Drifters liked warm meals. He was certain of that. This one had a face with its history written in the form of a missing nostril.
    The GTO came from the dizzy fast years of the sixties when you could name a model year from fifty yards away. A totally different body every fall.
    Mac found the drifter out on Love road.  There was nothing out that way but weeds. The interstate was nowhere near. He wasn't going in any direction. He was just going.
    He didn't like the meal.  He sat there with it in front of him and looked at Mac.
    --Man, a double quarter pounder is just about my favorite thing in the world.  I would get one, but I just ate here about thirty minutes ago.
    The drifter lifted his head as if another angle might reveal an answer to the presence of the food.
    --Guys like you aint got much money, I know that.  I'm happy to help out. You'd be surprised how hard it is to do something for someone you know, might as well help out somebody you never seen. Like, I'm with you on how you might not want to eat that. It's okay.
    When they left there was nowhere particular to go.  Mac was going to show him where everything was in town. Just the basics, the soup kitchen, the bus station, the mission.
    --This car took everything I ever saved up. The block's an original 427. Cubic inches I mean. That's how they measured them back then. Mac pointed out the interior appointments, all original except the floor-mounted automatic shift knob. It was chrome, a brain, bright mirrory. As though some commentary on ubiquitous decorative skulls.
    The drifter's hand slowly went forward, then stopped.
    --You can touch it. Go ahead.
    The light was about to change.
    --All right. It was the first time the hitcher had actually spoken. --Show me what all those inches will do.
    The light changed. Mac floored it.
    He not only lost the GTO, the 80 year old man behind them suffered a cerebral hemorrhage identified on the autopsy.
    Mac was unable to understand how the shift slid into reverse so soundlessly.  The drifter fled in the chaos, emergency lights and sirens everywhere somewhere around the exact moment of the impact.
    The first question everybody had for him was what was he doing out there where nobody was in the first place.
    Where are you going, it used to be, now it's how are you getting there, and worse, do you have anywhere to go.