As the fuel drips, Jack, Brenda and i make small talk...  feeling each other out...  The obscene couple hails from the nether reaches of Wyoming, land of makeshift meth labs and overt lawlessness.  A brother/sister duo bent upon welding the worlds’ problems back together.  Traveling across the Western plains at high speed in a souped-up rig, customized to repair any metal emergency, customized for who knows what else... leaving a burnt path behind and wondering little about what is around the next turn.  Quite a pair, straight from b-movie hell but nothing to take lightly...  Brenda is back at the cab and returns with a couple of cold ones...  “Looks like you need a beer...”  she offers.  “Sure,” i say as i think,” a perfect place for a beer, sitting like ducks on the side of the highway, a big modified pick-up facing the wrong direction, headlights blinding oncoming traffic, just over a rise so that it is out of site until the last moment...” A quick look at my creepy companions is all i need to crack the beer, worrying more about upsetting them then the fucking laws of Nevada that are just as draconian as Utah's’.

Finally, after checking the hose for the umpteenth time, still trickling, i decide that it is time to play my hand...  make friends or make for the bush, leaving my loyal pooch behind to unspeakable horrors...  “I’m broke but i do have some smoke...” hesitating, “if you guys smoke...” hesitating again...  the pause was imperceptible before Brenda is at my side. “Oh yes,” she says, “Jack don't smoke but I do.”   HueRay!  i think.  i won over the one that will cause me trouble... the one i MIGHT  have a chance of beating in arm wrestling...  Well, it's a start.  i extend a humongous, green hog leg, my olive branch, to Brenda who gapes in awe.  so much for smoking it up in Salt Lake...  at least the last rescue party didn't want it...  at least i have an offering...  “Wanna do a rail?!?,” Jack, who had been lost in his own beer, suddenly springs to life...  i hesitate only briefly, even though i am not certain what's being offered, i want Jack to be my friend, “Ok... i say...yeah...of course...”