What happens
Mabel works at a roadside diner on the inland California highway, where truck drivers stop on their runs. Fred, a driver who hauls oil, arrives and speaks to her with a provocative manner, and she resents his cutting remarks about her. Steve, a dynamite driver she has been seeing, is later killed when his truck blows up on the road. Fred then takes a dynamite run, and his conversation with Mabel grows more intense as she begins to reveal her restless longing to escape the diner.
A roadside diner called Joe's, about thirty miles out from Baker on the inland California highway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, where truck drivers stop on their routes.
Characters: Mabel, Fred, Steve, Nick
Listen for: Mabel's tense, teasing exchanges with Fred at the counter, and the sound of the truck drivers and the highway traffic outside the diner.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.