“Could I ask a favor,” asked Spring [1]. “I need you to pick me up.” She had called earlier, saying her van was overheating and that she would be a bit late in getting home. Apparently her quest in getting coolant ended in failure. “I'm at a gas station on Atlantic just west of I-95.”
“Okay, I'll be there in a bit.”
Half an hour later, I arrive at the gas station to find Spring sitting next to a young man. “This is Josh,” said Spring, “and since we're doing all this driving anyway, could we drop him off at the West Palm Beach Tri-Rail station [2]?”
“Sure,” I said. “I don't mind.” Josh and Spring got into the car and we drove off.
During the drive up to the West Palm Beach Tri-Rail station Josh was very quiet, only answering direct questions and not offering much else in the way of conversation. After dropping him off I asked Spring what exactly his story was, since he didn't really volunteer anything on the drive up, and she said he had walked from Key West to that gas station [3] over the past three weeks, and that he was getting a bus ticket (courtesy of a friend) at the West Palm Beach Tri-Rail station for a cross-country trip to Sacramento, California [4] for his mother's funeral.
Oh.
Okay then.
And that's all the details we have. No indication of how he ended up in Key West (apparently he's from Sacramento). Nor how he ended up sans transportation other than his two feet and other than that … not much else to say.
[2] http://www.tri-rail.com/destinations/wpb_county.htm#city_place