Don’t/Can’t Try This at Home

By Dexter Loken

Originally published in Soul-O Travel Magazine

One of these days I’m going to really get myself in trouble. 

That hike was gorgeous as is all of Estonia, but this unintentional walk back to Pärnu is certainly not what I’d call a “happy accident.” I have no cell phone service as happens when one is too cheap to invest in a SIM for the country chosen by cheapest roundtrip ticket, but Maps.Me works off GPS or so I assume because it can still tell me my anticipated arrival time at the hostel is 5am. It’s 11pm now and the sun is just starting to set. In retrospect, I should have known something was up. I mean, I guess I did know something was up, but my brain responded with, “Naw, it’s fine. They said there was a bus back.” The first woman working behind the counter at the bus station in Pärnu said the return bus was going to be at 7pm. Perfect. Enough time to hike and maybe get some kayaking in, if I could find the company renting them in the outskirts of nowhere. I had a bite to eat then upon arriving back at the station decided it couldn’t hurt to ask again. The new woman behind the counter said the return bus was at 8pm. Huh. Should I maybe not go? I went. 

All-in-all a good time and I made it back to the end-of-the-line stop by 6:45pm. I waited. 7:00pm—no bus. 7:45pm—no bus. 8:15pm—fuck. 8:30pm—better start walking, and there is only one direction for the bus to come from so I’ll catch it if it passes. 9:30pm—the bus isn’t coming, but hitchhiking is a thing in Europe, right? 9:45pm—is it maybe a different hand signal here? I had been sticking my thumb out and people didn’t seem to notice. I decided to try waving like they do in Tanzania. 10:00pm—well that waving wasn’t working either. Back to the good ole thumb in the air. They left the Wi-Fi on at this convenience store, so it was about this time that I sent a couple messages to friends saying, “I’m hitchhiking in Estonia! If I don’t message you in 24 hours, then call someone!” Should I maybe have used that internet to call a cab? Yeah sure, but if I’m too cheap for a SIM you best believe I’m not paying several hundred dollars for a taxi. 10:43pm—the sun is passing below the horizon, which means it’s officially night time, which common sense says is a dangerous time to ask for a ride, which led me to give up on getting a ride. This catches everyone up; now the light is fading from that twilight glow I thought was a permanent fixture of the northern most locales in the summer. Turns out, it gets truly dark.  

11:45pm

Okay so hear me out. I’m walking on the side of this freeway in the middle of the night, right? It’s hella dark, and I’m already freaking out a bit although I’ll deny that fact if I live to tell this story. If someone was going to kill me, they’d just do it on the side of this road in the country. They wouldn’t need to wait for me to get in their car. It seems the best course to at least get a ride for my trouble. I’ll try this hitchhiking thing again. I’ve never successfully done it before, so I hope I’m doing it right.

12:50am

Brain cells failing. You know when you are so tired that you can’t stop? Is this what Algernon felt like? OH! Headlights! It feels pointless now, but I can’t get a ride if I don’t try. Left hand out just like that with the thumb held high. The lights are on me now like some sort of ET abduction shit. “Abduction” might be a poor word-choice. The lights pass over, and I don’t even have ash on my brow. SCREEEEEEECH!!! The car comes to a complete stop a hundred feet ahead of me. I’m great at seeing signs, but I’m terrible at heeding them. The passenger door opens, and I approach making sure to check the backseats. What would I do if anyone was there? They’re empty so no need to think about that. The seats are covered in a trippy 70’s shag. I may be hallucinating because those very well could be fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror, and I shit you not, Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” is blaring from the speakers. The driver is a man with a Hawaiian shirt and kaki shorts. Can’t really guess his age with his Guy Fieri hair. You bet your ass I noticed all these details too. I’m in the process of climbing into a car at one in the morning. I’ll need to have a full description of my kidnapper and his minivan when I eventually escape and am talking to a police sketch artist. He tells me his name, which I promptly forget as the expert detective I am. Turns out he is half Estonian and half German; his accent comes from the latter. He does most of the talking.

“I’m here to see my girlfriend and mother,” he says. “I leave tomorrow for St. Petersburg. I have an office there. I’ll be visiting a girlfriend there. I’m a travel agent. Where are you from?”

I say, “I’m living in Tanzania right now.” The US doesn’t exactly have a great rep overseas so I tend to steer conversations this way when I have to answer that question.

“I have an office on Zanzibar. I have a girlfriend there. We will meet up when you get back there.” He hands me a business card even though I’d really prefer if he kept his eyes on the road.

And another thing, I’m not one to pry into someone’s relationship like this, but it was sounding a bit strange. It’s very possible that there was some mistranslation going on or that this guy was polyamorous, which samesies, but it does feel a bit weird to open up about all this to a guy you just met. If he was going to kill me though, he would be assured of my silence and thus his secret girlfriends wouldn’t find out about each other if they didn’t already know. He is talking like he might be a bit tipsy, so it could just be booze loosening his tongue. Did I get into a drunk guys car? This just keeps getting better.

2:00am

We are getting close to the bridge on the north side of downtown. I haven’t crossed before now, but I remember looking over it in my city wanderings. 

“You can drop me off here,” I say.

“No no no. My girlfriend’s son. It’s his birthday. We will be fast. I will take you all the way,” he says.

What can I do? I could jump ship, but that seems drastic. He hasn’t done anything too sketch yet. Don’t be paranoid. He pulls behind some buildings and then into an alley. My radar is pinging loud enough that even I can’t ignore it, or is it my heartbeat? There’s one door open, and black light floods from its maw. He gets out. 

I say, “I can walk from here. Really it’s—”

“No. You have to come in. It’s his birthday.” Would it be culturally inappropriate to say no? It feels rude at the least.

Despite all the sirens telling me to run, I follow the light. There’s a woman in the entryway decked out in all black with the dilated eyes of one who has had a few drinks, and my new friend has a very passionate kiss with her before presumably explaining the situation in Estonian. He informs me she doesn’t speak English, and she pulls me into an embrace. You know how there is an accepted amount of time to hold a hug? In my opinion, there is a socially recognized length of duration dependent on the situation. Take this time. When meeting a stranger, if you are to hug at all, it should be short and sweet. Don’t want to send the wrong message. This is too long. Ope? Now she is rubbing my back. I notice someone over her shoulder. Presumably that full-grown man with shaggy hair is her son. They are all tall, and I’m over six foot, so it is probably more apt to say they are all quite tall. Are they trying to get me into an orgy? I’m not opposed per se, but honestly, I’m fucking tired, and I just met them! It’s too much. She releases me from her clutches and ushers me into the dark room, which I wish would assuage all my worries, but then they offer me food and drink. I can’t make out anything outside the small kitchen not even where the doors are. 

The son is a chef; he just turned 22. So yes, he is a full-blown adult. I’m not sure I can explain how this made it weirder. This birthday we couldn’t miss was for an adult like I guess I thought it was for a kid, which would somehow make everything make sense? I fill my water from the tap myself because I’m not that trusting of these folks just yet, but I do accept a plate of food. The dude’s a chef how could I not? 

Okay, so it’s really good. Beef, potatoes, and some sort of veggie sprinkled with...well he’s the chef not me. The son speaks English and we talk about his plans to open his own restaurant. I finish my plate and my driver escorts me out to his car. He drives me to the cross street of my hostel and leaves me not even trying to see where I walk. Everything is fine. No harm done, and the time is 2:34am, two and a half hours earlier than my walking ETA, but I still won’t be getting on my intended 6am bus to the KGB museum. What a weird night.

You can take whatever you’d like from this story such as “this guy is an idiot and will die young,” or “this guy is a true adventurer who doesn’t let anything stop him from exploration, which is something we all need more of,” or even “people are amazing as these examples of genuine human kindness illustrate,” but I choose to believe there is another lesson here: Always trust Freddie Mercury.