1996 Nissan Sentra Car Will Not Start

The other day I was going down the freeway (doing about 75mph). While normally I just roll down the windows and let God take care of the air conditioning, I had my nephews in the car so we actually turned on the real air conditioner to about medium. The car all of a sudden stopped running (I neded up coasting to the side of the road). I thought maybe I had ran out of gas, but after the AAA service tech put some in the car, it still didn't work. Now I have the car how and can see that there is a hose that is not connect to anything, but I don't see a place to connect it to. The hose is located near my fuel filter and connected, I believe to the transmission, though I am not positive about that. The hose is about a 1/4" thick and also has a funny shape, like a "J" with an extra curved in bottom portion. Any ideas on what the issue could be?

I have tried starting the car again, and while it did catch once (and took me half way around the neighborhood, thanks for small cars which I had to push the rest of the way home) it has not started again. I have heard from a few people to try the fuel filter and fuel pump, but at $500 to have a mechanic fix, I want to find out about the hose before I do anything major to the car.