Ignoring the driver’s –or his would-be son in law’s- well-intentioned warning, Mr. Warshansky asks to speak to Paula. A pile of plates at the washing station topples into the sink and the entire diner is briefly immersed in the clatter.

“Where are you?” There’s a new urgency to Mr. Warshansky’s voice. His English is usually of the studied assimilated-immigrant variety, but when he gets angry, it reverts to a straight-off-the-boat pidgin. “Ver’z Paula? I demand to zpeek to…” Click.

The hitchhiker appears at that moment from behind the swinging bathroom door. The panic returns, but this time it is accompanied with the urge to kill, lash out, do anything to cover the driver’s tracks along with his ultimate plan.

The driver remains still and the hitchhiker stands even more frozen. His eyes say it all: “I know you” and at the same time, they are desperately trying to remain calm, stay focused, and reveal nothing to the driver, whose chest is heaving up and down just a few feet away. Whatever happens, it is certain that they will not go back to being mere strangers. Something has slipped out: something huge but as-yet undefined. It feels like a revelation, though neither man feels as if he has any better a grasp on the other than he did moments ago. If anything, doubt -and a deadly suspicion- pours through the air between them. It becomes heavy and pulsing, as with an electro-static charge whipped into a fury between the two poles. Neither dares to move, lest an answer materializes from out of the super-charged air. Their eyes scorch, practically unblinking, as each faces down the man standing opposite.

The stare-down cannot last. A young woman darts past, dragging a young boy with chocolate sauce completely down the front of him, into the woman’s room. The hitchhiker breaks the stalemate, as his eyes latch onto her ass and keep hold. The buttocks are small but round, and the sheer fabric does much justice to their shapeliness. He thinks of how he’d like to finish his pie off her ass crack, but the bathroom door swings back to disrupt the view. He looks back to the driver, who is already straddling a stool at the counter.

The hitchhiker approaches, but neither one looks at the other. That moment has passed. It’s the rest of their time together that remains a question mark. The hitchhiker puts two dimes on the counter and says to no one in particular, “I’ll be outside.”