The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America

Praise for THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS…

“Could you survive a cross-country trip relying only on the kindness of strangers? Well, Mike McIntyre did. He put our country to the test, and what he found out sure surprised me.”

—Oprah

“A superb writer…Something about McIntyre and his quest makes people want to feed him, pray for him, reveal their innermost torments to him.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“An incredible journey.”

—CBS News

“A page turner.”

—
The Detroit News

“A captivating first book.”

—
San Jose Mercury News

“I could barely put the book down.”

—Donna Kelley, CNN

“Fascinating. I wish I had thought of this.”

—Bill O’Reilly,
The O’Reilly Factor

“A book that could provide a dozen scripts for
Touched By An Angel
.”

—
USA Today

“When Mike McIntyre quit his job and went looking for the real America, something amazing happened. He found it.”

—Salon.com

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS:

PENNILESS ACROSS AMERICA

By MIKE MCINTYRE

Copyright © 2010 by Mike McIntyre.

Revised e-book edition published by Mike McIntyre.

A slightly different trade paperback edition was published in 1996 by Berkley Books.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the copyright owner. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

CHAPTER 1

My head throbs from heat and hunger as I wilt on the side of a country road in northern California. The cardboard sign I level at oncoming traffic reads, “Eureka,” though my latest discovery is that I’m out of water. I don’t have two dimes to rub together, let alone a lucky penny. I ate my last meal two nights ago—in a dream.

The summer sun roasts my face. I feel like I’m hitchhiking inside an oven. My baseball cap would bring relief, but I leave it in my backpack, giving drivers a clear look at my eyes. No matter. Nobody stops. And who can fault them? It’s 1994. This is America. Land of the free and home of the serial killer.

I stagger around the bend in a futile search for another road that feeds into Highway 101. When I return, someone has taken my place. His dark eyes fix me through strands of greasy, black hair. I don’t have the strength to fight, or run.

“You must’ve just got dropped off,” I say, squinting at the stranger. “Where you coming from?”

“Jail.”

The man laughs. He doesn’t have a tooth in his head.

He says his name is Rudy, and the judge gave him three weeks for unpaid traffic tickets. He says he’s heading home to Leggett, about 50 miles north, to check on his gold mine.

“I’m anxious to get back up there,” he says. “I just found a big vein supposed to be worth half a million dollars.”

Yeah, I know, Rudy’s a dreamer. But like they say, without dreams, you got nightmares.

His red backpack is torn and frayed. Papers poke through a busted zipper. I wonder what else is inside.

“Hey, you don’t have any food you could spare, do you?” I say. “I haven’t eaten in days.”

He reaches into his grimy jeans and pulls out two pieces of candy, each wrapped in cellophane.

“It’s the only food I got,” he says, holding the candy in his palm.

They’re frosted gumdrops. One orange, one grape. I eye the sweets as my saliva glands do back flips. I settle on the grape one.

“Go ahead, take ’em both,” Rudy says.

I grab the orange one, too.

“Well, I’m gonna walk up the road a bit,” he says. “They see two of us here, they won’t stop. With two of us, they figure we’re gonna pound them into the dirt.”

Before he’s around the bend, I tear open the wrapper of the orange gumdrop. It’s heaven to wedge something between my bellybutton and my tailbone, even if only a lump of sugar. I plan to save the grape one for later, but I gobble that down, too.

I fish a black felt pen from my pack and lower my sights. I scratch out “Eureka” and write in “Willits.” It’s only a 17-mile ride. But the motoring public blows by me like I’m waving a sign that says “Homicidal Maniac.”

I pace circles in the dirt, my knees ready to buckle. If I drop in the road, will somebody stop for me then?

There’s a noise behind me. I whirl and see the disheveled figure of Rudy. He’s got something in his hand, but it’s not candy.

“Hey, I got to thinking up there on the freeway:
He doesn’t have any money
.”

Rudy unfolds two one-dollar bills and smoothes them flat against his chest. He irons out every wrinkle, as if the notes were shirt collars bound for church. He extends the money toward me.

I stare at the greenbacks. Two dollars. I know what that will buy. A loaf of bread and a pack of baloney. Or maybe a jar of peanut butter. I won’t have to worry about food for three, four days. “In God We Trust,” it says. Hallelujah! I’m born again.

“Go on, take it,” Rudy says.

I reach for the cash, then pull back.

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m crossing America without a penny.”

Last summer, I drove from my hometown of Tahoe City, California, to New Orleans. I spent much of the trip on U.S. Highway 50. It’s called the Loneliest Road in America, and for good reason. I raced a hundred miles an hour across Nevada and rarely saw another car.

East of Ely, in the middle of the desert, I came upon a young man standing by the roadside. He had his thumb out and held a gas can in his other hand. It was obvious the guy needed help.

I drove right by him.

Someone else will stop for him, I reasoned. Besides, he’s not really out of gas. That red can is just a ploy to flag down a car and rob the driver.

I drove on into Utah, however, then Colorado, still thinking about the hitchhiker. Leaving him stranded in the desert didn’t bother me as much as how easily I’d reached the decision. I never lifted my foot off the accelerator.

There was a time in this country when you were a jerk if you passed somebody in need. Now you’re a fool for helping. Gangs, drugs, murderers, rapists, thieves, carjackers. Why risk it? I Don’t Want to Get Involved has become a national motto.

I flashed on my final destination, New Orleans, the setting for Tennessee Williams’ play
A Streetcar Named Desire
. I recalled Blanche’s famous line at the end: “Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

The kindness of strangers
. It sounds so quaint. Does such a trait exist in America anymore?

Closing in on New Orleans, I wondered: Could a person journey coast to coast without any money, relying solely on the goodwill of his fellow Americans? If so, what kind of America would he find? Who would feed him, shelter him, carry him down the road?

The question intrigued me. But I knew it was a question without an answer.

Who would be crazy enough to try such a trip?

“What?” Rudy says. “You can’t use two bucks?”

“I appreciate it, but I can’t accept money.”

Rudy wanders off, shaking his head.

I’m not sure I get it either. I set out on this journey three days ago from San Francisco. I’m now actually
west
of where I started. Only 3,000 miles to go.

I walked out the door a pilgrim. But today I feel like a refugee from the world of common sense.

CHAPTER 2

Three weeks earlier
.

I’m sitting in my car, parked in a condo complex down the road from my office near San Francisco. It’s lunchtime, but the turkey sandwich rests untouched on the passenger seat. I barely notice a doe and her fawn step by the window. It’s a golden California day, and I’m crying.

I turned 37 this week. I’ve been a newspaper reporter for a decade. The pay and perks are good. I’ve traveled all over the world. I live in a nice apartment with a beautiful girlfriend. There are people who love me.

But all of that is little consolation when you know you’re a coward.

If I were told I was going to die today, I’d have to say I never took a gamble. I played life too close to the vest. I was never up and I was never down. The perfect shill.

Wiping tears from my eyes, I know it’s time to bet or fold. Just this once I want to know what it feels like to shove all my chips in the pot and go for broke.

When I get back to the office, I corner my boss before I lose my nerve.

“I’m a long yo-yo on a short string,” I say. “I’m ready to snap.”

“Do you need some time?” he says.

“Yeah, all I got left.”

I drive up to Lake Tahoe to say goodbye to my family and tell them the logic behind chucking a perfectly good job in the middle of a recession.

It’s a spiritual sojourn, I say. I’m making a leap of faith a continent wide. I’ll go from the Pacific to the Atlantic without a penny. A cashless journey through the land of the almighty dollar. If I’m offered money, I’ll refuse it. If I see a coin in the road, I’ll step over it. I’ll accept only rides, food and a place to rest my head. Wait and see, it’ll work.

My relatives line up to attack the plan like children going after a piñata.

“I hate being broke and having to scrounge,” says my younger brother, Pat, who has struggled financially most of his adult life. “Why would you want to deliberately put yourself in that position?”

“You’ll get rousted by the cops,” says my dad.

“We’ll see how far he gets,” says my stepmother.

And this encouraging note from my grandma: “You’re going to get raped out there.”

My final destination is Cape Fear, North Carolina—a symbol for all the fears I know I’ll have to conquer if I’m to go the distance. If I make it to Cape Fear, it will be as a different man from the one who starts the journey.

I’m afraid.

I’ve been afraid my whole life.

I was born scared.

I grew up afraid of the baby-sitter, the mailman, the birds in the trees, the next-door neighbors’ cat.

I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of the ocean. I’m afraid of flying.

I’m afraid of the city and I’m afraid of the wilderness. I’m afraid of crowds and I’m afraid to be alone. I’m afraid of failure and I’m afraid of success.

I’m afraid of fire, lightning, earthquakes.

I’m afraid of snakes. I’m afraid of bats. I’m afraid of bears.

I’m afraid of spontaneous human combustion.

I’m afraid of losing an arm. I’m afraid of losing a leg. I’m afraid of losing my mind.

Yes, and I’m afraid of dying, too. But what really scares the hell out of me is living.

I’m afraid.

I rise early the morning of September 6 and scan the paper.

The O.J. Simpson murder trial is the top story. Oliver Stone’s movie
Natural Born Killers
is number one at the box office. A third body has been found shot to death on Interstate 80. And two men from the Midwest are on a cross-country killing spree.

I’ve got great timing.

“Do you think I’ll make it?” I ask my girlfriend Anne.

“Yes, I really do,” she says.

We met two years ago in Guatemala. I was living in a cabin on the side of a mountain, writing. She had come down after college to learn Spanish. We quickly decided to marry, then canceled after the invitations were ordered. Despite our second thoughts, the relationship has survived and grown stronger. We later moved to Budapest, Hungary, to work for an English-language newspaper. Now San Francisco. We’ve been apart before, but we both know this time is different.

Anne doesn’t delay the inevitable. She hugs me and leaves for work. Before closing the door, she smiles bravely through tears. She’s never looked more beautiful. I hear the soft click of her heels crossing the tile floor below. Then the pound of the lobby door swinging shut.

I shave with more care than usual, then shower, letting the hot water run down my body long after I’m clean. I dress slowly. As I pull on my socks and hiking boots, I’m aware of the numbers flipping on my clock radio. I feel like I’m preparing for my execution rather than the adventure of a lifetime. I half expect a warden to appear in my bedroom doorway and say, “It’s time.”

For my last meal, I walk to Mel’s Diner over on Lombard and order the Elvis Scramble. Elvis died on my birthday, and this breakfast seems served up by fate. I don’t have an appetite, but when the waitress sets the plate of chorizo, eggs and refried beans before me, I eat every bite.

Back at my apartment, I write Anne a check for two months’ rent, plus extra for the bills. I hoist the pack my brother lent me onto my back. It weighs about 50 pounds. Funny how a pack without food or cooking utensils can be so heavy. I may starve, but at least my corpse will be clad in clean underwear.

I take a last look around my home, then gently close the door. I slide the key back under. Ready or not.

Outside, I see two women in BMWs arrive simultaneously at the last parking space on the street. Neither will budge. One lays on the horn and won’t let up. The other screams, “Fucking bitch!” I walk on, happy in knowing I’m not the only idiot in the village.

I’ve walked down this street hundreds of times, but today it feels new. I pass the Chinese laundry that over-starches my shirts for 99 cents, the trendy cafe that charges me a buck-fifty for a cup of designer coffee, the movie theater where Hollywood mugs me for $7. The marquee reads: CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER.

I reach the end of the block, then turn back. I’ve still got money in my pocket from breakfast.

My bank is on the corner. A panhandler and his shopping cart are parked in front. I drop my last $3.68 in his Styrofoam cup and head for the Golden Gate Bridge.

CHAPTER 3

Fog glides through the twin towers of the Golden Gate Bridge like a spirit. My head spins as I lean over the rail and watch a ball of spit hit the water. I look back at the city I’m leaving and see my neighborhood.
It’s not too late to change your mind
, I tell myself.
Yes, it is
, replies an inner voice.