Anne takes off her pack, sinks down into the back seat. Trot slams the door, which rattles as if it might fall off its hinges. Pistol turns the music down while Trot gets in the front seat, and eyes Anne in the rearview. “Hell happened to your face? You look fucked up.” He shifts into drive.

“Spat with my brother.”

“Siblings. They’re the worst.”

The Probe’s headlights cut through the pudding-thick night. Houses swish by. Pistol takes the highway out of Johnson City to an old back road. Glancing at Trot and then making eye contact with Anne in the rearview, Pistol tells them, “Could’ve crashed at my place till morning if needed. Got a comfy cushioned couch, spare bed, air mattress. Cabinet full of booze. Plenty of weed.”

Trot tells him, “We’re good, dude. Told you, we’s hopping a train.”

“Some Huck Finn shit—I get it. Rad!”

Trot stares out the window while Anne sits chewing what length she had left on her chipped nails—wordless, each waiting for the other to reply.

Anne meets Pistol’s glancing eyes in the rearview, fake laughs. “Yeah. Huck Finn, only it ain’t no damn boat we’re hopping.” Pausing, she spat a piece of nail onto the back the passenger’s seat. “It’s a fuckin’ train.”

“I feel you, little lady, I feel you. More like some Dean Moriarty shit.”

“Dean More-what shit?”

“On the Road, by Jack Kerouac—the Beats. Where he travels ’cross the country with his friends. Great fucking book. Should stop at the first bookshop you find and buy a copy.”

“I’ll get right on that.”

Trading suburban landscapes for country landscapes and farmhouses and pastures, twenty minutes later Pistol pulls to a turn out off the side of Pleasant Grove Road. Shifts into park. Reaches over and shakes Trot’s hand, who slides him two twenty-dollar bills.

“Safe travels, brother.”

“Appreciate it, Pistol.”

Unlatching the door, Trot steps out into the cool night air. Anne pushes the seat forward, grabs her pack, feeling Pistol’s eyes undressing her. She steps from the car, looks in at Pistol. He tells her, “Don’t forget that book.”

Not caring for the way he keeps eyeing her, she tells him, “Why don’t you go feel someone else up with your eyes, you fuckin’ creep.”

Embarrassed, Pistol shifts into drive. Holds up his hand, flies the middle finger. “Screw you.”

He speeds off down the road, leaving Trot and Anne standing out in the darkness of crickets chirping and dogs barking.

“Did you have to be such a bitch?”

Overhead, the sky is clear, with Orion and the Big Dipper and an airplane blinking. “Fucker was making me sick, molesting me with his eyes. Talking about some damn Jack Kerouac—probably some kinda cock book or something. You got some weird friends.”