We were hitchhiking to Montana from Rhode Island, and after a few short rides with backwoods psycho-types, Cal and I got lucky. We got picked up by a guy in a big trailer truck who was going all the way to Chicago. His name was Sylvester, and he looked kind of like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction. He was a former Black Panther. At least that’s what he told us. And he had Polaroid photographs of his various “ladies” from around the country all taped to the dashboard. They were all naked in the photos. Sylvester said the pictures kept him awake and focused while he drove. And he smoked a good deal of the pot we had brought along with us. He chain-smoked joints the way my Aunt Sophie smoked Winstons. Every half hour or so Sylvester would just smile and say, “Whyn’t you twist up another one of those fatties for us.” But, he was a good storyteller, and the miles flew by.

Then, about three or four in the morning, Sylvester got too tired to keep driving, and so he pulled over for a few hours sleep in a truck stop somewhere near Toledo. Right before he fell asleep, he told Cal to make sure to wake him up by seven o’clock, because he needed to have his load in Chicago before noon.

So, at seven Cal tried to wake Sylvester up, like he was a camp counselor or something. “O.K. Yo, Sylvester. It’s seven o’clock. Time to wake up. Time to rise and shine.” Sylvester didn’t budge. So Cal lightly poked him on the arm. “O.K. Up an’ attem’, Sylvester.” Sylvester didn’t move. Cal looked at me and said, “Shit.” Then he got really loud and gave Sylvester a rough shove. “C’mon, let’s go, Sylvester! Get up!”

Very suddenly Sylvester sprang up out of his bed behind the seats in the cab; he was holding a 44 magnum very close to Cal’s face, and he snarled, “Doncha touch me, mutha fucka.”

Cal jumped back against the truck door and started to stammer: “You got it. No more touching. None. None at all. Ever. You just go right back to sleep, Sylvester, and dream about not killing hitchhikers. Night night.”

Sylvester muttered something to the effect of: “What de fuck aw yo sumbitch ain’t touch’n shit ki us muh-fuck,” and Cal hopped out of the truck and ran into the truckstop—I think he had to change his underwear.

Paul Rogalus teaches English at Plymouth State University. His full-length play Crawling From the Wreckage was produced in New York City by the American Theatre of Actors, and his one act plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Boston. His short screenplay, “Sid and Walt,” won screenwriting contests at the Wildsound Film Festival in Toronto and at the PictureStart Film Festival in New York City. A book of his microfiction entitled animals was published in 2022 by Human Error Publishing.