Boris #3

He sits down in the passenger seat. Butch looks over at him as the car begins rolling along, crunching gravel then more rapidly they get to highway speed. The scrub whizzes by and the sun still beats down. ....
Time for small talk, Butch notices scrapes on the back of the hitch hiker's left hand. He seems to be in his thirties with tanned skin and strong features. His eyes are a deep blue which stand out like they were brand new.
"Hey, how's it goin' ?"
"Better now that you're giving me a lift and all"
"Butch" he extends his hand. The other guy shakes it firmly. He has callouses which is a good sign. That means a working man and not some convict or doper.
"Tom Grider...Really thanks for picking me up" The mans eyes never leave his face.
"Well, I kinda had no choice. The car just goes where it wants to."
"Maybe it goes where it HAS to." Tom pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He shakes one out. Butch notices that he flipped a lucky, which is something he always did.
"want one?"
"Hells yeah" says Butch. Tom hands one over. It smelled good. He flicked his zippo and the smell of the fluid was sharp and strong, like jet fuel or a cookout.
"So, how are YOU doin' Butch? "
"Pretty bad. I'm dying right now. Right now, I'm laying on a dirty floor and I'm bleeding."
"Life's a bitch. It's funny though. I mean besides that you don't have any other problems to worry about, huh?
Butch was starting to feel....comfortable. The pain in his shins was subsiding. Tom went on,
"Well, I died in my other life. But I didn't really know that I was dead. Then I got this life."
"What do you mean?"
"Well Dad, I was kind vacumed out of mom and poof. I didn't even know what darkness was. I was high as hell though"
Butch felt a deep hurt..
"No no no, what I really mean is that my life force was redirected or that the chances lined up or whatever and here I am. "
"How?"
"In one time, My Mama scored dope from a guy who was watching Space Ghost and he was distracted from cutting it right. The guy who was supposed to step on it before he got it was running late for his cousin's baptism did a piss poor job of it too."
Butch felt a small twinge of relief when he realized that he had never been all that into Space Ghost and never watched TV and chopped at the same time.
"In the other time, she got pulled over for a broken tailight with two balloons of smack in her purse and got the chain put on her. She kicked in jail and had me seven months later. In the first one, she OD'd and went comatose and I was out. The second one is what you see here Dad.
"Oh, shit."
"Yeah, you are in deep kimchi right about now."
"So, who are you besides a name, Tom...son?"