Answer #171 - Fried Pies and Serial Killers

As seen from The Road:

As we pass the Fried Pies, Exit 51 sign on Hwy 35S in Oklahoma, a black leather-clad cowboy is hitch-hiking.  He is striking in the vest that shines and the hat tilted just so.  He's a hitch-hiker.  It's incongruous.  I think maybe he's out of gas - a shiny black Cadillac on the highway somewhere north of our entry, bone dry and oxidizing minute-by-minute in the punishing Oklahoma sun.

I think maybe he's a serial killer.  On the off-chance that he's a serial killer, I won't stop.  Though I entertain the morbid notion that a narrow escape from the clutches of a cowboy serial killer would make a great story, and maybe then a song.  But even I'm not reckless or foolhardy enough to risk it.

So I drive on.

This is in contrast to the last side-of-the-road oddity I saw in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  On the way to the Porcupine Mountains Music Fest, a pair of boots - standing upright in the graveled shoulder of the road.  No one around.  Just the boots.

What is that?  I ask the passengers, as I rubber-neck while we drive by.

I'm awe-struck.  Who leaves their boots?  Who walks away and why?

Is this some sort of art installation?  That Christo person, maybe?  Will there be standing boots now every few feet along this road?    A friend once proposed picking up pianos from people who were giving them away and placing them randomly in wooded areas.. just so people could stumble upon them.  And maybe play them.  And maybe wake up a bit from the hypnotic routine that is civilization.

Is it like that?

About a mile up - we see him.  Stocking-footed and walking in the gravel.  He looks dejected.  He has a backpack.  He has a hunter's cap with ear flaps.

That's him, right?  Should we stop?  Do you think he's okay?

Do we really want to stop for someone who has walked out of his boots for no apparent reason?, asks the scientist bass player.

Hell yes, I think.  But I don't say anything.

I suppose he could be a serial killer.  And yet.. what a story that'd make, huh?
What a story...