I watched with bemusement as Josh customized “Ted’s Aluminum Can Box.” We had been instructed to deposit our empty soda cans there so Ted could take them to the recycling plant and wring whatever meager change he could from them. It occurred to me that if anyone had any reason to be stealing money from the station, it must be Ted himself—evidently, the man was destitute.

He had two daughters, the eldest of whom was betrothed to Daryl and Daryl. She also had the horrific misfortune of resembling her father to a repulsive degree. His younger daughter was treated equally unkindly by genetics, looking like her mother must have decades ago. She reminded me of Charles Laughton made up in the 1930′s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” except her left eye didn’t droop.

In addition to his two overweight daughters, his overweight wife and his overweight self, Ted had to feed Jenny’s nephew as well, since her brother was in prison. It appeared Devin was getting the short end of the stick at the family table—he was scrawny, sallow, had dark circles under his eyes and he never smiled. I always imagined dinner at Ted’s house resembling a typical episode of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” Survival at that dinner table would be brutal and Devin was obviously not the fittest.

Keeping all those mouths—not to mention asses—fed would put a strain on any budget, I suspected. In addition to his prestigious management position at the station, Ted belonged to the Air National Guard. He also demanded that Tom and Lee pay him under the table so that he could collect unemployment.

And now there was the aluminum can box. Josh backed away from his handiwork, capped the magic marker and tossed it back into the desk. I giggled as I fantasized about Ted’s reaction upon noticing “Ted’s Aluminum Can Jew Box” in the morning. The modification was a double slam against Ted, accusing him of being both cheap and what he would interpret as being of an inferior race. In addition to being fat, ugly and stupid, Ted was a racist.

This act of subordination could jeopardize Josh’s job. “Dude, are you high?” As if I even needed to ask.

“Dude, fuck Ted!”

Rick the Hick wasn’t as amused, “Goddamnit, Josh, cut that shit out.” His Midwestern accent was thick and he seemed to exaggerate it out of some sense of pride I couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“Dude, who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?”

“I have seniority. I’ve been here three months longer than you.”

Josh and I both laughed.

Eventually, the tension eased up after Rick went to LC’s Hamburgers, Etc. and picked up food for everyone. Josh’s girlfriend, Piper, stopped by for a visit, as did a few other kids looking for acid. Things were beginning to resemble a typical, freezing cold night shift.

Piper was gorgeous—young, with reddish-brown hair. She had a small, sharp nose, blue eyes and, though not fat, had a full build. Unfortunately, her attractiveness ended completely for me when she opened her mouth. She uttered the most inane, vacuous drivel I ever had drilled into my brain. Still, I looked forward to her visits, since her friend Whitney would often accompany her. Whitney was equally attractive and the illusion wasn’t spoilt by her mouth, but Whitney wasn’t with Piper this evening.

I had been at the station long enough now to recognize the regulars, one of whom was Ms. Whipple, an English teacher at the high school. Her visits were somewhat annoying because she always made us check her oil, but the hood of her car was broken. We had to prop it up with our heads to work on the engine, and it pressed decaying pieces of gray, oil-soaked foam into our hair. The oil was usually the color of chocolate milk and a bit foamy, indicating it had radiator fluid in it and thus, the engine block was likely cracked. We eagerly awaited the death of that car, but aside from all that, Ms. Whipple was never rude in any way, so she wasn’t so bad. Though it seemed like her arrivals often portended something bad. So my heart sank when I saw that sky blue 1960′s Skylark pull in. I spent fifteen minutes on Ms. Whipple, freezing to death in the middle of winter with that hood shedding foam all over my head.

Afterwards, I went to my car and recovered the fifth of Jack Daniels I had procured from one of our regulars—who managed a local liquor store called Berbiglia—in exchange for a joints of grass. It was approaching 8pm, so the rush was long over—the islands were dead and cold. We had settled in for the end of the shift, passing around the whiskey, listening to music and laughing our intoxicated asses off. Josh sat at the desk with Piper sharing his chair, Rick took Daryl and Daryl’s usual spot at the side of the desk, and I was perched on the safe.

Piper took a swig of whiskey—the girl could drink—and the shot of liquid courage went straight to her starving brain, “Oh my God!”

I cringed as though someone had sandpapered my bare nerves, recognizing her standard exclamation that preceded something of particular vapidity, “I was, like, coming out of McDonald’s yesterday, ya know?”

Yeah, Piper, I know.

“And I saw this girl dressed like… like she was Madonna or something.”

Rick and I watched a few moments, expecting the story to continue. Evidently, that was the end.

“Wow, that’s fucked up.”

Rick nodded in agreement as he took a drink of whiskey. I could almost see a stream of thick, chewing tobacco-coated slobber backwashing into the bottle. My stomach wrenched just as the front door flung open.

Rick’s eyes widened and he quickly capped the bottle and threw it into a desk drawer. I turned, startled, and saw his mother standing at the door. Her eyes were wild, she was breathing heavily and her hair was blown in every direction.

“Quick! Call somebody!” She screamed.

“What?” Rick jumped up from his chair.

“Call an ambulance! I hit a motorcycle!”

She ran back outside, screaming, “Call an ambulance!”

Rick dialed the number on the payphone mounted to the wall next to the door as Josh, Piper and I ran outside to see what had happened.

Rick’s mother was on her way in to the station to bring her son some dinner. She pulled out to cross the main street when a motorcyclist hit the side of her car and was thrown from his bike. The guy was still in the road, but he was sitting up and appeared to be moving. I had to chuckle at the image of Rick’s chunky mother waddling down to the street to tend to the poor bastard she almost killed. It didn’t take long for the ambulance and a cop car to arrive—the police station was located directly behind the gas station.

I stood just outside the door, watching the chaos from afar. I saw Ms. Whipple’s blue Skylark pass across the same path Rick’s mother had used. It reminded me of a black cat..

* * *

The next day, I pulled into work and noticed I was the first of the night shift to have arrived. Usually, Rick got there before me and I wondered if his tardiness had something to do with the accident. I walked toward the office, noticing Daryl and Daryl with his head shoved under the hood of some old lady’s car, spewing a constant stream of profanities under his breath.

Ted glared at me as I entered the room. My muscles tensed. I’d seen that look before—from my first stepfather. He beat my mother and rumor had it that Ted and his wife beat their kids and nephew. Something in that look made me suddenly believe it. It was completely devoid of any emotion I could identify as human; consciousness without conscience. There was a cold steeliness to it, shackling some deep inner demon that Ted dared not expose to anyone, even those he hated. Ted was silent for several minutes, no doubt wanting me to stew in my own juices over something.

“You wanna explain what happened here last night?”

“Oh. The accident?”

“I don’t give a shit about any accident.”

How Christian of him. Ted was so proud of his religious loyalties. He hated filthy heathens. He also hated blacks, Jews, queers and druggies. He hated me. I always wondered how he reconciled his religious teachings with all of his prejudices. As certain as I was that the conversation would be endlessly fascinating, I never managed to broach the subject with him.

“I’m talkin’ ‘bout the smart-ass who called me a damn Kike. I’m talkin’ ‘bout the smart-ass who stole four hundred dollars from this place last night.”

The mole on his nose held my attention, as usual. I never could look Ted in the eye because my concentration was always immediately pulled to that disgusting lump of parasitic flesh that suckled the side of his nose like a leech. I wanted to take a pair of pliers and rip that fucking thing off of his face and shove it up his ass. It was like a black hole—nothing could escape it; maybe a few hairs, but definitely not my eyes. If there really was money missing, it probably got sucked into that mole.

“I don’t know anything about that box. All I know is, I didn’t take any money from this place. I didn’t make incorrect change. And the books will probably balance out when Lee does them tomorrow—just like they always do.”

“Oh you’re innocent as a lamb, ain’t ya?”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

“We had a customer in here earlier sayin’ an employee fittin’ your description was talkin’ about sellin’ pot here last night.”

I had made the whiskey deal out in the lanes. Some stupid old woman probably overheard the entire conversation and dutifully reported it to Ted. Sometimes I hated legitimate customers. It would have been so nice if we could have cut out the annoying forty percent of the people who came here just for gas.

“I don’t know anything about it,” I shrugged.

“Oh, you don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout it?”

Close enough, I thought, shaking my head.

“Well, Rick’s gone. It’s just gonna be you and Josh here for a while and if the money ain’t straightenin’ out, one of you better start to worry.”

“I’ll keep an eye on it,” I’d say anything just to get him to shut his mouth.

The next person to be fired would be Josh, of course. For some reason, the person who had been there the longest was always the one to get the axe whenever Ted started jonesing to fire someone.

There was one issue I decided I had to have cleared up once and for all. I paused, took a deep breath and hoped my internal sarcasm translator was up to the task.

So, moron…

“I don’t get it…”

Why is it that when Lee, who has been educated in accounting and probably understands basic arithmetic, does the books every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, everything comes out fine.

“How can Lee’s numbers come out right…”

Yet, when your stupid fucking ass goes anywhere near an adding machine, it’s like the basic laws of Nature get sucked into that fucking lump of shit on your nose and suddenly one plus one is negative one?

“but your books show a shortage?”

Ted looked at me as if I was a complete moron—or insane, “If the books ain’t right, somethin’ ain’t right.”

How could I possibly have been so blind? The man was clearly a genius to an extent that far surpassed my ability to comprehend it.

I seriously began to worry. I didn’t like the feeling of having my well-being in the hands of someone so thoroughly infested with ignorance and irrationality. I longed for Josh to arrive so we could finally get his grilling over with and get this moron and his pet dog, Daryl and Daryl, out of there. I wanted to get high and forget about the Teds and Shaftos of the world. I had at least established one thing: Ted’s stupidity ran to depths that were unfathomable to me. I needed to figure out a way to get to Lee before I had seniority on the night shift.