The boy was flushed from his walk. He had walked very fast, apparently for no reason. He tensed, his muscles stiffening, knotting. There came a slight wooziness over him. His stomach had suddenly rebelled against having gone long without food. His stomach groaned, embarrassingly.

The old man stopped the car at a hot dog stand. There was just a soft raindrop patter now. "How about something to eat?" asked the old man, patting Danny on the leg. Just a gesture, perhaps. The cooking meat had an odor sweet to Danny's nostrils. He wanted to say, "Yes," but one cannot accept food from a stranger. Of course, one does not accept a ride from a stranger, either. His eyes darted around the inside of the car. In back were empty beer cans, a dusty pillow, yellowed newspapers. "No thanks," he mumbled.

The old man went to the stand. He bought four hot dogs, which he smeared with yellow mustard. He had left the key in the car ignition. 'I could have driven off,' Danny thought, but he must have known I would not. How?' "C'mon, have a hot dog," said the old man, "I can't eat them all myself." So Danny took a hot dog, ate it wolfishly; while the old man chewed on his first hot dog, Danny had another. "You weren't hungry, eh?" said the old man, when the second hot dog had been downed. "I wasn't really as hungry as I had thought, myself," he said.

"Heh, you're gonna have to have something to wash her down with," the old man said. "Beer?" He produced two warm cans of yellow, foaming beer. It was beer, however, and, when you're underage, tastes so much better.

They roared along through the park; the student began to relax a little, with the beer in his stomach. The rain had stopped, and the sun had begun to break through the overcast. It was hot on the wet of the pavement, and soon the concrete dried. The boy had stretched out on the seat, his head against the doorpost, and he had dozed.

The roar softened; the car stopped. He awoke to find the car on a country road. He did not know how long he had slept. He was frightened, his whole body tense. He had to control his body, to keep it from quivering. The boy was keeping his eyes shut, although he was awake. He was thinking back to when he had been a seventh-grader, and had had to give an oral report before his class. Excited, he had forgotten to zip his fly after going to the bathroom. Some boys giggled; a girl saw, and looked away. He turned red, but could not zip the fly with the class watching. He thought now, 'Is my fly unzipped? Is that why the old man is looking at me?' But his fly was not unzipped. He started to move, to let the old man know that he was awake.

The old man went behind the car to urinate. The boy, Danny, needed to urinate too, but controlled the need, feeling queazy in the stomach, but not moving. Again the key was in the car ignition. Danny thought, wildly, of getting into the driver's seat, and driving away, before the old man could return. But he came back, tried to start the car, and it would not start. Danny was glad he had not tried to drive the car away. The needle on the gas gauge showed empty.

"I'll have to walk to the gas station up the road," the old man said.

"I'll walk along too," Danny said.

So they walked along the road, silently, in the hot afternoon sun, until they found the gas station, just a tar-paper shack, a gas pump in front, no bathroom. The boy went around back and urinated.

When they got back to the car, the man started it, and the car screeched off the county road onto a dirt road. They came to a cabin, rough-hewn and tanned as the old man. "C'mon in," said the old man.

one