Four in the morning somewhere west of LaCrosse in mid-July, fourteen or fifteen hours since you left Chicago, almost an hour after that last driver dropped you off, the school teacher who responded to your thumb after the guy who claimed to be Agency in Nam but said he couldn’t talk about it let you out, forty or so degrees cooler than that sun-boiled Friday afternoon, making you glad you brought your foul-weather jacket with you but still as cold as any night watch on a quiet quarterdeck, near-zero traffic making you wish she’d offered to take you home and warm you up, when a car rolls up, a window rolls down, and a total stranger spitting at you proves the night is even colder than you thought possible.