kitkat
I see a young man on the other side of the road and know immediately that he’s trying to hitch a ride. run across the road and nearly into him, a neurotic but genuine smile.
“where are you going to?”
he smiles back, “manchester”
I laugh and say that’s where I’m headed, suggest that we try together. he doesn’t mind.
his name is gregoire and he’s from quebec in canada. he’s a painting, has kind eyes and looks well worn-down by travelling and life itself, the way god intended people to be.
we talk, and laugh, loud, silver, sharing anecdotes from the road. I’ve missed this. a part of me has clearly missed this, no matter how much I tell myself I despise it all. there’s a sudden outburst of freedom, or frenetic euphoria, of something that used to be your routine but no longer is. I realise I won’t mind standing under this rain, here, in north england, my face wet and my mouth full of awkward laughter – for the rest of my life.
gregoire says, “you know, out of all the countries I’ve hitched in, the worst one for hitchhiking is..”
“this one?”, I laugh, knowing immediately where he’s going.
he grins, “exactly”
“touché. same for me”
a van stops nearby and there’s a man in a green phosphorescent vest climbing out; his wife, little son and two black puppies still in the car. gregoire turns to me with an incredulous smile.
“you know, they’re going to london”
london is where I need to get to eventually, the final nail to push into my wrist – but I didn’t expect to get there before tomorrow; there was almost no way to. here’s to talking about britain’s horrendous hitchhiking only to get a direct seven hour long ride in the first car you stop.
we climb into the back of the van, dirty blankets scattered on the floor, no windows. we make jokes about being kidnapped, and I take a moment to reflect on how often, ridiculously often, life started reminding a prolonged scene from a horror film. the more jokes I make, the more scared I am – I just won’t show it, not anymore. instead I say, mocking a posh british accent as badly as I can, “so, how are you enjoying the fine scenery of the lake district?”
it’s pitch black and we can’t see a thing apart from the light of our phone screens and the whites of each other’s eyes. we laugh and talk and live, and he has the kindest voice, and there are things you can only talk about with a stranger from the other rib of the earth, on the dirty blankets in somebody’s van, barely louder than a whisper.
being kidnapped is suddenly better than being left alone with my sick, twisted, addicted mind – now that I can turn to his sick, twisted, addicted mind instead, and drink it all out, greedily. and then he leaves, dropped off somewhere outside of manchester to spend the night in some bush or other, and I stay.
he has a flight back to canada in a few days. says he’s sick of travelling, can’t stand it anymore, wants to be in one place for once. wants roots. wants to work on a farm, manual labour, diluted temptations. I get him. I’m scared of how much I get him.
we’re vermin in the world’s eyes and tired demigods in each other’s. so be it, I want to say, so be it, but he’s gone, he’s gone, he won’t hear. he’s probably, hopefully, on that farm in quebec, the one he dreams of, smoking on his porch, mud on his jeans, roots, roots, roots.
the family stops for some coffee and when I climb out as well, the frail english sun is too bright, violent on me. they buy me tea at a gas station costa and the kid disappears somewhere for a few minutes, comes back with a kitkat in his hands. “it’s for you”, he says shyly. there’s a lump in my throat, prickly and tight. I’m grateful but my heart is a jellyfish trying to sting itself to extinction.
they suspect I don’t have a place to sleep. they’re right. they offer me to stay the night with them; the lump gets tighter.
climb back into the van, the door closes, and I’m alone in the dark again. curl up on the pile of blankets, the kitkat in my pocket burning into my side, not melting, not yet. bright red foil for a hand grenade, for a reminder of all the things I did wrong, a reminder of guardian angels and absolution and love. I think I will cry but I don’t.
this boy, he’s no older than eight, what does he think. why is there a girl in the back of his parents’ van, she doesn’t even look homeless. what can I tell him other than – there are sicknesses your eyes won’t see. there are girls who smile at you, and speak proper english, and build a hell for themselves with every day they open their eyes, in regret. so many things he doesn’t have to know yet, things I feel ashamed for. I was a child, too, you know. I was clean.
in the morning he shows me his toys, a full trunk of those, at least six various plastic pistols. he teaches me to play operation – I lose magnificently. the kid and I earnestly conclude that it’s a kindness for the world, the fact that I’m not a surgeon.
his mother lets me borrow her shampoo, it smells vaguely of coconut and doom. I take a bath before I leave and buy the same shampoo when I get back to russia, its smell a constant reminder, a coconut noose wrapped comfortably around my neck, tickling my shoulder blades.
the black puppies run around, rosie and lizzie, and how come I remember their names but not the kid’s. I leave him a postcard from russia, with a quiet, unspoken hope that he never finds himself out there. it’s better for him this way.
I walk out into london and search for a patch of grass to sleep on. couldn’t close my eyes at night. once someone who invites you to stay the night ends up a wannabe rapist, it becomes harder to sleep in strangers’ beds. spent the night clenched and wired, wearily eyeing the door. they never tell you the price you’ll have to pay eventually, for every electric shock youth sends down your spine, for every sun-explosion under your eyelashes. for every moment you felt so alive the world stopped to sting for a second.
they never tell you you wouldn’t have it any other way, either – but sooner or later you start to suspect nonetheless.
have to trade my oyster card for the seven pounds the machine by a tube station spits out into my palm, a deposit paid for half a dozen lives earlier, the last money I can count on in this country. I buy something to eat. I walk for four hours all through london, south to north, to get to the next place I can drop my bones at.
tomorrow hozier will say he chose to release one of his songs earlier as a single because a story I’d told him a few months before “moved him”.
and I’ll laugh and laugh and laugh, in disbelief and god-revering gratitude, and buy coconut shampoo when I make it back home, for good measure.
(august 2023)