John takes stock of himself while helping a runaway teen realize that she can go home.

A fellow con artist from John's drinking days offers to cut him in on a lucrative real-estate scam; a bounty hunter is taking an incredibly naive Mississippi teenager to face a ten-year sentence.

Badgered by an extortionist, bedeviled by a work slowdown and befuddled by his sponsor's drinking, John feels like he's teetering on a ""tightrope of sobriety.""

A startled John begins questioning his sexuality after another male alcoholic visits to make amends -- by apologizing for seducing him.

John's given food for thought when an old writer friend bases his first book on John's bacchanalian past, a neo-Nazi named Steve Hitler demands to charter a bus, with support from the ACLU, and a sleazy health inspector threatens Dexter with blackmail.

John tries to make amends to ex-wife Carol and son Tony he ran out on.

John's passionate love affair hits a snag when his perfect woman joins AA -- and must be celibate for six months.

John's nephew Bobby learns the meaning of tough love when he shows up at the bus station for a wild evening with the man who taught him to drink.

John gets hooked into a crap game and finds himself being forced to pray at gunpoint by Mahalia; Dexter discovers that his new girlfriend is a hooker.

John's order to train his boss's harebrained nephew, who been in AA for a year but is still a basketcase.

John's son tries to form a father-son relationship; Chester disappears and is found dead; John must deal with a battle to the death between Mahalia and her sister Linda, who stole Mahalia's first husband.

Entrusted for a few moments with the official United State inch, John can't resist peeking -- and damages it; meanwhile, he worries over a bus driver who drinks but denies it.

Hemingway and Dexter get stuck together in a crummy motel with a cage full of chickens; when a baby is abandoned in the station dumpster, Officer Eggers kidnaps it.

John's girlfriend turns out to be married -- when her husband confronts John with a gun; Mahalia's estranged husband arrives.

At a drag show, John runs into his old college roommate, who's playing Marlene Dietrich; Mahalia is targeted anew by a blackmailer she thought she'd paid off.

Carol is furious when Tony leaves her to stay with John; Mahalia worries about her brooding son Dante.

Officer Eggers develops a crush on John after he rescues her from a gunman; Dexter's business languishes after a customer puts a curse on the diner.

Dexter is outraged when his sister strikes up a friendship with Hemingway, Mahalia is overjoyed to hear her first boyfriend is coming to visit, Carly reports to Hemingway that she was sent out on a house call -- to his son.

John accidentally gets high on marijuana brownies, Hampton gets an unusual request from his long-estranged father, actor Joe Pesci studies a homeless man living at the bus station as research for a role.

Hemingway is feeling suicidal on his birthday, but discovers new meaning when the entire bus station is held host age by a gun-toting lunatic.

John finally proposes to Catherine, she accepts, and everyone shows up for the wedding -- except the bride and groom. John accepts Carly's eager proposition to come home with her for the evening. But he disappoints Carly by proclaiming that he still loves Catherine. Mahalia advises John to call a psychiatrist, but after John reveals his deepest feelings--and his identity--he's mortified to realize that he's talking to radio psychiatrist, Dr. Frasier Crane live on the air. Determined to win Catherine back, John asks Catherine to marry him. Meanwhile, the St. Louis, Missouri Crossroads Bus Terminal begins closing at midnight.

John reconciles with Catherine, who takes on a new enterprise by buying the bus bar from Carly and turning it into a jazz club; the entire crew switches to the day shift; and Eggers introduces her beloved dog -- which turns out to be a wild wolf.

John's daughter and son hit town at the same time, and John decides to tell each of them about the other's existence. John's children by different mothers, Rachel and Tony, each unaware that the other exists, meet at the bus terminal. Rachel is in town for a memorial concert by the band Grateful Dead, and Tony has ended his studies at Yale University, although he claims he's on vacation. Not knowing that they're related, they become attracted to each other. When they go on a date, John panics and tries to find them before they become physically involved. Meanwhile, Mahalia persistently tries to seduce an attractive traveler, despite his protests that he is not available. Feeling guilty, she goes to confession at church and finds out he's a priest.

After he discovers a collection of short stories he wrote as a young man, earnest John Hemingway enters a writing contest that could send him to Paris, and Catherine hints that she'd like to accompany him. Unfortunately, the story is from John's alcoholic period, and he actually may not have written it: acerbic newspaper chief editor Otto Friedling accuses John of plagiarizing Ernest Hemingway. In a black-and-white fantasy sequence, John's autobiographical story comes to life, with the fantasy John Hemingway (Miller) a would-be writer for whose love both Catherine and Carly vie.

Catherine accepts a date with a stranger -- who thinks she's plying Carly's former trade. Meanwhile, the crew from TV's ""Cops"" rides with Hampton and Eggers, and Dexter is mistaken for a bank robber.