“What can I get ya?” The clerk interrupts his wiping of the counters only for a second, to inspect the hitchhiker. He obviously gets many marginal characters in here, the only ones to be found with nowhere to go after the rest of the Midwest has long gone to bed, so he knows that minimal eye contact is best, even if these drifters are longing for some sort of a connection. The hitchhiker’s brilliantly blue, but unfocused, eyes certainly warrant the same, if not more, cautious treatment.

“A coffee. An a muffin. Please”

“Which one ya like?” The clerk nods to the shelf behind him seemingly without moving his head, a carefully practiced feat.

“Mmmmmmm, blueberry.”

“Comin right up,” as he drops the cup of coffee on a saucer in front of the hitchhiker. The latter stares and sips, and gives the muffin the same unflinching treatment once it arrives. The clerk wishes to carry on with his tidying up and regular, idle routine, but is unnerved by the way the hitchhiker seems to eat without blinking.

“It’s not natural, and I’m certainly not turning my back on that,” the clerk reasons to himself before cutting the string around the stack of newspapers that old Thom McCarroll just dropped off –his route begins at 5:30 am every weekday, starting just down the road at the print shop- and flicks one at the hitchhiker. It lands without the stranger so much as flinching. He’s finished the muffin in a few hungry bites and is now licking his blackened fingers.

“This’s excruciating,” thinks the clerk. He decides its better to engage the man, as long as it’s done with full attention to what he says.

“D’ja hear about wha’happened to that biker gang West on The Route, out round Mackey ways?”