Free The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

truck on the other side of the mountain. If word was bad, she would pull over and let the storm pass.
                    Gary, however, was upset about Brenda hitting the CB. He had heard of them, but he didn't really know what they did. He got paranoid. Thought Brenda was talking to the cops. "What are you doing?" he asked.
                    "Getting a Smokey report."
                    "What," asked Gary, "is a Smokey report?"
                    "That," said Brenda, "is the name for the police."
                    "Hey," asked Gary, "are you going to turn me in?"
                    Brenda said, "For what? Being an asshole? You can't turn somebody in for being an asshole."
                    "Oh," said Gary, "Okay, I got you."
                    "No," Brenda said, "I'm not going to turn you in. But that was a dumb thing to say."
                    "I'm not dumb," he stated.
                    "Gary, you have a high I.Q., but you do not have a drop of common sense."
                    "That's just your opinion."
                    He seemed to think getting into the damnedest situations and finding a way out of them was common sense.
                    The Smokey report said the weather was less bad on the other side of the mountain, but Brenda didn't know whether to try it. Over the CB, an eighteen-wheeler coming up behind her said the road ahead was treacherous. Then the fellow asked what kind of unit she was driving. After Brenda described Johnny's pickup, the trucker said, "I got you. You're right ahead of me." Then he told her, "I have a buddy behind. We'll escort you."
                    "Well," said Brenda, "I don't get off till Orem."
                    "We'll stay with you."
                    So Brenda drove down the Interstate in line between two large semis. She stayed on the taillights of the fellow up ahead and the guy behind kept close. They moved right along with her.
                    The lead truck stayed in the lane to the left so she wouldn't slide off toward the island. The other was to her right and just behind. If her back end started to veer out to the shoulder, he could tap the back bumper near her rear right wheel. That would stop the slide. Truckers knew how to do it. It was crucial assistance. Due to the drainage problem, the shoulder on this stretch of the Interstate chopped off sharply into a drainage canal and since it was a spring blizzard, there weren't old snow banks to protect you. Nothing to the right, in fact, but gravel and the drop-off. So the fellow behind kept talking her in. "Don't worry," he kept saying, "you aren't going over."
                    This all impressed Gary. He said, "You've got protection." Then he gave a wide smile and said, "But don't you think you need it against me?"
                    "Why," Brenda said, "what a rotten thing to say. Would you hurt me?"
                    "That," said Gary, now offended, "was a dumb thing to say."
                    "No dumber than what you just said."
                    Toni said, "Children, children, don't quarrel."
                    So they drove along and got home and Gary went to bed at Brenda and Johnny's house that night.
                    Monday morning, in the wet and slush, Gary went to see Mont Court. He told his parole officer the following story:
                    He had gone to a party and become somewhat intoxicated. Then he decided to go to Salt Lake to solicit a prostitute. En route, he thumbed a ride with a man who told him that he knew some girls in Twin Falls, Idaho, who would shack up with them. By the time they reached Twin Fails, however, the fellow that made this promise just dropped