He’d only ordered two pieces of toast, plain toast, good boy that he is, and there they are, sitting there on the ready shelf under the heat lamp, and they’d been there for what? Twenty minutes now. Well not that long, but a good two or three or four minutes anyway, and here he is sitting at the counter with nothing but a cup of coffee, black, and his thoughts. But he doesn’t mind, after all he isn’t due in Des Moines until three, plenty of time, and the waitress is cute as a fucking button. A fucking button. Busy as a little bee, too, serving and scratching out new orders and pouring coffee from the Pyrex pot. Pyrex, now there’s a word. And a piece of pie would have been nice, and a piece of ass. The waitress has the cutest little ass, not big at all but curvy and firm and plump as a little peach under her short skirt, in short just perfect, and maybe when she comes, when she finally comes with the toast, she’ll set it down and pause a moment and say “Sorry, hon.” Maybe she’ll look him with those saucer big eyes and say, “I’m so sorry that your toast is all soggy and limp—is there any way I can make it up to you?” And he’ll say, “Like how?” And she’ll say, “Like maybe check out your rig—like maybe give you a little driving lesson?”

Dreamer, the trucker chides himself. Fucking dreamer. He sips his coffee and stares at his plate of toast. As long as the toast remains on that stainless steel ledge, warming in the buttery light of 260 watt bulbs, there is still hope.