Don’t stop reading Kafka, she said.

Things have to be different now. I’ll make new friends. I’ll buy a car for once, and stop wearing jeans every day. I’ll start doing crossword puzzles and dating girls named Maggie, and we’ll go apple picking together in the fall. We’ll keep a Norman Rockwell print framed in our mudroom, and we’ll talk about having kids. I’ll stop reading Kafka.

SOUTH BY DUNCAN MACCARTHY WHITMIRE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 09

I didn’t get far the first day. I hitched about 30 miles down the road, which took the better part of the morning into early afternoon. Just south of Rockland was my first ride, and in two hops I’d covered enough of Route 1 to feel okay stopping. When traffic bottlenecked going into Wiscasset I got out and walked.

It was a late-blooming summer. The air was finally warming up but the wind skated across the Sheepscot River carrying a chill along with the salty grit acquired from the incoming tide.

I went restaurant to restaurant until I found one where a busboy had called out. They …