“Tell me, was it hard, y’know, for a guy like you, to get set up in Tilly’s crowd?” She smiles into his eyes, and takes his momentary confusion for modesty.

The driver sputters, “I…well…um…”, while his interior loop is incredulous and spiraling, like a film strip spun of its reel. “How can this overpaid, over-hyped pinup mistake me for one of ‘em scummbags, these asslickers of that jambo cocksucker….”

His mind is all over the place. The driver thinks back to his amazement when neither he, nor the hitchhiker, nor even their black teenage guide, were given a second look as they strolled through the party undisturbed. “I can’t believe ‘em rich assholes actually fear, r’worse yet, actually r’spect, this so-called Tilly an’ his measly band a garillas. An ta think, this ‘ere Heather tart was gearin up ta jump me right here an now ‘cause of it….”

To the driver, that is as worse an indictment of Hollywood as any he could have derived from off the top of his head. His mouth wants to spit out the delicious odor from that cigarette. He wants to find the hitchhiker -or better still, not find him- and get the hell out of there. The driver should be chiding himself for how long he has allowed himself to stray into this party: no more than a horrid instance of fame’s celebration of nothing but itself.

The driver is gathering his disgust and turning it into momentum, so that he can storm off and leave all of this behind him for good, when Tilly rushes him, forcing his back against the railing.

“Where is that shittin’ cracka friend a yours?”

The driver answers with a take-no-shit stare.

“I aint playin with you honkey. You betta start talkin.”

Heather, standing next to them, puts her delicate hands to her mouth to feign fright, but inside she is lit with something else entirely. Tilly, confronting what she believes to be one of his own guys, has unleashed the greenhouse thermostat upon her poor, sensitive, tiny flower down below. It is aglow with moisture, but the pressure growing against the walls of its stamen is too great. If the two men -Tilly and his supposed henchman- end up coming to blows, she knows the thrill will be too much for her and her soft underbrush, aflame with desire, and she will have to run off. She also knows she won’t be able to, and is afraid of what will happen then.