“Up there,” the hitchhiker points to a spot further up the wall. It’s a man-sized hole, lined with the same gleaming metal that comprises the laundry-folding tables. They scramble up a shelf and, one at a time, pull themselves into the shoot. The door behind them rattles with the force of hundred pound sides of meat. It is locked but, judging from the sound of cracking wood, won’t be for long.

There is only one floor to climb before the driver and the hitchhiker come to the first opening. It’s a slot that pushes outward and leads into the identical carpeted hallway of every roadside inn.

The first one out helps to pull the man behind him. They stand in the mid-length of the hallway and either way looks the same. A lit exit sign advertises a possible escape, and they follow its glowing plastic promise.

Another stairway; and the gruff, angry voices that the driver, and certainly the hitchhiker, should be so used to by now, are rising from the level below. The bikers obviously wasted not time in so much as trying the average-waist-sized laundry chute, but this being a two-story motel, it didn’t take much more brain cells than that of the three oafs combined to figure out that there was nowhere for their chance nemeses to go but up. Another downside of the squat motel: once on the second floor, there was nowhere to go but down.

The hitchhiker and the driver have to abandon the idea of a stairway escape. They backtrack into the hallway where their only alternative for escape is a window.

The drop is not too painful, as long as they hang from the windowsill fully extended before letting go. There is a collection of bikers standing across the way, standing idly and smoking in an alley. Of course, they are not aware of the commotion taking place within the motel, so they interrupt their banter to watch the two shadows drop from the second-floor window with mild, if confused, amusement.