How did I get here? How many times have I asked myself that question, followed immediately by the inevitable How do I get out? This wasn't the first time I had been standing by the side of a highway in the middle of the night with my thumb out, waiting to jump happily into the car of the first stranger who stopped, but the gap between this time and any other was a long one. The exit where I had gotten out of the car was connected to a bridge and most of the cars hit the ramp going about sixty-five mph, some almost going into a skid to make the turn, or veering on to the shoulder where I stood, making me step back against the low cement abutment that was seperated by a few feet of brush, trees and ivy, from a tall sound wall.

After about an hour or so, I decided that I wasn't going to get a ride, and a car full of teenagers throwing beer cans clinched my decision to wait out the night in the ivy and go for early commuter and delivery driver trade at dawn. crawling into a shadowed spot, I pulled my shirt up around my head and put my hat on backwards over it. Using my jacket as pad and blanket, I lay down for a good nights rest in the ivy, about two feet from the shoulder of the road, protected against at least small to mid-size vehicles by the abutment.The trucks roared past but I was comfortable given the circumstances. I was dozing off when I heard the rats. Thinking that my camp was being invaded by another transient, I arose with a start, just in time to see a large shape disrupting the ivy as it slithered through the area where my head had just been.This drove me back on to the highway, filled with revulsion and determined to flee at all costs. It was no use however and within half an hour I was walking toward a small stand of pine trees in between my on ramp and the circular off ramp for the same highway. First assuring myself that the area was rat-free, I hunkered down in the pine needles. It was a beautiful hell.

Jeff Huch