Doreen and Earl are an unhappy, blue collar couple in their forties. They live in a small trailer-type house in a bad section of Los Angeles. Doreen works at a diner as a waitress. Earl works a string of dead-end jobs, his current one being a limo driver. She’s just had a close brush with disaster; on her way home from work, she suddenly braked to avoid hitting a small boy who crossed the street in front of her. She tapped him with her car, and he fell to the ground, but he was apparently unscathed. She tried to take him home, but he wouldn’t get in the car with a stranger. She left the scene without getting his phone number or address, or giving hers to him. She arrives home, shaken.