INTERSTATE 65– Interrupting a short stop for chips and a restroom, a hitchhiker from Whiting, Indiana informed our Field Notes Reporter that the medium-distance CDL driver he’d been riding along with was “way out there” and that “the dude thinks he’s driven to Europe and South America.”
Making conversation while waiting in line at the Flying J rest stop and filling station, Justin Bialyowa was visibly agitated as he recalled the stories the driver had told him.
“I was down in Bloomington partying with my cousin and his boys for the weekend. I wake up this morning and I don’t get 15 minutes out of town when my piece of (expletive) PT Cruiser decides to die on me. I pushed the piece of (expletive) to a Buckhorn truck stop about a quarter mile from there, but it wasn’t even giving me power when I turned the key. No interior lights, nothing” he recalled, browsing the smaller portions of Combos snacks located near the checkout area. “I gotta be at work tomorrow morning and I don’t have anybody to call to drive me all the way back home, so I turned on the old Bialoyowa charm and started asking around the Buckhorn to see if anyone would help me out. Good thing I met this Bill guy. He’s all right but I think he’s not all there man!” Bialyowa said, making a corkscrew movement with his index finger pointing towards his head.
“He tells me he doesn’t do long-haul trucking because he’s got two kids at home, but this crazy son of a (expletive) is talking about how he dropped a load off in Mexico last week and how bad the snow there was! Then he’s hits me with this story that he thinks is hilarious about his logistics guy having him drive out to Washington when he has to be in BRAZIL in an hour but there’s some kind of detour and he ends up in Paris! I don’t know if this guy’s been partying too much or if he took one to the head!”
“I’m like “Sure man, Warsaw. You go ahead and give them all my best. Warsaw, man.”
-Justin Bialyowa, hitchhiking North on Interstate 65
Paying for his order which consisted of a Snapple and a bag of Taquitos, Bialoyowa continued, “This guy’s telling me about how he goes hunting around Winchester, Newcastle, and Edenborough man. When he got to telling me about his trip to Ireland last weekend, I about lost it. I’m just trying to get back to Whiting and of all the people to give me a ride I end up riding shotgun with Robin Hood or Don Quixote or some (expletive). That’s just the Bialyowa luck man, you put yourself out there for an adventure and who do you think is going to take you up on it? Wild people, that’s who!”
“My family came from Poland to Chicago like four generations ago, I doubt any of us had ever been as far into the sticks as I got this weekend. I always give my cousin (expletive) for going to school all the way down there. I’m just trying to get back to civilization and I got this trucker telling me about how the furthest he can take me is Hebron because he’s headed to Long Beach on his way to Plymouth before he gets to Warsaw! I’m like “Sure man, Warsaw. You go ahead and give them all my best. Warsaw, man.”
Holding the door on the way out, Bialyowa seemed nostalgic for his time on the road nevertheless. “I guess I take it for granted living someplace where people don’t have to make up crazy stories to amuse themselves. Hey if you don’t mind asking, which way are you headed anyway? I can tell you aren’t crazy.”
Reached for comment inside of the Flying J after our reporter feigned forgetting to make a purchase and lied about being destined for Indianapolis, Bill Thompson, the medium haul independent CDL driver who’d given Bialyowa a ride this far told us, “Man do not let that guy ride with you. I had to listen to him tell me about how chemtrails are trying to make us all infertile for an hour on the way here and how it’s all part of a coverup to hide the fact the Earth is flat. You don’t even want to hear what he had to say about the windmill farms just north of Egypt.”
