Coast to coast with John Waters: an extract from Carsick

I stand there. It’s quiet for once. Actually cold. I put on my wool scarf for the first time. The sun’s coming up causes a big glare and, when the first one or two vehicles exit the lot, I see the drivers have to squint and lower their visors to see at all. Not even sure they can actually see me hitchhiking, so I move back into the shade closer inside the rest area. I realise this is the kind of rest area where late at night it would be scary. No security. No services. Except maybe blow jobs inside.

Here in the day it feels safe, though. Couples stop to walk their dogs. Even the few truck drivers pulling out throw up their hands to signal they would pick me up if they could. I stand there feeling both foolish and brave. Silence except for the birds. I’m alive, I think, and so many of my friends are not. I may be nuts to be doing this, but I’m kind of proud of myself. I am having an adventure. I like my life. Even if I have to stand here for the rest of it.

But I don’t. The next ride is yet another nice guy. Nondescript vehicle. He’s 66 years old, just like me, but hetero, I’m sure. A Republican, he tells me, who is happy Obama came out for gay marriage because “before, when he said he was ‘evolving on the issue’, that was bullshit.” He’s also a Vietnam vet with a Kentucky-type accent, and I never once feel uncomfortable with him.

Here is yet another straight guy who can’t stop praising his wife, bragging proudly how she loves to read and how smart she is. I tell him what I do for a living and he shows no real surprise, just says how happy his daughter would be to hear he picked me up, because she loved Hairspray. He starts telling me about his career – providing feed for farm animals and how the business has come a long way on healthy nutrition for cattle and pigs. I learn that baby pigs love M&Ms as a treat, and if you feed one in a litter that snack, the baby pig will follow you around every time you appear. Chickens, however, are a whole different story. “They’re the worst – all their feed’s laced with growth hormones. That’s why eight-year-old girls get their period now,” he explains, “from eating these chickens that are more science projects than animals.” Now there is a sobering thought. I eat chicken. I hope I don’t get man tits!

He takes me deep into Indiana and I feel so safe and happy. After about two hours I realise he’s going to be turning off Route 70W, so I ask him if he knows a good rest area similar to the one he picked me up at this morning. We start scouting and immediately see a sign for one. This rest stop looks good. A pretty park. Cars stop. Even a few truckers mixed in, presumably taking naps. Bingo! I’ll take it. I give him my thanks for the lift card and he chuckles and bids me farewell. I’m on a roll. Next!

I stand there for a while. Drivers leaving in cars politely nod or make hand signals that they aren’t going far. I try to remain positive. I see a Hispanic woman with a bunch of kids in the park, taking a break from driving. She keeps looking at me, and I think, wonderful, she’s going to give me a ride! But when she walks over to me at the beginning of the exit ramp, I see she is holding out something in her hand for me. “Please take this,” she says with an accent, and I am stunned to see what I think is a $10 bill. “No, really, thank you so much,” I plead. “I don’t need it. I’m writing a book.” Yeah, sure, I can see her thinking, here’s a homeless person off his meds.

“Please, sir, take this!” she again orders with a militant kindness that breaks my heart. I realise she is not going to return to her family until I accept. Giving up, I take the bill and realise it’s a $20, not a 10. I am amazed how generous she is. And how privileged and lucky I am. I feel guilty. Not worthy. Suppose I were homeless and off my meds? Hearing voices. Demons. No cash or credit cards. I vow to myself as she walks back to her kids that I will pass along her $20 bill like a good-luck talisman to the next needy traveller.

I’m still trying to compute the generous act in my mind. You cheapskate, I berate myself, why don’t you go over there and give her $500? But I don’t even have time to consider this because a trucker who’d been parked by the side of the rest stop pulls out and hollers from inside the cab, “Come on, I’ll take you!” I’ve never felt gayer as I climb up those three steps on the passenger side of the 80,000lb Kenworth and jump in. Eureka! A trucker has actually picked me up hitchhiking!

“The book needed this!” I explain right away to the handsome 50-year-old driver, who seems to take it all in his stride despite, I could tell, having never heard of me when I introduced myself. I blurt out how grateful I am, how I make movies and how “I promise I won’t print your or the truck company’s name because I know you aren’t allowed to pick up hitchhikers”. He agrees with that, telling me that while his company doesn’t demand two drivers, they do have a chip in the truck to always tell them where he is, and his schedule is highly regulated – he’s only allowed to drive a total of 70 hours a week and never more than 12 in one day.

It’s so modern up here in the front seat of a truck! Hi-tech. Computers. So massive a vehicle. So high up. So much more glamorous than a limo or a town car. This is fun! He’s even a good driver, yet I’m almost afraid to look over at him for fear he’ll think I’m cruising, but then I realise not everybody thinks like a queer man. He’s just a good guy.

Yet I can’t help thinking, isn’t this trucker what every gay “bear” is trying to emulate? Tough but gentle? Sporting a belly but somehow still in shape? Unjudgmental but courageous? Smart but also down-to-earth? A supposed “real” man? I ask him about trucker horror stories, and this gets him going – how he once was in an accident when his whole truck flipped over and there were no air bags and he had to climb out the passenger window to safety. Or how he saw a collision recently where a school bus hit a truck but somehow the kids were all right. I could listen forever.

He has no patience for whiners. Sure, he hates the ever-present traffic near cities in Ohio and Texas the worst, but he never listens to “filthy” CB radios anymore. “Filthy?” I ask, perking up over a word so near and dear to my livelihood. “You know,” he explains, “complaining, bitching about the rules of trucking. I can’t stand hearing that stuff.” He has only good things to say about life on the road, especially Petro truck stops. “They’ve got everything,” he enthusiastically tells me, “lounges, you can watch TV, good food.”

“In other words, the Tiffany’s of truck stops?” I ask, prodding him to possibly be their spokesperson in a TV commercial. “You bet,” he agrees with a grin.

And yep, here’s yet one more heterosexual man who loves his wife. I’m telling you, it’s a trend! Women I know who complain they can never meet a good straight man – maybe you’re living in the wrong part of the country. Maybe you need to hitchhike. Route 70 West could be the path to a great marriage. Go ahead, stick out your thumb for romance.

OK, trucker heaven can’t last forever. He’s going to be turning south to go home soon, so once again I flip back to full unease about where I can be dropped off. I explain my “good rest area” karma and we start looking. Pretty soon one pops up and he pulls off the interstate. I give him my pre-autographed hitchhiking card and wonder if he’ll tell his family about me. Probably. But it will be no big deal. He’s got a nice life – why should he give a rat’s ass about anybody’s celebrity?

I scope out the rest area. Very similar to the last one. Except I see some kind of staff servicing the vending machines inside. Uh-oh. Oh well, I’ve had no trouble so far, why would I now? I buy non-Evian water and then go outside and take up my usual place at the beginning of the exit ramp from the rest area. It’s still a beautiful day. I see many drivers come and go, some taking a walk on the parklike grounds, stretching their backs and just being glad to be out of their vehicle for a moment. I notice a couple who look kind of like druggies walking their huge dog. I hold up my sign to the girl, but she shrugs as if she can’t – she’s not driving and it’s beyond her control.

Then one of the staff of the rest area walks out of the building and heads toward me. “You can’t hitchhike,” she says flatly. “The cops told me it was OK, and I’ve been hitchhiking in rest areas all across this state with no problem,” I lie, almost with an attitude. I notice this lady has few teeth – maybe the staff is work-release from prison, I think, instantly dentally profiling her. Suddenly her whole face changes in surprise. “Are you John Waters?!” she shouts with sudden friendliness. “Yes,” I say, completely shocked that she recognises me. “OK, you can stay,” she says with a complete law-and-order turnaround. I know I should be mad she was shitty when she didn’t know who I am and now practically kisses my ass when she does, but when you’re hitchhiking your usual value system collapses.

I see her go over and start talking to the druggie couple, who are piling into a van. That nosy little busybody, I think, as I keep my thumb out for rides. The van pulls out of the parking space and the back door slides open. I see a packed interior – almost like a hoarder’s. The two druggie types sit on a mattress on the floor with the giant dog. There’s even some kind of bird in a cage. “We’ll take you to Kansas City if you don’t mind sitting up here,” offers a white guy, about 40 years old, in the front passenger seat, who seems to be running the show. He points to a space between himself and his wife, the driver. Not a seat at all, just the centre console, but who cares. I climb in and balance between Ritchie and Aiyana, as they introduce themselves. Kansas City? That’s far! I am beyond thrilled.

But should I be worried? The van takes off and everybody starts smoking joints. Ritchie tells me that the toothless rest-stop worker had said to them, “Can you get John Waters out of here?” I could tell she had mentioned something about who I was, but I could also feel they hadn’t heard of me. I look in the back and marvel at all the personal belongings packed inside the van.

Shirley and Jasper, as they shyly announce their names, introduce Billyburr, the dog. They remind me of Karen and John, the famous “Needle Park” junkie couple Life magazine profiled in 1965 that so obsessed me at the time. Jasper, also about 40, is handsome in an ex-con way, and Shirley’s a little younger, pretty, but you can tell she’s been through the wringer. I wonder if they are meth-heads.

Ritchie explains they are on their way to the fracking boom in North Dakota to build temporary housing for the work. All my liberal friends are against it, but I’m open-minded. Besides, Ritchie isn’t a fracker himself; his speciality is building temporary housing in suddenly overpopulated areas. Most recently he has been in northern Pennsylvania and, I gather, is fleeing some sort of illegal-alien-trafficking problem he casually mentions. Ritchie says: “I love Mexican workers” because “they show up and do a better job than the legal ones I can find in this country.” Like every man who has picked me up hitchhiking so far, he hates freeloaders.

I instantly like Ritchie. He’s a renegade. A pothead wheeler-dealer who, I could tell, also loves to drink. A pirate. A grifter when he has to be and maybe a bit of a fugitive. Ritchie lost his house to the bank in the last recession. He’s broken but not down and still looking for his pot of gold.

This is an edited extract from Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, published on 16 October by Corsair at £16.99. To order a copy for £13.59, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846.

Carsick: This Filthy World Volume Two Live Comedy Monologue is at London’s South Bank Centre (11 November), Manchester Academy (12 November) and Glasgow O2 Academy (14 November)