"Were you waiting long?"
"About an hour. The last guy was drunk. Man, I was glad to get out."
He nodded. "I'll take you to the end of the turnpike."
"End?" She looked at him. "You're going all the way to Chicago?"
"What? Oh, no." He named his city.
"But the turnpike goes through there." She pulled a Sunoco road map, dog-eared from much thumbing, from her other coat pocket. "The map says so. "
"Unfold it and look again."
She did so.
"What color is the part of the turnpike we're on now?"
"Green. "
"What color is the part going through the city?"
"Dotted green. It's . . . oh, Christ! It's under construction!"
"That's right. The world-famous 784 extension. Girl, you'll never get to Las Vegas if you don't read the key to your map."
She bent over it, her nose almost touching the paper. Her skin was clear, perhaps normally milky, but now the cold had brought a bloom to her cheeks and forehead. The tip of her nose was red, and a small drop of water hung beside her left nostril. Her hair was clipped short, and not very well. A home job. A pretty chestnut color. Too bad to cut it, worse to cut it badly. What was that Christmas story by O. Henry? "The Gift of the Magi." Who did you buy a watch chain for, little wanderer?
"The solid green picks up at a place called Landy," she said. "How far is that from where this part ends?"
"About thirty miles."
"Oh Christ. "
She puzzled over the map some more. Exit 15 flashed by.
"What's the bypass road?" she asked finally. "It just looks like a snarl to me. "
"Route 7's best," he said. "It's at the last exit, the one they call Westgate." He hesitated. "But you'd do better to just hang it up for the night. There's a Holiday Inn. We won't get there until almost dark, and you don't want to try hitching up Route 7 after dark."
"Why not?" she asked, looking over at him. Her eyes were green and disconcerting; an eye color you read about occasionally but rarely see.
"It's a city bypass road," he said, taking charge of the passing lane and roaring past a whole line of vehicles doing fifty. Several of them honked at him angrily. "Four lanes with a little bitty concrete divider between them. Two lanes west toward Landy, two lanes east into the city. Lots of shopping centers and hamburger stands and bowling alleys and all that. Everybody is going in short hops. No one wants to stop."
"Yeah." She sighed. "Is there a bus to Landy?"
"There used to be a city bus, but it went bankrupt. I guess there must be a Greyhound--
"Oh, fuck it. " She squidged the map back together and stuffed it into her pocket. She stared at the road, looking put out and worried.
"Can't afford a motel room?"
"Mister, I've got thirteen bucks. I couldn't rent a doghouse."
"You can stay at my house if you want," he said.
"Yeah, and maybe you better let me out right here."
"Never mind. I withdraw the offer."
"Besides, what would your wife think?" She looked pointedly at the wedding ring on his finger. It was a look that suggested she thought he might also hang around school play yards after the monitor had gone home for the day.
"My wife and I are separated."
"Recently?"
"Yes. As of December first."
"And now you've got all these hang-ups that you could use some help with," she said. There was contempt in her voice but it was an old contempt, not aimed specifically at him. "Especially some help from a young chick."
"I don't want to lay anybody," he said truthfully. "I don't even think I could get it up." He realized he had just used two terms that he had never used before a woman in his life, but it seemed all right. Not good or bad but all right, like discussing the weather.
"Is that supposed to be a challenge?" she asked. She drew deeply on her cigarette and exhaled more smoke.
"No," he said. "I suppose it sounds like a line if you're looking for lines. I suppose a girl on her own has to be looking for them all the time."
"This must be part three," she said. There was still mild contempt and hostility in her tone, but now it was cut with a certain tired amusement. "How did a nice girl like you get in a car like this?"
"Oh, to hell with it," he said. "You're impossible."
"That's right, I am." She snuffed her cigarette in his ashtray and then wrinkled her nose. "Look at this. Full of candy wrappers and cellophane and every other kind of shit. Why don't you get a litterbag?"
"Because I don't smoke. If you had just called ahead and said, Barton old boy, I intend to be hitching the turnpike today so give me a ride, would you? And by the way, clear the shit out of your ashtray because I intend to smoke-then I would have emptied it. Why don't you just throw it out the window?"
She was smiling. "You have a nice sense of irony."
"It's my sad life."
"Do you know how long it takes filter tips to biodegrade? Two hundred years, that's how long. By that time your grandchildren will be dead."
He shrugged. "You don't mind me breathing in your used carcinogens, screwing up the cilia in my lungs, but you don't want to throw a filter tip out into the turnpike. Okay."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"Listen, do you want to let me out? Is that it?"
"No," he said. "Why don't we just talk about something neutral? The state of the dollar. The state of the Union. The state of Arkansas."
"I think I'd rather catch a little nap if you don't mind. It looks like I'm going to be up most of the night. "
"Fine. "
She tilted the watchcap over her eyes, folded her arms, and became still. After a few moments her breathing deepened to long strokes. He looked at her in short snatches, shoplifting an image of her. She was wearing blue jeans, tight, faded, thin. They molded her legs closely enough to let him know that she wasn't wearing a second pair or long-handles. They were long legs, folded under the dashboard for comfort, and they were probably blushing lobster red now, itching like hell. He started to ask her if her legs itched, and then thought how it would sound. The thought of her hitchhiking all night on Route 7, either getting rides in short hops or not getting rides at all, made him feel uncomfortable. Night, thin pants, temperatures in the 20's. Well, it was her business. If she got cold enough, she could go in someplace and warm up. No problem.
They passed exits 14 and 13. He stopped looking at her and concentrated on his driving. The speedometer needle stayed pegged at seventy, and he stayed in the passing lane. More cars honked at him. As they passed exit 12, a man in a station wagon which bore a KEEP IT AT 50 bumper sticker honked three times and blipped his lights indignantly. He gave the station wagon the finger.
With her eyes still closed she said: "You're going too fast. That's why they're honking. "
"I know why they're doing it."
"But you don't care. "
"No."
"Just another concerned citizen," she intoned, "doing his part to rid America of the energy squeeze."
"I don't give a tin weasel about the energy squeeze."
"So say we; so say we all."
"I used to drive at fifty-five on the turnpike. No more, no less. That's where my car got the best mileage. Now I'm protesting the Trained Dog Ethic. Surely you read about it in your sociology courses? Or am I wrong? I took it for granted you were a college kid."
She sat up. "I was a sociology major for a while. Well, sort of. But I never heard of the Trained Dog Ethic."
"That's because I made it up. "
"Oh. April Fool." Disgust. She slid back down in the seat and tilted the watchcap over her eyes again.
"The Trained Dog Ethic, first advanced by Barton George Dawes in late 1973, fully explains such mysteries as the monetary crisis, inflation, the Viet Nam war, and the current energy crisis. Let us take the energy crisis as an example. The American people are the trained dogs, trained in this case to love oil-guzzling toys. Cars, snowmobiles, large boats, dune buggies, motorcycles, minicycles, campers, and many, many more. In the years 1973 to 1980 we will be trained to hate energy toys. The American people love to be trained. Training makes them wag their tails. Use energy. Don't use energy. Go pee on the newspaper. I don't object to saving energy, I object to training. "