dirkjake and hitchhiker??

It’s safer to travel in groups, you tell him, when you find him face down on the side of a highway, face bruised and spirit deflated after he had demanded to be let out from a red flag of a ride and ended up tumbling out of the cab before the truck had made a complete stop. You found him like that, glasses cracked, eyes ringed with tears. Grass was in his teeth.

It’s safer to travel in groups, you had attempted to explain to him. Like wolves.

He tells you many things as you travel. You stay mostly silent, but he keeps telling you things. He tells you about how he’s going to California, how he’s going to be star. He tells you about the people he’s met so far, the places he’s seen, the dogs he’s befriend. He tells you he’s met men like you; he’s not afraid of them, he makes sure to tell you. Really, he says, he doesn’t have a problem with it. He’s going to Hollywood after all. It’s the 60s, he tells you. It’s legal in England now. He tries very hard to tell you things are changing.

You start calling him “Hollywood” as an affectionate jest, but you know that “Jake English” rolls off the tongue like the name of a future celebrity. He calls you “Wolfpup,” occasionally “Dear.” You ask him to remember you, when he’s famous. You ask him lots of things while you’re lying in a field with him beside an empty highway. Looking up at a dark sky with pinprick stars.

He curls his arm around you and says “‘Pup.” Nuzzles at the side of your face. Tells you: “You’re a rather tough face to forget.”