“Arright. You get me out of the city, I give you twenty five percent.”

“Tweny five percent a h’wat? Watchu into, cracka?” Smokey looks around to his associates with a forced chuckle. They never break their gaze with the floor. One, looking like a small boy in his oversized purple suit, swallows hard. Sweat dazzles the side of his face. It’s warm in the backroom, but not stiflingly so.

The hitchhiker pulls bills from every pocket, stuffed down into every garment. The black man’s eyes light up, similar to before, but now it is in amazement. He is stunned, not by the amount, but by the places in which the hitchhiker managed to cram his money.

The pile is laid out on the dressing table, sweaty clumps of bills stuck together. A dancer accidentally looks over, but Smokey catches her and doesn’t have to do much. His look says she’s going to get it later, whatever ‘it’ may be.

“Make it an even third, an it’ll be as good as you was neva he-ah.”

“Fine.” The hitchhiker doesn’t like the position he’s in, but there’s little choice. He only shows his reluctance with a tightening of his lips over his teeth. The word barely got out, but any sound of agreement was enough for the dark-skinned hustler.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Smokey motions from one of his men to the door. It opens with the loud swirls of catcalls over jump-blues spilling in. Smokey turns back into the dressing room.

“For now, you cool out he-ah. Take a showa, get some grub in ya, grab a chick if ya like, I don give a shit. I’ll let ya know when wah ready ta split.” The door slams behind him and the noise from outside returns to a loud muffle. The same girl who was staring at the cash is now stealing glances at the hitchhiker. He lies back in the clam and lets the powdery, femme-spritzed air wash over him. It has the greasy undercurrent of skillet-fried food, but it can’t entirely override the musk of female flesh, ripe for the taking.

The woman, of dark skin and darker eyes, steps out of her robe and enters the shower; but not before stripping the hitchhiker with a do-what-you-will look, teasingly polished with an I-doubt-you-will smile. The hitchhiker has settled cozily into the chair. The ridges of its clamshell back seemed uncomfortable at first, but its overall curve melts his back, like snowflakes in the awaiting palm of a child. Yet the woman has conspicuously left the shower door open, and now rubs herself down in full view of the hitchhiker, and anyone else who happens to walk in. She is not what the hitchhiker would call ‘pretty’, but this club, after all, is not the place for beauty pageants. The hitchhiker observes, drinks in, the way her skin slicks under the gush of water and he can sit still no longer. He suddenly needs to feel its suppleness give way completely under his grip. Better yet, he wants to rip it, penetrate it, and reduce it to the blubbering flesh he knows it really is. He’s up, leaving being a trail of clothes on the floor: sure beats riding shotgun through arid, desert ghost towns any day.