Orville

I wasn't expecting to find a hitchhiker in the middle of the Mojave desert, but that's where he was.

It was scorching hot as I raced down the highway. The air was sizzling on the hood of my car, and I had all the windows down and the AC on. Some rock-and-roll guitar riff was blaring on the radio, but it was hard to make out over the sound of wind roaring past. I could feel the leather of my seat sticking to my back through my sweat-soaked T-shirt.

So, given the heat, I thought it was odd when I drove past a man walking along the side of the road in jeans and a red leather jacket. He was wearing a pair of thick, black sunglasses and had a black backpack slung over his right shoulder and a bottle of water in his left hand.

I kept driving for about twenty seconds before coming to a stop. Then, I started up again and circled back around to where he was waiting.

I turned the radio down a bit as I pulled over and came to a stop across the road from the man. He didn't move or speak, but he gave me a cheeky half-grin from behind his sunglasses.

"Where're ya going?", I asked.

"Oh, uh, Harrison's. It's a pub not far up the road from here."

I knew of the place, though I'd never visited. It was a run-down looking tavern attached to a small, dodgy gas station. It had earned a place in my memory as I'd driven this route several times before, and it was the only building I'd be passing for the next hour.

"Yeah, I know the place".

I leaned my head out the open window and looked up the road, in the direction we were both heading, and then turned my attention back to the hitchhiker. He seemed friendly enough, and cheerful to boot. He didn't seem to mind the weather, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind finishing the journey on his own, but it would take him at least an hour or two on foot.

Besides, I was heading that way and wouldn't need to make any detours.

"Wanna ride? You'd get there a lot faster by car."

"Oh, that would be great, thanks."

He hadn't hesitated for a moment, immediately making his way across the road and around to the passengers door. He opened the door and got in, dropping his bag on the floor between his legs.

"My name's Orville, by the way", he said, as he buckled his seatbelt.

"James."

"Nice to meet you, James."

I turned the car back onto our side of the road and we were off. The radio was still buzzing away softly, but he didn't seem to mind. He had his head tilted towards the open window, letting the cool wind run through his hair.

"Oh, this is so much better. So, James, where are you headed?"

He shouted a little to make his voice heard over the wind and the radio and the AC.

"Los Angeles. Pasadena."

"Nice", was all he responded with.

"What about you, if you don't mind me asking. Why are you heading to Harrison's? There's nothing else around for miles."

"Oh, it's not a recreational visit. I'm going there for business?"

"What kind of business do you do?"

"I'm a hitman. You?"

I hadn't heard him properly over all the noise, so I switched off the radio and turned the AC down a bit.

"Sorry, I can't quite hear you. What did you say you did?"

"I kill people. What about you?"

I turned and looked at him and smiled a bit, then turned back to the road, and then back to him. He was joking. After a moment he turned and looked at me with a blank expression. He was expecting me to say something.

"You are joking, aren't you?"

"No, I mean it, what do you do?"

My eyes flicked between him and the road, and settled on watching the road.

"I, um, I'm an architect."

"Oh, nice. Residential or commercial?"

"What?"

"Like, what kind of buildings do you design?"

"... Houses."

"Nice."

He leaned his head back towards the window, letting the cool breeze run past his face again.  He held his hand just outside the window and let the air dance between his fingers, swaying his hand back and forwards. It was a couple of minutes before I spoke up.

"So...", I started.

"Yeah?"

"When you say you're a hitman..."

I trailed off and glanced at him. He just turned and stared at me with that same blank expression, masked by his sunglasses.

"Wh- like, seriously, do you mean your work for the government, or...?"

"No, it's my own company. I work with clients, whoever needs my help, and charge commissions based on the job."

"Oh, Nice."

Oh, Fuck.

He wasn't joking. I had no idea what to do.

I wanted to slam my foot down on the brakes, make everything stop, and give myself a moment to think, but then what? Would I ask him to get out? What if he got mad and attacked me? He had seemed friendly enough, but what if that had all been a ruse?

I could get out and run. He could take the car for all I care. But then I'd be stranded in the middle of no-where, and the nearest place around would be Harrison's, and that's exactly where he was going anyway.

"James?"

I hadn't noticed he'd been talking to me. I’d gotten lost in my thoughts. How long had it been since I picked him up?

"Oh, sorry, what- what were you saying?"

"I was just asking why you're heading to Pasadena?"

Why was he asking me that? What did he want to know? I looked at him. He was staring at me, frowning a little now. Oh god, what was he thinking?

"James? Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just... I'm- I'm visiting my family. In Pasadena, I mean. My parents, and my brother. They're all expecting me, you know?"

"Cool."

He was still looking at me. It felt as though his eyes were scanning me, searching for something on my face or something in my voice. But I couldn’t see anything through the lenses of his sunglasses.

"Do you... have a family?", I asked.

His concerned frown shifted back to that cheeky grin I had seen when we first met, and he turned and faced the road.

"Nope."

He unscrewed the cap of his water bottle, took a swig, and then put the lid back and tightened it. We drove on in silence for a few more minutes. I watched him from the corner of my eyes.

None of this seemed right. Was he acting, pretending to be normal? Was he actually joking when he said he was a hitman? He looked normal enough, but was this just some kind of civilian disguise he was wearing, in order to appear harmless.

He nodded forwards a bit.

"Watch the road."

I turned and quickly swerved to the side. I hadn't noticed that I had drifted towards the center and had been driving in the middle of the road. I straightened back up in my lane. It was a good thing there were no other cars out here. I needed to stay focused

“Are you sure you’re ok? Do you need something to drink?”

“Yeah- I mean, No. I’m just- I’m fine.”

“You seem stressed.”

I didn't respond. I was focusing on the road now. I hadn’t been keeping track of the time, but Harrison’s couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes away. We’ll arrive, he’ll get out, go do his business, and I’d be free to go. 

His business… What was he going to do when we got there?

“...oh god”, I whispered.

Was I taking him to kill someone? If that were the case, I’d be directly responsible for the victims death. I’d be an accomplice to their murder. I could be minutes away from earning a prison sentence.

Orville held something out towards me and bumped it against my shoulder. I shuddered. It was cold. Sweat was running down my arms and face now, and it wasn’t from the heat. He must have figured me out. He knew what I was thinking, and he wasn’t going to let me leave.

“James…”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was focusing on the road. I put my foot down a little harder on the accelerator. Only a couple of minutes now.

“... look at me, James.”

Slowly, I turned to look at him. He was holding out his water bottle.

“Have a drink. You need to calm down.”

He had already taken the cap off, so I took the water bottle from him and downed it in one go. It was, after all, a very hot and stressful day.

“Sorry”, I said, as I handed it back to him.

“Don’t worry about it. They’ve got drinks at Harrison’s.”

We were only a minute away now. I was out of time. I needed to know exactly what I was getting involved in.

“About that, Orville…”.

I tried to keep my voice steady.

“Harrison’s. What did you say you were doing there?”

He turned to me and smiled.

“Business.”

“No, no, not just ‘business’. I need to know what this is. Are we…  are you… going there to… kill someone?”

He stared at me for a moment, that same cold, blank, emotionless stare. Then he started laughing to himself.

“Oh god, James, is this why you were worried? No, no, I’m not going there to kill anyone. Sorry, I didn’t mean to lead you on like that. No, I’m meeting a client there. She wanted to meet in a neutral location, somewhere out of the way, in the middle of no-where. Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were worried about that.”

I didn’t say anything. I was watching the road. In the distance, through a fuzzy cloud of heat, the carpark of Harrison’s came into view. 

“Listen, James, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re a good guy, helping me out like this. And good guys have nothing to worry about.”

I pulled up alongside the building. It was just as dreary and run-down as it had been the last time I made this trip. Above the bar was a faded white sign with red letters spelling out "Harrison's".

I looked over at Orville. He was staring down at his phone, which displayed a picture of the same run-down tavern that was just outside the car. He looked up at me and grinned.

"Yep, this is the place."

He sighed a little as he opened the door and got out of the car, then turned and picked his backpack up off the floor.

"Hey, thanks for the ride, James. I’m sorry if I gave you a scare, but it was really nice meeting you. "

"Yeah, don't worry about it", I said absentmindedly. There was no way this was actually happening.

Orville hoisted his pack onto his shoulder.

"Well, I'll see ya around. Drive safe."

He shut the door, turned, and made his way towards the pub. I watched him as he went.

He turned back and waved to me, giving me a cheeky smile from behind his sunglasses.

Then he pushed open the door to the pub and disappeared inside.

I waited for a couple minutes, staring at the wooden door to the pub. I was waiting for something to happen -  shouting, gunshots, someone getting thrown through a window. But nothing happened. After another minute, I pulled back onto the highway and sped up.

I turned the radio back on and listened as its little hum started to drown out my thoughts. In the rearview mirror, Harrison's pub started to shrink and shrink, until it disappeared entirely.

'I'll see ya around?'

What had he meant by that?