of knowing that life had dealt him such a harsh hand.

“There but for the grace of God, go I,” I muttered to myself. 

I had barely gotten onto the highway when I saw two figures standing by the road, thumbs out. One was short and thin, the other large and heavy—a perfect Laurel and Hardy pair.

I pulled over. The big one climbed into the front seat; the smaller man, burdened with most of the luggage, took the back. They told me they’d been waiting since morning—four hours—and I was the first car to stop.

We drove a few miles and were still getting acquainted when two more hitchhikers appeared up ahead. One wore black and a bandana across his forehead; he looked like a pirate. The other was plain and quiet.

I asked my passengers if it would be all right to take on two more.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” they shouted in unison, their enthusiasm oddly childlike. I couldn’t understand why they were so eager. That was my first signal for caution. Still, I stopped. The small man moved his bags to the trunk, the heavy man automatically squeezed into the back seat with the other two.  The pirate climbed into the front beside me. The trunk couldn’t hold all their belongings, so some of the bags ended up on their laps. When everyone was settled, a second alarm was raised in my mind … why did the heavy man move to the back?

Almost immediately, the four began talking among themselves, and it was clear the pirate was their leader. We hadn’t gone far when the heavy man cleared his throat.

“We owe you a confession,” he said. “The four of us met in town last night and started out together this morning. But no one would stop for four hitchhikers, so we split into pairs. You picked up the first half, then the second. That’s why we’re so happy.”

They all laughed. I smiled, though something about their closeness—their secret understanding—made me uneasy. A second alarm bell went off.

They wanted to know everything about me: where I was from, where I was headed, what I did. I asked about them in return, and their stories came out one by one.

The pirate spoke first. He was a machinist from Michigan. Once he’d had a good job, a wife, a baby boy, a car. They went to church, gave donations, nodded to all the neighbors. He described it all carefully, as if to prove how solid it had been.

Then, one day, he came home early and found his wife in bed with her brother.

“What?” I interrupted.

“With her brother,” he repeated, emphasizing each syllable. Stunned, he shut the door and left everything behind—home, wife, child, and dreams—and started walking. He’d been walking for over a year, he said, and still nothing made sense.

The heavy man was from Georgia, and he spoke next. His girlfriend had left him, and he’d been drifting ever since. The quiet one, from New York, followed—he too had lost a wife and was “trying to find himself.” The smallest man, from Oregon, nodded. Same story—a breakup and a long road ahead.

It took almost forty minutes for them to tell their stories. When they finished, a long silence filled the car. I didn’t want to interrupt—it was clear they were still somewhere inside their pain. Four restless men, all from different parts of the country, all burned by love, surrounding me in my small rental car. I was giving them a ride through Kentucky, but it felt as though we were crossing something much deeper.

Then, from the back seat, the man from New York spoke. “Are you married?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How long?”

“Sixteen years.”

“Sixteen years! A woman lover!” one of the men shouted. Then they all joined in, “Woman lover, woman lover, woman lover!” Their voices were sharp, metallic—almost razor-like in their anger. The air turned electric. I felt surrounded, besieged, as though by a pack of angry dogs. A shiver ran down my spine. My hands gripped the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road.

We drove in silence for several miles. When the men finally resumed their chitchat, my pulse slowed, and the fear and tension began to fade.

Near the end of the ride, I asked quietly, “You’ve been on the road for months. What do you miss most?”

One man answered, “Smoking.”

They looked at one another, and each repeated the same word: “Smoking. Smoking. Smoking.”

They told me that when a hitchhiker finds a cigarette butt on the road, he sucks on the filter, then wraps the stub in plastic and leaves it behind for the next traveler.

I felt a quiet warmth fill me as I sensed their generosity. I was reminded of a story told by Mother Teresa, who once heard about a woman who had not eaten in four days. When someone brought her food, the woman passed it on to another who had not eaten for seven.

Here were men—heartbroken, homeless, uncertain of their next meal, unsure whether any driver would even stop—and yet they were thinking of others still to come. I have seen this same spirit among poor people around the world: those who give from the little they have to help others in need.

That night, with those four travelers, I felt as though I were among the richest people in the world.

“The road doesn’t end—the travelers do.”
                             —Trucker saying

The highway north out of Oklahoma City was wide and empty, the afternoon sun so bright it bleached the land of color. Heat shimmered on the asphalt, and for a long stretch, there was nothing to see but yellow grass and sky.

Then, far ahead, a figure appeared — a man watching the fast-moving cars, still as a post. On either side of him sat two enormous white dogs. Even from half a mile away, he looked huge. The dogs, sitting upright and still, faced the oncoming traffic exactly as he did, as if trained to imitate him. They looked like sentinels keeping watch.

I slowed the car. Who, I wondered, would ever stop for a man like that — a giant with two beasts at his side?

Apparently, I would.

When I pulled over, he turned toward me. He had a quiet face, handsome, with a big smile. He nodded graciously and, without a word, opened the back door. The dogs climbed in as if they knew exactly what to do, their heavy bodies shifting the car’s weight. Then he eased into the front seat and folded his hands on his knees.

“Where you headed?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, calm and deep-voiced. “Wherever you’re going will do.”

I looked at him again — tall, broad-shouldered, red hair streaked with gray. The kind of man who seemed built by the land itself.

“And home?” I asked.

“Wherever I am,” he said. “That’s home enough.”

We rode a few miles in silence before he began to speak, not prompted but as if remembering aloud. The two dogs lay down in the back seat and stayed there the entire way, not a single bark, not even a sigh — as if they too had learned the discipline of silence from the road.

He was born in Idaho, he said. His parents were farmers — or rather, his mother was married to one. Across the road lived another farmer, a friend — the kind who waved every morning from his porch. The friendship deepened into something else, and when his mother became pregnant, everyone in town knew the child wasn’t her husband’s.

The boy’s hair came out bright red — just like the man across the road — and people started calling him Red before he could walk.

His mother, humiliated, eventually ran away, leaving him behind. His father — or the man he called father — kept him, but the gossip never stopped. His older sister reminded him daily that he didn’t belong. One morning, when he was eight, he ran away. He walked until he reached the highway and waited there until a truck driver stopped.

At first, the driver seemed kind. But somewhere down the road, Red realized what the man wanted. At the first gas stop, he slipped out and ran. Another trucker took him in. Then another. And another after that.

By the time he reached Los Angeles, he had no place to call home. The road had claimed him — raised him, hurt him, and kept him alive.

When he finished speaking, the sun had lowered a little. We stopped for gas in a small Kansas town — one pump, one dusty café. The dogs stayed in the car while he stepped out to stretch. A group of women in their thirties came out of the café laughing, hips swinging, glancing toward him. They moved like dancers pretending not to perform.

The word that came to my mind was prancing.

He looked once, without interest, then turned back to the car. When he got in, he said, “They were prancing.” The same word. It startled me enough that I didn’t answer.

Back on the road, I told him I was headed for Wichita and asked where he’d like to be dropped off.

“Near a bar,” he said. “There’ll be a woman there. Always is. She’ll take me home, feed me, spoil me for a couple weeks. Then she’ll get tired of me sponging off her and throw me out.”

He said it without bitterness — only certainty, as if describing the weather.

He looked out the window at the horizon, where the light was already fading. “Then I’ll start walking,” he said. “East, west, north, south — doesn’t matter. The road knows where to take me.”

For a while we drove in silence. The dogs’ steady breathing filled the car, deep and even, like the sound of waves against a shore.

When I finally dropped him at a roadside tavern outside Wichita, he opened the door, the dogs leapt down, and he turned once to nod goodbye.

Then he was gone, swallowed by the light and dust of the endless road.

“You should never pick up hitchhikers.”

That’s what the man in the back seat told us—right after we’d picked him up.

David and I were driving from Tulsa to Wichita on a hot summer afternoon, the kind where the air wavers above the asphalt like smoke. The highway stretched out straight and empty, shimmering beneath a wide, cloudless sky. Around two o’clock, we spotted him—a small, wiry figure walking briskly along the shoulder, a felt fedora on his head and a suit jacket slung over his shoulder.

David was driving. I nodded toward the man.
“Shall we give him a lift?”

David smiled. “Sure.”

We pulled over, and the man climbed in. He was polite, almost formal, as if stepping into someone’s living room rather than a car. He told us he’d been in Tulsa for a cousin’s wedding. His car had broken down, and now he was hitching to Stillwater so a family member could drive him back to fix it. He mentioned his tribal nation—Oklahoma-born and proud of it—and then settled into quiet conversation, hands folded neatly in his lap.

Half an hour later, we saw another hitchhiker—a tall, broad-shouldered man standing beside the road, thumb raised, his T-shirt darkened with sweat.

David glanced at me. We both grinned. Why not?

I turned in my seat. “What do you think? Should we pick him up?”

The change in our passenger’s face was immediate and almost comic. His eyes widened; his shoulders tensed.
“Oh, no,” he said earnestly. “You should never pick up hitchhikers.”

David’s mouth twitched. “That so?”

Our passenger realized the irony the instant it left his lips. His face flushed red. “I didn’t mean—well, not all of them. But you never know, right? Some folks pick up a hitchhiker and are never heard from again.” He gave a nervous laugh, then glanced at his folded hands. “Guess I shouldn’t be the one to say that.”

David slowed anyway. The big man climbed in, nodded once in thanks. He smelled faintly of sweat and freshly cut grass.
“Appreciate it,” he said. “Didn’t think anyone was gonna stop.”

The two men exchanged brief, polite nods—mirror images of travelers who’d long ago learned how to keep moving. The car settled into an easy silence, the kind that comes when strangers share a small mercy on the road.

For the next several miles, the conversation drifted: roads taken, towns passed through, the long hours between rides. The smaller man leaned his head against the window, eyes half closed, letting the rhythm of the highway lull him. The taller man talked about heading north, maybe finding work in Kansas City. Between the two of them, something like kinship formed—two stories told from different bodies, both shaped by motion and weather and chance.

We never learned either man’s name, but it didn’t seem to matter. By the time we neared Stillwater, it felt as if we knew them both.

We dropped the smaller man off first.He stood beside the car for a moment, adjusting his hat.
“Thanks for the ride,” he said softly.

“You’re welcome,” David said.

Then the man turned toward the other passenger, hesitated, and added, “I owe you an apology. I almost told them not to stop for you. I’m afraid of hitchhikers—think they’re dangerous. Funny thing, isn’t it? I’m one myself.”

He gave a quick, embarrassed smile, waved once, and walked toward his house.

Back on the highway, the larger man chuckled. “Funny little fella.”

“Yeah,” David said. “Seems like a good guy.”

For a while, no one spoke. The road stretched ahead, pale and endless in the heat. I thought about the smaller man’s words—the fear that rode beside him, the strange honesty of warning others about people like himself. There was something humble in it, almost tender.

The kind of truth, I suppose, that only comes to you when you’ve spent too many miles on the side of the road—waiting for someone to stop.

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.

Rolling Highway 75 shimmered under the hot Kentucky afternoon sun, a ribbon of faded asphalt stretching north. I had been driving for miles when I saw him—a tall man on the side of the road, thumb raised, his other hand shading weary eyes.

I slowed. In the ditch beside him, a small boy dragged two bundles through the grass. A flicker of caution rose in me. I rolled down the window, and the man leaned in.

“Need a ride?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said, voice low and rough. “Got my boy with me. And our things.”

The boy scrambled into the back of the station wagon, curling near the rear window. His father lowered himself into the seat beside me. I told them I was only going as far as the airport but could take them that distance.

As the road slipped by, his story came in fragments. At forty-nine, he had gone South to find work training horses. There, he married an eighteen-year-old woman. Their son was born into a home that quickly soured. The boy had just turned seven, and his wife wanted them both gone.

That morning, he had packed his car with as much as it would hold. Hours into the drive, the car gave out. He opened the hood but could not fix the problem. A highway patrolman stopped, called for help, and after hours in the blistering sun, a mechanic arrived. The verdict: a new water pump, $200—money he didn’t have. The car itself wasn’t worth that. The man offered him $12.50 for the whole thing. Having no choice, he took it, leaving behind tools worth far more.

Since then, they had stood on the roadside, the sun beating down, waiting five hours for someone to stop. I was the first.

When his tale was finished, he asked if I could drop them near the next town’s bus depot. They could get food and catch a bus north.

The boy stayed silent, watching the world recede through the rear window. Near town, I pulled into a gas station. As I paid, I said to the attendant, “Thanks, friend.”

Back in the car, a small voice cut through the silence.

“That was a lie.”

His father turned, puzzled.

I glanced at the boy in the rearview mirror. “What did I lie about?”

With bold conviction the boy replied, “You said that man was your friend. He’s not!”

The words landed like a stone dropped in still water. The car filled with silence—deep, thick, unbroken. I searched for an answer and finally stammered, “A friend is someone you like.”

No reply came. The quiet stretched, heavy and searching. Then, without warning, I felt two small arms reaching from behind me, encircling my neck. The boy pressed close, whispering in my ear, “Friend.”

The tenderness was beyond words. I could only place my hand gently over his.

As the tires hummed through the next few miles, my eyes blurred. I understood then what no explanation could hold: friendship is not argued, nor defined. It is known—in silence, in touch, in the fragile trust of a child who had lost so much and still chose to give his heart.

I arrived in the United States in 1958 with little more than hope and a hunger for discovery. Within a year, I’d saved $150—enough to buy a 1954 Ford. It wasn’t much, but it had four wheels and a heartbeat. It meant freedom.

My roommate taught me to drive in the university parking lot. I failed my first attempt at the driving test but passed the second time. I still remember the feel of that small piece of paper in my hands—my first true American license, a passport to the open road.

 Then, one morning, magic fell from the sky. Snowflakes. My first snow. I stepped outside in a short-sleeved shirt, catching the flakes as if they were messages from heaven. I laughed. I danced. I was a child again, reborn in a new world.

A couple of friends, recognizing my wonder, took me to watch sledding. Children squealed as they flew down the hill, bundled like little marshmallows. I borrowed a sled from a four-year-old and joined in—shrieking just like him. The boy chased after me, demanding his sled back. I returned it, heart full, and wrote to my family about the joy and the miracle of snow. The snow piled up—light and fluffy, nearly a foot deep—and I, still in love with it, decided to drive my car. In hindsight, not the smartest decision. But lovers are known for their foolishness, and I was in love with this new world.

I was inching along carefully when I saw a woman plodding through the deep snow. She wore a checkered coat, a muffler over her face, and her hat pulled low. Her hands, gloved, held something in a cloth bag that I couldn’t make out. But whatever the burden was, it slowed her progress. She walked carefully and deliberately. I stopped the car and offered her a ride. She looked at me carefully—twice, maybe three times—as if confirming something. Then, without a word, she got in the car.

We didn’t speak during the ride. In India, we were taught not to speak to unfamiliar women unless spoken to. I respected her silence. After ten minutes, she gestured that this was her stop. As she stepped out, she paused and said, “I never get into a car with strangers, but I know you.”

I must have looked puzzled. She smiled and said the name of a local noontime TV show. Yes, I’d been invited on that show shortly after arriving in America, and then reinvited several other times to display some exotic imported pieces from around the world that allowed me to get my education in America. It dawned on me—I was a stranger who was no longer a stranger.

That day felt like poetry. Like I had written a stanza in a larger American song.

Years passed. Driving became my compass and my freedom. I traveled coast to coast, feeding my spirit on the beauty of this land.

It was a cold November evening. My nephew, newly arrived from India for his first job as a doctor, was with me. The wind bit at the world, and streetlights flickered like uncertain thoughts. Outside a bar on Main Street, we saw her standing barefoot, her sheer muslin dress clinging to her legs. She looked too young to be there. I thought maybe she’d had a fight with a boyfriend. I pulled over.

She got into the back seat without a word and pointed west. “Where to?” I asked. No answer. Just the same sign. After a mile, she told me to turn right. Then another right. Now, we were looping back toward where we’d picked her up. She pointed again—toward a dark, unlit street.

Something felt wrong. I stopped. “Where do you live?” I asked. She pointed again.

“You’re close enough,” I said. “You can walk from here.”

“No,” she snapped. “You have to take me there.” Her first words.

Her face had changed. Cold. Hard. Demanding.

“Ma’am, I’m happy to help,” I said, calm and steady. “But I’m not turning down that street.”

“You will take me there,” she said, her voice firm and in control.

“ Take me there or I’ll scream,” she yelled.

“Please do,” I replied. “That’ll attract the police. They’ll help you. You’ll be safe.”

She stretched her arms up against the roof of the car, her legs planted firmly on the floor, an immoveable object. This had become a battle of wills.

I began to drive slowly, and she flung the door open.

“That open door will only draw more attention,” I said, continuing to move slowly forward. After a few minutes, my nephew leaned in, whispering, loud enough for her to hear. “There’s a police car ahead.” Only I knew that my nephew was so new to this country that he wouldn’t know a police car from a fire truck.

She panicked. Jumped out. Slammed the door, and screamed every obscenity known to man, and then vanished into the dark.

We drove away in silence. My nephew’s first impression of America, I realized, was a much darker face of the country I had grown to love.

That was years ago. I haven’t driven in over a decade now—my vision has faded with time, macular degeneration slowly closing the window I once looked through with such wonder.

 Even though I’m ninety years old now, I still remember those two women. One wrapped in snow, the other in shadows. One who saw something familiar in me, and the other one who just tried to exploit me. Is there a thread connecting the two?

Even though the times have changed, I would still pick up a hitchhiker, or stop to help a stranger.   I still remain a mirthful child dancing in the snow, catching snowflakes on my  tongue.