A thought disrupts him, and makes him wish he never delved into the topic in the first place: what if the killer felt nothing? Is it possible: that he could take so much, rob the world of Paula and therefore the world itself, and put no more thought into than a breath of air? The prospect makes the driver want to wretch. He will kill this hitchhiker if that’s what it comes to; that is, if he really is fleeing east from Fresno, hitching all the way out to Michigan not to find work, but to finish a job. All the driver asks is for the tiniest bit of relief once he’s squeezed the trigger. He imagines the hitchhiker’s head atop the policeman’s body, and its slow motion, cranial detonation. This time, he’ll be sure to stand far enough away; and in the future, it’s standard issue bullets all the way. He can’t afford to keep changing clothes every time he kills someone.

“Here, put these on.” The hitchhiker pushes over a brown paper folded over at the top. The driver rips into it and pulls out a pair of pressed, dark blue denims –the kind like the teenagers where, with the bottoms cuffs rolled up- and a dark wool sweater. It’s big, too big, but certainly looks warm.

The driver doesn’t think twice about pulling down his blood-splattered trousers in front of the hitchhiker. He’s just happy to be out of those things, filthy to the point of being stiff and scratchy. By comparison, the newly dyed denim feels like new skin. The hitchhiker is more than content to sit by and watch excitedly. The obvious comfort that the driver enjoys in his new clothes brings the hitchhiker a happiness that comes when someone has finally found their purpose. It’s the best three dollars and eighty cents he’s spent in a long time.
The driver balls all of their old clothes back into the paper bag and finds a dumpster in which to lose it. He’s careful to bury deep down. Apparently he’s not the only one to use this dumpster off a Plattsmouth main street to stash the remains of a body. Whatever he had to dig through to sufficiently hide their evidence, it smells ten times worse than the dried remnants caking their former jackets.

By the time they pull back out onto the main street, most of the morning’s foot and car traffic has died down. Remaining is a fitting combination of the old –but not homebound- and the few, visible unemployed of Omaha. Far from resenting the presence of the other, the two get along famously. It appears that in the absence of work, conversation is hard to come by, and one becomes grateful for wherever he can get it. They’re all “he”’s basking in the brilliant but cold sunshine. It’s not that woman aren’t unemployed or old; a majority of them comprise the latter. It’s just that for these towns whose civic pride is the healthy monotony of its commerce and the unremarkable orderliness of its public affairs –worlds that are both firmly in the control of men- a clean house and well-fed children won’t count for much. Only when such things are lacking do they warrant attention, and then never in a good way.

A church bell rings out the time and sees the two men out of town, as they pass the main and deserted square. It has just struck eight thirty in Omaha, Nebraska and everybody is exactly where they’re supposed to be, even the idlers. It’s the two travelers in a well-weather pickup that don’t belong, not just here but anywhere children play and old wives shop. They know this, and honor this arrangement by leaving the town promptly. With any luck, they will never have to return to the state of Nebraska again.