It was a common sight. At the age of sixteen, I had grown bored of tormenting my teachers in high school, I decided to do them a favor and obtain a GED. Not everyone was as happy about my decision as, say, Ms. Gillis or Mr. Perich. My father, for all intents and purposes, disowned me. Aunts and Uncles were less drastic but still made their disappointment clear. How could this kid, who was reading at a 6th grade level in kindergarten, have decayed into such a monstrous failure? My grandfather, a retired army captain, suggested I join the service. My stepfather, on the other hand, was elated. Finally, he had incontrovertible proof that I was the most horrific thing to taint the planet since Adolf Hitler—a fact he took immense pleasure in reminding me of at every possible opportunity.

Without job or car, my only recourse was to lock myself in my room and study the fine art of computer programming. I would stay up three days at a time with nothing but a case of Coke, a carton of Marlboro Lights and a bag of potent skunk weed, writing computer software until finally passing out on the cold, hardwood floor, usually covered with Atari memory maps and programming language references. I kept the Coke outside the window so it would stay cold—that way I wouldn’t have to leave my room and possibly face Shafto, as I affectionately called my stepfather. Using fancy words like “programming” didn’t change the fact that all I was doing was “playing with that damned computer” and until I got a job, I wasn’t a “Man.” Eventually, I managed to secure a car—it had been my late great-grandfather’s—and had a couple of jobs, neither of which lasted more than a few months before I was fired or decided to not bother showing up. The harassment at home would resume as soon as Shafto figured out I was no longer working. It had been almost a year since my last job—I was eighteen now, and the torment was endless.

I rubbed my eyes and sat down in the living room taking a moment to enjoy the late afternoon peace in the house. Shafto was at work and my mom asleep after her graveyard shift. The old house, built by the bare hands of my own great-grandfather, had a creaking chill to it in the cold winter gusts. I finished a Marlboro Light and pet my mom’s Siamese cat meditating on the irony of being a prisoner in this house built by my own flesh and blood. My great-grandfather had had to fish a body out of the river when a railroad worker was hit by a train. I wonder what he would do if he knew his great-grandson was being treated like a war-criminal of the worst sort in the very house he had built. I snuffed my cigarette tensely into the ashtray before heading over to Travis’ to get some pot. I was going to need it to take the edge off for the job interview I had the next day.

Travis had been my friend since the fifth grade. He had Tourette’s Syndrome, before anyone knew what Tourette’s Syndrome was. He was constantly getting sent to the principal’s office for “being disruptive.” Once, a teacher even mistakenly thought he was masturbating in class. While I was at a twelfth grade reading level, Travis was suffering at the hands of our fifth grade teacher, Ms. Sleeth , who humiliated him by making him stand up and try to recite the alphabet in front of everybody. He broke down crying when he couldn’t do it, much to her satisfaction.

Travis’ dad, Bunt, had come to live in Missouri when he was busted selling pot to some neighborhood kids in Montana. It seemed he hadn’t learned his lesson. Not only was he selling pot to the neighborhood kids again, in the summer he was growing the shit in the small tomato garden he had in the back yard. It didn’t seem to bother him that he lived next door to a county cop and it certainly didn’t bother my cousin and I to go to Travis’ every Sunday morning and get high with his dad while watching “Kung Fu Theater.” Bunt always seemed to have the best weed and that’s precisely what I needed.

Though he rarely smoked pot himself, Travis joined Bunt and me on the living room floor as we passed a joint back and forth. Bunt hadn’t bothered to wear any pants or underwear—only a t-shirt. It wasn’t as shocking as the first time I’d seen it.

“So how’s your stepdad?” Bunt prodded me, knowing he would get a strong reaction out of the subject.

“Fuckin’ redneck. He flung my door open last night when he got home to say ‘hi’ and remind me that I’m the most worthless human being he’s ever seen.”

“Schhhhhaaaaaaaa,” Travis twitched, “asshole.”

“What a guy!” Bunt added, laughing and coughing, “and what did you tell him then?”

“Just agreed with him,” I inhaled deeply from the joint and passed it back to Bunt. “I’ve got better things to do than sit there and argue with that fuckstain all night.”

Travis’ mom walked past, on her way to the kitchen, “Hi there, kiddo.”

“Hey Dee.”

“Travis says you might be gettin’ another job…”

This was a touchy subject with Dee. She was a waitress at the Hilton and had gotten me my first job there. I was fired after three months when the manager caught me with a waitress in her car while I was supposed to be working.

“Yeah. We’ll see.”

“Melodee says hello, by the way.”

I reddened, “Oh… that’s cool.”

I guess Dee couldn’t be blamed for getting her jabs in. Melodee was a coke fiend and was a bit overt with her affections. Dee had had to field questions from regular patrons of the restaurant about my relationship with Melodee. How they decided it was any of their business was beyond my comprehension. Still, I wished that Dee could see things from my perspective: In my 16-year-old, hormone-addled mind, there was simply no way a mortal man could possibly have resisted Melodee’s 20-year-old charms. And probably not even a mortal woman, for that matter. In any event, it had been two years ago. I wished that she would just let me forget about it.

As I took the joint back from Bunt, he wiped his scrotum with his hand and then waved it under his nose, savoring the scent. I couldn’t put the joint to my mouth after seeing that and I plopped it in the ashtray between us. “I think I’ve had enough of that stuff. I’m gonna head home and get some sleep.”

“That’s cool man!” Bunt smiled brightly, completely unaware of doing something that would scar me for life.

“Thanks for the bag man.”

“No problem, man!” Bunt assured me.

“I’ll pay you in a couple of days.”

“Oh, I know you will, man! St-a-a-a-a-y cool, man!” Bunt waved his hand from side to side, as though he were polishing a window. I suspected Bunt was afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome as well, but had learned how to disguise it in his 64 years.

Travis cocked his head to the side and spit at the air, “Hey, good luck with the job, man!”

“Thanks, Travis. Later.”

“Later, man! Ttttt-ttt-ttt!”

As I drove home in the darkness, I thought about my botched three-month stint at the Hilton. I reminisced about my only other job—a couple of months at the airport gift shop. There, I had been fired when a secret shopper caught me giving away merchandise to friends and taking a pack of cigarettes—something I had considered to be a company-subsidized health benefit. Now, a gas station? Things were certainly bleak.

I steered the car with my leg while I packed a bowl and lit up. I inhaled the smoke deeply and forcefully, determined to snuff out my awareness.

* * *

I stood in the gravel parking lot of the Phillips 66 and took a deep breath. I was weak and numb from exhaustion and lack of nutrition. I hadn’t been able to sleep again—putting me at 48 hours of being continuously awake. I was probably somewhat overdressed and I hated wearing dress clothes; but I decided I should probably actually try to get the job. I was uncomfortably warm and itchy, even as deep into the winter as it was. I wasn’t so bothered by it, though. I doubted the interview would last that long and then I could finally go home and sleep.

There were two vehicles parked side-by-side in the gravel lot—a beat-up old blue and white pickup and a decayed green Charger. Behind those were two cars which seemed to have been parked somewhat more haphazardly—a ’59 Fairlane that had been restored and painted a glossy blue and a large new black pickup with over sized wheels and “KC” lights on the roof and bumper. I assessed the scene and concluded I was dealing with two losers, probably a twenty-something who might be cool and some stupid hick kid with parents who had too much money. I was a bit nervous as I walked past the Charger and then the blue and white pickup, then the ice machine and then through the heavy glass door and into the office.

I was immediately assaulted by the scent of car grease and gasoline and the annoying blather of an AM talk radio show. At least it was warm inside. There was a conversation going in the room as I opened the door, but as soon as I entered, it grew silent and everyone stared at me. To the right, sitting on the floor against the wall was a large metal safe that opened from the top. To the left was a desk in front of long wooden shelves, painted a sickly yellow-green and filled with various automotive fluids. In front of me, there was an ancient cigarette machine and a newer Coke machine. Four people were hanging around the office. I quickly identified the two losers and the stupid hick kid, but the twenty-something who might be cool was actually a long-haired teenager. I was completely unimpressed.

“Hey, I’m Darren,” I said with a half-smile.

The long-haired teenager was the first to reply, “Hey dude, I’m Josh.”

Stoner.

The stupid hick kid adjusted the wad of tobacco he was gnawing on, causing his bottom lip to protrude, “Howdy, I’m Rick.”

Great, a redneck. He probably shoots stoners.

The older man sitting at the desk stood up and held out his hand, “I’m Ted.”

“Nice to meet you,” I lied, as I shook his fat greasy paw. It was cold from being exposed to the bitter cold all day.

Ted was sitting at the desk with his day shift partner at his side like a faithful dog. Ted was in his late thirties or early forties, short, round and balding. He had thin black hair that he greased over his bald spot. A distracting mole sprouted from his nose, and a thin black mustache seemed to collect moisture from his nostrils. Wearing his green coveralls, he reminded me of some sort of warped Mario Brothers character.

“This is Daryl, my future son-in-law,” Ted beamed proudly.

I immediately thought of “Daryl and his other brother Daryl” from the Newhart Show.

“I’m still tryin’ to get him to stop walkin’ around shittin’ his pants.”

I couldn’t decide which mental image was worse—Daryl and Daryl walking around shitting his pants or Ted engaged in some activity that would stop such a thing from happening.

“Your shift is from three to nine. Can you start today? That would sure help.”

I wanted to collapse. “Well, I’ve been up all night… ”

Ted sat at the desk staring at me blankly. The look on his face made it clear that getting this job was directly dependant on my decision to work that night.

“Yeah, I guess I can.”

“That’s great!” Ted grunted at Daryl and Daryl who, out of some Pavlovian response, began counting his money. Ted grabbed a large clipboard of long orange sheets decorated with hand-drawn lines and indecipherable scribbling. He motioned for me to follow him.

Ted went to each of the four pumps, reading the sales numbers from both sides while explaining the complexities of gas pumping, “Always do the windshields. Sometimes we’ll have to check the oil or tires. If anyone gives you any shit, just tell ‘em to get lost. You can smoke inside, but not out here. I don’t care what you do on your own time, but I don’t want no drugs here.”

I absently nodded in acknowledgment, not really paying attention to a word he was saying. I was more interested in the cute girl grappling with her windshield at the Amoco next door. This job could have benefits, I realized.

“So how come I ain’t seen you at the VoTech?” Ted asked, as he walked back toward the office.

“Oh, yeah, I dropped out. The instructor wasn’t even qualified to be my student.”

Ted eyed me suspiciously, “What class were ya takin’?”

“Computer programming. But I’ve been pretty much teaching myself for the past two years. The instructor couldn’t keep up.”

“Oh, you smart, huh?”

“I guess that depends on how stupid you are,” I thought. This guy reminded me of that dumbass hick, Shafto. My senses kicked in and immediately translated my sarcasm into a phrase easily digestible by someone with Ted’s obviously limited cognitive abilities: “Not really.”

Ted grunted. I got the sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t want me as a son-in-law.

“How long you known Travis?”

“Oh, since the fifth grade.”

“He’s a character ain’t he?”

“Yeah. He’s cool.”

We made it back inside the office where Daryl and Daryl had finished counting his money. He threw the wad of bills on the desk next to a mound of coins and recited the total to Ted who quickly scribbled it into a random blank spot on his orange sheet. Daryl and Daryl left without saying another word.

“See ya tomorrow,” Ted called after him.

I heard an indecipherable intonation from Daryl and Daryl’s general direction as the glass door swung closed behind him.

Ted counted his money and laid it on the desk and then began slowly punching numbers into a grease-covered adding machine, “We’ll just let Rick and Josh handle the money tonight, ’til you get comfortable with everything.”

“Okay…”

The room fell silent except for the sound of Ted pecking out numbers on the adding machine and the annoying blather on the radio. Josh and Rick collected the two piles of money on the desk and we officially began the shift—each taking turns getting cars.

After my third car, Ted finally finished with the books and collected his things, “See y’all tomorrow.”

“Later,” I replied as Josh and Rick remained silent.

As soon as the door closed, Josh tuned the radio to KY-102—”Kansas City’s Rock Station”—and Rick took Ted’s seat at the desk.

“So, you go to the Vo-Tech?” Rick twanged, accompanied by Boston’s “More than a Feeling.”

“No, I dropped out.”

“Did you know Ted there?”

“Nope.”

Rick looked at me with distrust, “I thought you were in the same class with him… so why did he hire you?”

“No. My friend is in Ted’s class. He referred me.”

Rick and Josh glanced at each other suspiciously. The tension was thick in the room. I needed to get that damn hick out of there so I could broach the drug subject with Josh and I was happy to see a car pull in, knowing it was Rick’s customer. Instead, Josh got up to take care of the young kid idling at the near island. I watched closely while he walked up to the window, not so much interested in the activities outside as wanting to ignore the awkwardness in the room. The kid didn’t buy any gas, but gave Josh some money. I knew a drug deal when I saw one.

Eventually, Josh returned and only a few moments later another car pulled in. This time Rick hopped up to get it. I quickly took out my hard pack of Marlboro Lights and fished out the joint I had hidden in it, “I don’t suppose there’s any way we can smoke this here.”

Josh’s eyes widened in astonishment, “Dude, you get high?”

“Usually.”

“Shit! We thought you were Ted’s narc. You’re not friends with Ted?”

“Dude, I never met that guy before in my life.” This fantasy everyone seemed to have of my “friendship” with Ted was starting to annoy me. I found it deeply offensive anyone would think I would associate with such a person.

Josh pointed, somewhat dazedly, to a wooden door behind him. The door had a black sign on it with “KEEP OUT!” in large red letters, “We can smoke it back there.”

“Is Rick cool?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Yeah, he smokes.”

We went to the back room and lit up the joint. We passed it back and forth a couple of times before Rick came back inside.

“Dude, he gets high!” Josh said, excitedly.

Rick looked at me incredulously, “I thought you were friends with Ted…”

All I could do was shake my head at the absurdity.

After a few more hits off the joint, with Rick joining us, Josh pulled out a cellophane bag. At first, I thought it was pot but quickly realized it was LSD. It looked like twenty or so of the small perforated squares remained on the sheet, each one stamped with a gold star.

Josh held the bag up, “You wanna do some acid?”

“Fuck! You do that here?” I laughed.

“Sure, dude.”

I was tempted, “Well, I should probably be careful my first night and all. I don’t want to freak out and start giving money away or some shit.”

Josh giggled in a way that only an acid head could, “That’s cool dude. Here, take a couple for later.” Josh tore off three of the squares and handed them to me, then tore off two more and shoved them under his tongue. Now I was convinced—this job definitely had benefits.

The tension in the room had completely evaporated and it had almost become like a party. As time wore on, more and more customers came in. Eventually, they were lined up to the street and we had to stay outside constantly. The night air was bitterly cold. Fortunately, I had discovered a large brown Phillips 66 coat in the back room. I grew more comfortable with the duties of the position and, In thirty minutes, I had handled enough customers that I had created my own wad; it was too much of a nuisance having to go to Rick and Josh to get change. Just three short hours after first walking into the office, I felt completely at home. In a moment of carefree euphoria, I stuffed the three squares of blotter under my tongue.

My timing couldn’t have been more perfect. By the time the rush had died down, the acid was starting to hit me. Several of Josh’s friends stopped in to hang out and trip with us. We all laughed at nothing and talked about things that didn’t make any sense beyond the boundaries of the small universe that existed only within that room—a bubble of an insane asylum in the middle of suburbia.

At 8:30, Josh declared that we’d all had enough and moved the hands of the clock thirty minutes ahead. We brought in the squeegee buckets, air hose and trash cans, locked the pumps and turned off the canopy and pump lights from the two fuse boxes in the back room. Josh flipped the “Closed” sign and locked the door. We hung out in the office for an hour or so, laughing at the confused customers pulling in wondering if we were still open. Some would wait several minutes, staring intently at the door. Sometimes Josh waved at them, laughing hysterically.

After Josh’s friends trickled away one-by-one and Rick left and we decided to go for a drive. For some reason I can’t even imagine now, we ended up at a grocery store. At the time, it was the only 24-hour store in the area, so there was a constant stream of people coming and going. We walked through the first set of doors and immediately noticed a broken gum-ball machine. Without the slightest hesitation and without saying a word to each other, we knelt down in front of it and shoveled the large gum-balls into our pockets. I was still wearing the Phillip’s 66 coat, which had huge pockets. Store patrons walked by staring at us with a mixture of confusion and fear. We laughed maniacally until we emptied the machine and left without anyone disturbing us.

I finally made it home around 4:30 that morning. I went to my room and fell onto the bed, sending gum-balls spilling out into various hiding places all over the room. I would still be finding them a year later. I smiled blissfully into my pillow with the realization that I had finally stumbled upon the perfect job.

The north station was run by Ted’s wife, Jenny. She was almost a clone of Roseanne Barr but uglier. She had a single employee, Toad, who worked the night shifts. I had known Toad for a few years before being hired by Ted. He used to buy my cousin and me alcohol after he got off work. Toad had been a history teacher at the local high school but was fired when he was caught buying marijuana from a student.

I had been working at the home station for several weeks and began hearing gossip that Ted was deeply concerned about the books not balancing out. In fact, he was firing people in a constant stream, suspecting them of theft. It didn’t matter to him that when the owner’s forty-year-old son, Lee, did the books everything magically balanced out. Evidently, Jenny was equally mathematically disinclined, but she explained the problem differently. According to her, the north station was terrorized by a constant stream of dishonest customers who would fill up and take off without paying.

The Sunday shift at the north station turned out to be quite maddening. I knew I was in for a special kind of uneventful hell the first day I worked there. I had a rush that lasted an hour or so, probably right after church services had ended. After that, it was completely dead the rest of the shift. Bored by the meager offerings of Sunday television, I began reading the graffiti that was carved into the counter top with a blue ballpoint pen. Most of it orbited around a center piece of graffiti that read “ACID IS WEIRD.” I realized Josh had been lucky to escape with even a shred of his sanity.

Being somewhat naive in my youthfulness, I took Jenny’s word for it that the place was under attack by wretched criminals–probably bikers–filling up and not paying. I watched every customer carefully and was certain by the end of my first shift that everyone had, in fact, paid for their gas and that I had made correct change.

Astonishingly, the books didn’t balance out the next day and Ted grilled me when I arrived for work at the home station.

“You sure everyone paid for their gas?” He eyed me suspiciously. Daryl and Daryl sat blankly at his post to the side of the desk, like a toothless, neutered guard dog.

“Yeah, dude.”

“You didn’t take no cigarettes and forget to pay for ‘em?”

Oh for fuck’s sake, “Nope.” At least not two hundred dollars worth, I thought.

The room grew deadly quiet as Ted eyed me like a soldier trying to break a prisoner of war. The intensity of the moment was broken by Daryl and Daryl, who snapped from his catatonia, slammed his fist on the desk and exclaimed with intense hatred, “Maggots!” Everyone in the room had become accustomed to this behavior and ignored him as he huffed outside to the poor victim eagerly awaiting his services.

“Well, there was a big problem with money yesterday,” Ted continued gravely.

“Has Lee done the books yet?”

“Not ’til tomorrow.”

I rolled my eyes, immediately recognizing the same pattern I had seen at the home station for weeks. My mind responded in the only way it knew how, “basically, you’re telling me your wife is a fucking idiot just like you,” which was filtered, processed and repackaged by my mouth as a nonchalant “Probably just a mistake in the math or something.”

I managed to successfully end the conversation, but only temporarily. As the weeks wore on, I continued working Sundays at the north station. The next day, the books would always be a mess. Ted and Jenny grew more and more anxious about the situation and managed to warp me into a paranoid mess. I knew nothing shady was going on, but I realized that it was Ted and Jenny’s perceptions of reality upon which my job so delicately hinged. The last thing I needed was to be sent home–jobless again–to be put through Shafto’s meat-grinder of a psyche.

The money shortages weren’t the only problem with the north station. The intense boredom was also beginning to take its toll on me. There was never anything worth watching on the television and I had to be extremely careful about smoking pot, since it was basically a six-foot square coffin and the smell would linger for days. It was Josh’s sage-like graffiti that came to my rescue: Acid is weird. It also made anything at all fun.

Earlier that week, I had worked with Josh at the home station and had gotten a couple of hits of blotter from him. It took every ounce of self-control I had to not take the stuff right then and there but I managed to wait until Sunday when I would once again be banished to the north station with its church-going customers and that awful green chair covered in Jenny’s long greasy hairs and weird body odor.

I put the two squares of blotter under my tongue the minute I awoke that morning and got to work fifteen minutes late as usual. It was the same every Sunday, I would drag in like a wet rat while several people sat around in the lanes watching me like hungry cats as I brought out the trash cans and squeegee buckets and unlocked the pumps and finally managed to turn the “Open” sign. The impatient customers would pump their gas and throw their money through the window at me before scurrying away, no doubt hoping I would rot in hell for wasting fifteen minutes of their precious lives.

After that initial lump of customers left, I had a few hours to do nothing at all until church services were over and our one rush of the day began. Jenny kept a blue bank bag filled with change tucked away in the back of the station. With nothing better to do, I took the bag out and dumped the contents onto the counter in front of me.

My original intent had been to get together enough bills and coins so that I could make proper change without having the bag lying on the counter begging for someone to steal it. But as I poured the money out, things took on a completely different meaning. I was no longer seeing a collection of individual coins that existed as completely isolated objects. I realized that the money wasn’t the image I was seeing or the scent I was smelling or the metal I was feeling. It was all of those things together. The way the coins interacted with each other, the way they transferred energy, knocking each other about, the way they spun and wobbled and rolled. It wasn’t a collection of objects, it was a whole, continuous mass of movement, sound, smell, sight and interactions.

I was taking my first steps on a long trip and I was ready for it.

At that moment, Travis pulled in, driving his gold Colt. He hopped out of the car, lifted his leg in the air like a dog urinating on a fire hydrant and flicked his hand in the air. I immediately lost all composure. Travis lumbered up to the window, wearing his red-striped shirt, blue shorts and high-tops, “What’s so funny, man?” Travis laughed with me, even though he didn’t know why.  I didn’t either, really.

“Travis, can you get me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

“What?!”

“Please?”

“Jesus Christ, Darren.” Travis walked over to the store next door and brought back a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and some strawberry jam.

“Thanks, man.”

I laughed wildly as Travis told me about his recent fight with his grossly overweight sister. My sandwich was a mess and I decided it would probably be better off fed to the birds. I threw the sloppy mess out the window, sending Travis jumping to the side, “Fucker!”

“Dude, I’m frying my balls off. I can’t eat now!”

“Tttt-tttttttt! Well what did you want a sandwich for?! Ttt-t!”

“I forgot.”

“I’m going home. You’re wasted. Call me when you get off work, Dooo-doo-do!”

“Alrighty,” I giggled.

Unfortunately, my encounter with Travis was going to be the best it would get that day. The church crowd wasn’t nearly as ready for me as he was. I felt like I was in an aquarium and all of the multicolored cars and wide variety of people were like exotic fish swimming in and out of view as they pulled in, stopped to fill up, then left.

A light blue station wagon swam in. It was a man dressed up in a suit, with his mousy-looking wife in the passenger seat and several kids in the back. I laughed uncontrollably as it struck me that this station wagon must be the friendly dolphin, Flipper.

The man filled up his wagon then came to the window with his Phillips 66 credit card. He was a “Gold Member,” meaning he cared more about his image than I did. Tears rolled from my eyes as I laughed and filled out the credit card slip.

“Having a good time?” the man smiled.

My mind reeled, I knew I couldn’t possibly explain the aquarium to him. I was relieved as a thought from my childhood came to my rescue, “When I was a kid, I had a Flipper-in-the-box.”

The man looked at me with a furrowed brow. I must have confused him.

“It was like a Jack-in-the-box, you know. But instead of a clown, it was Flipper that popped out and it played the theme song to the show,” I burst out laughing even harder, realizing how badly I had botched this entire social transaction. “I really shouldn’t be here.”

“Especially stoned out of your mind,” he scowled, as he snapped his copy of the credit card receipt from my hand and stomped back to his dolphin. As he started the fish, he and his wife looked back at me, frowning and shaking their heads while the children pointed and laughed, bobbing up and down like little mackerel.

Eventually, more and more sea life washed in as the rush took on full force. It was more than I could deal with. I was being attacked by mutant squid; hundreds of tentacles waved through the window holding credit cards and cash. I didn’t know what belonged to whom or for how much. All I could do was laugh. Then the unthinkable happened… a cop pulled in. My mind fragmented into a thousand disjoint shards. He walked up to the window.

All at once, my paranoia and intoxication exploded in an orgasm of insanity. Intent to get rid of him, I pointed at a blue CRX that was pulling out of the station, “That guy left without paying!”

The cop rushed to his car, threw on his sirens and took off after the hapless driver like a shark bearing in on a wounded cod. I laughed hysterically even though I was shaking from the adrenaline rush.

Thirty minutes later, the officer returned, following the blue CRX into the station. Several other police cars pulled in, surrounding the car. The officer walked to the window with the young man who had been driving the CRX.

The alleged gas thief didn’t seem to see the humor in the situation the way I did. “I paid you,” He said grimly, staring at me intensely and biting his lip.

I failed to suppress a smile, “Oh yeah. Sorry dude.” I chuckled.

The young man was escorted back to his car and left. After a lengthy debriefing among all the police officers, the original cop came back to my window and lectured me on the abuse of law enforcement resources. I didn’t bother to listen to the lecture, realizing he must not have been trained in identifying a guy whose brain was frying to a crisp on LSD.

I never worked at the north station again and considered myself fortunate to have gotten out of there with my job at the home station–and my sanity–still intact. Jenny’s books remained a mess for as long as she managed the station. Miraculously, Lee’s calculations from my Sunday Adventure showed nothing unusual in the books. I can only imagine the horror on Ted and Jenny’s faces if they knew that a damn filthy druggy stoned out of his mind on acid could do their job at least as well as they could. The effect such a thing would have on their psyches would likely keep a team of psychiatrists living like royalty on grant money.

I pitied the next poor fool who would get trapped into that shift like a fly in some exotic plant. The only thing I could offer them was a short piece of advice, which I added to Josh’s own graffiti: “They call him Flipper.”

“B-b-but that’s a Playboy,” I stammered.

“I don’t think it’s anything you haven’t seen before,” he grinned slyly. “Didn’t your mom tell you what you did when you were three?”

I just stared at him blankly. I was terrified of my dad. He and my mother were teenagers when I surprised the entire family by making a guest appearance. My grandparents convinced them they should do the right thing and marry. My mother was elated at the prospect of having a baby and even a family with my father. His reaction wasn’t quite as warm: “I don’t want this damn kid!, or you!” He spent the next five years reminding both us of that fact. I couldn’t imagine what I had done when I was three, but I was sure I paid dearly for it.

“When you were three years old, you took one of my Playboys out from under the sink in the bathroom, tore out the centerfold and took it to bed with you. You always have had a thing for blondes.” He laughed at the memory with a detectable note of pride. He had changed significantly since the divorce. For a couple of years after my parents split, I would refuse to see my dad, as terrified as I was of him. Since then, he did everything he could to make up for his past mistreatments—including giving me the Atari 400 computer he had bought for himself.

Still, one could argue he had no real choice in the matter. Even after having taken a few programming classes in college and studying the Atari programming manual for a month, he could still only make the computer print “Hello Darren!” in an endless loop. A month after buying the computer, he picked me up one Saturday morning. By the following Friday, I had written a Pac-Man clone. Working on that Atari was satisfying on so many levels –– it was intellectually challenging, it made me feel good to hear my dad brag to his friends that I was a genius with the thing and even they would ask me how to program things.

A lot changed in two years. My dad dropped out of my life when I dropped out of school. The tape recorder that stored programs for the Atari died and I had to write all my code down on paper and retype it in anytime I wanted to use it. By then, I was programming in a language that used nothing but numbers—“machine language”–and if I got one number wrong, the entire machine would freeze completely. I would have to restart it, figure out what was wrong and retype it all in again, hoping and praying with all my soul that my fix would work and I wouldn’t have to repeat the entire process.

My mother had also married Shafto—her third husband. She had an uncanny ability to pick the worst possible men available. My first step dad, though good to me, beat her often. She only divorced him after I saw the abuse for the first time and spent two weeks convincing her she should leave. We lived with my grandparents for the next few years until she met Shafto. She married him just as my grandmother was dying of cancer.

A year after they were married, my mother told me about the night before when Shafto woke up in a cold sweat, tossing and turning and moaning.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked.

“The men in black, babe. I was dreamin’ ‘bout them men in black.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Vietnam, babe.”

My mother said it was all she could do to keep from laughing, “You were a cook in the army.”

“They still messed me up bad over there, babe.”

The intensity of Shafto’s hatred for me and the extent of his insanity were matched only by the degree of his stupidity. His favorite saying, “I’m just a dumb ol’ country boy, but I’m a smart dumb ol’ country boy!” was actually the most insightful thing I’d ever heard him say. Under different circumstances, I might have even found him somewhat entertaining. His theories about “them sendin’ that damn space shuttle up thar is punchin’ a hole in the sky” would have provided me with countless hours of entertainment if they had been posited by someone I could stand to be around for more than ten seconds.

But spending as much as ten seconds around Shafto was asking too much of me. Not even Christ himself had that much patience. I did everything in my power to never be in the same space with him. If I wasn’t working or hanging out with friends, I was locked away in my room, working on the computer or watching movies and sneaking tokes off a pipe made from a Coke can. Sometimes, I would get so high I couldn’t see straight enough to watch Blade Runner. Then I’d stay up for two days in a row programming, imagining that the electric circuits were the perpetually darkened Los Angeles in the movie and the electrons were like the black rains. I would work on programming problems so difficult that they would sober me up and I would get a rush that I can only describe as a runner’s high.

Such is what I was looking forward to on my night off from the gas station. I bought a quarter of weed from Bunt and picked up a case of Coke and a carton of Marlboro Lights on the way home. I parked the Monte Carlo off to the side of the large, circular driveway where it would be out of Shafto’s way as he demanded. It was still winter and I could put several cans of Coke outside my window so they would stay cold. I flipped on the Atari, smoked several hits off an empty can, lit a candle and resumed work on a video game I had been writing for the past several weeks. The gist of the game was that the player had to maneuver a spaceship deep into the caverns of Mars, battling pterodactyls, mines and laser canons along the way. I was at the point where I was experimenting with creating various sound effects for the explosions and the pterodactyls, and looking for a sound that was really cool. I had already written a program that would take numeric values and convert them into proper musical notes and had transcribed the guitar music to Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil as the background score.

After about an hour of working out various combinations of distortion values, pitches and volumes, I heard the rumble of Shafto’s van pull into the driveway. My stomach knotted immediately. It was always a crapshoot whether he would leave me alone or decide to barge into my little world and remind me of what a disgusting creature I was.

That night, I rolled snake eyes. First, the banging open of the front door, then the clomp-clomp-clomp-clomp of those filthy hick boots, then the throwing open of my door so that it thudded violently against the wall.

“Just whut in tha hell is your problem?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll tell me…”

“It’s after midnight and you’re in here blarin’ that racket. What the hell are you tryin’ ta prove?”

I shook my head. The guy hadn’t been in the house more than five seconds and he was acting like I was Michael J. Fox cranking up some mad scientist’s nuclear-powered amplifier while he was trying to sleep.

“Answer me BOY!”

“I’m not a boy, I’m a Mann. I’ve been a Mann since I was born.”

Wit and sarcasm never really seemed to penetrate Shafto’s rather thick skull, “You ain’t a man! You ain’t never gonna be a man! All you do is play on that goddamn computer all night and run around with a bunch a whores and druggies!”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m just the biggest piece of shit God ever flushed out of the sky.”

“Don’t get smart with me BOY!”

“I’m not getting smart with you. You’re right. I’m just trash. I’ll never be worth a damn.” I continued programming, never once looking at Shafto’s wrinkled face; it always reminded me of a piece of overcooked roast beef – grey and wrinkled and covered with a bushy beard that, if one were willing to carry the analogy that far, could be likened to a disgusting coating of mold.

“Fact is, you can’t get smart with me, BOY! I got more intelligence in my little toe than you got in your whole body!”

“You’re absolutely right. And I’m probably causing a hole in the sky too.”

“Turn that damn TV off and get your ass to bed. You gonna be late for work tomorrow. Or did you already get fired?”

“No, I work tomorrow.”

“You goddamn well better, BOY! And get this goddamn cat of yours outta here!”

I tuned the television down as far as I could while still hearing it as Shafto clomped off to the bedroom. I crept out to the living room to get Mitt, who wasn’t allowed to roam around the house—I had to either leave him outside or keep him locked in my room. With great effort, I had outwardly managed to keep calm, but inside I was reaching critical mass. I shut off the computer, dropped some pot into my empty can I had hidden under the bed and put in the Empire Strikes Back, longing to be in a galaxy far, far away.

As fate would have it, Travis was also suffering at the hands of his parents that night. Bunt and Dee were convinced that Travis was never going to move out of the house. He held exactly one job since I’d known him—his mother had gotten him a position at the Hilton bussing tables along with me. He was fired within weeks due to customer complaints about him spitting, wiping his ever-dribbling nose and sweating profusely—all due to his Tourette’s. Travis’ parents could get quite bitchy about his unemployment when they felt like it, but they did acknowledge that he at least had the right to exist.

Apparently the nagging was too much for Travis that night and I noticed the headlights of his little gold Colt pull in behind Shafto’s maroon van. I hopped up, threw on some shoes and a coat and shoved my Coke can pipe into the pocket on my way out to meet him. Normally, I would be more concerned about being quiet. The slightest creak of a floorboard would be enough to set Shafto off but not even he was stupid enough to mess with Travis at six-three and two-seventy-five. I made it out to the car before Travis could even get his door open.

“Hey man, what’s goin’ on?”

“Awww, phhhhsssssshhhhh, my parents have been on my ass all night, man.” His neck flexed to the side and he made a whooshing sound.

“Really? They seemed OK earlier…”

“They got pissed because I ate too much at dinner. That started it. Sssshoooosshhhh!”

“Hmmmm. Yeah, Shafto’s been his normal sweet self.”

“Jesus Christ. Fuckers.”

“I don’t get it man, at least you’re in school. Why can’t they chill out long enough for you to finish VoTech at least?”

“I really need to get high, man.”

This was a rare treat indeed. Travis almost never smoked pot. If I was really lucky, I would be able to talk him into doing his Dee Snider imitation once he was high. “Let’s go down to the end of the gravel road there. Shafto probably has us under surveillance.”

I hopped in the Colt and we slowly drove a couple hundred feet down the gravel driveway, until we passed a hump in the road where some railroad tracks had been removed. Travis put in his favorite tape—Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry—and we passed the can between us, each toke taking us one step further away from our troubles until we were laughing and joking about rednecks and Sunday morning Kung Fu movies.

Travis’ face was red and moist, reminding me of a sausage. His eyes were teary and his laugh was a hysterical falsetto. The time was right, “Come on Travis, do the Price!”

Travis laughed, his eyes squinting and drool running from his mouth, “No man, come on!”

“The Price, Travis! Do the Price!”

“Oh it’s the price we gotta pay and all the games we gotta play makes me wonder if it’s worth it to carry on…”

The crazy imitation of Dee Snider—soft and high-pitched—coming from Travis’ mammoth body was always too much to bear and I lost myself in laughter.

“Hey man, tttt-ttttt-ttttt!” Travis laughed, “there’s someone out there!”

“What the fuck are you talking about man? You’re high!”

We both laughed as Travis pointed out toward some bushes off to the side of the road, “Look over there!”

He was right! There was a person hiding in the bushes. We watched several minutes, our giggling slowly fading away. The shadowy figure ran over to another set of bushes closer to us. It remained hunched over and appeared to be carrying a stick.

“Is that Shafto?” I wondered.

“Phhhhhwwwwwwwssshhhhhhhhhhh. What’s he doing?” Travis broke out in laughter again.

Shafto lunged out of the bushes and ran toward us. I quickly shoved the Coke can pipe under the seat.

“What the hell are you boys doin’ out here?!”

The insane son-of-a-bitch was wearing nothing but a t-shirt and briefs and carrying a rifle.

“Uhh, we’re just talking?”

“You almost got yourselves shot. You know people’s been dumpin out here!”

“Huh?”

“Get back to the house!”

Travis had gone from beet red to ghostly white. He started the car and we headed back to the house, with Shafto following behind like some sort of demented soldier escorting a couple of prisoners to a camp.

“Tttt-ttt-tttt! Man, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to get you in trouble!”

“It’s not your fault, man. Fuck that asshole.”

We pulled back into the driveway and waited in the car until Shafto came around to Travis’ side. His rifle must have given him a sense of bravery. Normally, he wouldn’t think of being disrespectful to Travis. “You get your ass home. You ain’t got no business bein’ out this late.”

“OKkay.”

“You get your ass back inside,” he nodded his greasy head at me.

“Later, Travis.” I silently walked back inside and locked myself in my room as the Colt labored to haul its massive cargo back down the gravel driveway.

I could hear Shafto muttering and cursing as he locked his rifle in his cabinet and went back to his bedroom. I knew he realized the whole time that it was Travis and me out there. There was no way he couldn’t have known. He didn’t fall asleep in ten minutes. He didn’t suddenly lose that ultra-sensitive, army-trained hearing that enabled him to detect my footsteps from the opposite side of the house. Yes, he knew it was us out there.

And I knew he wanted to shoot me.

“Uhhh, Josh, this is my friend, Travis…”

Travis twitched and smiled dorkily, “Hey man!”

“Dude…”

I looked at Josh, wondering if he would ever finish his sentence.

“Do you play football?”

Travis laughed. He hated sports. “No.”

He reached out his hand, which I knew from experience was cold and clammy, and shook Josh’s hand. That seemed to put Josh at ease.

That was one of the things I always enjoyed about having Travis around—NOBODY would dare fuck with you. What Nature had taken from Travis in brains and a steady nervous system, she had replaced tenfold with pure brute strength. If some macho guy was stupid enough to try to prove himself to Travis, he would easily end up with his ego crumbling on the pavement along with a couple of his teeth. It hardly ever got to that point though. Having Travis around was like carrying a loaded pistol.

Travis and I had just come from the arcade—at that time a dying relic of an era that went by all too fast. They still had Travis’ favorite game, Star Wars, and I met him there to play a few games. It started as normally as possible, given the circumstances. I stumbled into the arcade, with my stoned, reddened eyes tearing up from laughter. Travis bounced in wearing his signature blue jeans, red-striped shirt, tube socks and high-tops. His giant, pale arms and legs twitching randomly to some Tourette’s clock ticking away in his head. I can only imagine the site presented to anyone who managed to break their hypnotic video-game glaze long enough to notice: a pale skinny kid with baggy clothes hanging off of his twig-like body and a pale enormous kid who looked like he was about to burst out of his clothes in a Hulk-like rupturing.

Upon entering the arcade, we both immediately looked over at the Star Wars game. It was open! We wasted no time in purchasing some tokens and claiming the machine for ourselves. Not that anyone would have stood a chance of tying up that machine if Travis really wanted in.

“You go first, man!” Travis was already getting excited and he wanted to savor every moment. He was a heroin junkie, shaking and sweating as he held a spoonful of smack over his lit Zippo.

I tossed in my token, chose the “hard” level and played a halfway decent game. Not bad for the first one of the day, but not exactly my best, as the pot dulled my reflexes somewhat. After a few minutes, it was Travis’ turn. Shaking, he managed to slip the token into the slot on the machine and grab the controls, shaped like that of an airplane.

“Wait!” He said to the machine. He released the controls and made a loud rushing sound. Saliva launched out of his mouth and landed on several people around the room engrossed in their video games. I doubt they noticed. He put his thumbs and forefingers together and began outlining his body with imaginary lines of energy—the “Force,” as he called it. His thoroughness was admirable. He covered every inch of his body with the Force, even hopping up on one leg to get it under his feet. When he was finished, he made a clicking sound and a motion with his hands as though he were turning a knob.

“OK!” He grabbed the controls again and selected the “hard” level. The music started up and Luke Skywalker’s voice came over the speaker, “Red five standing by!”

“WAIT!” Travis suddenly ran out of the arcade and paused in the hallway. By this time everyone in the arcade had noticed his bizarre behavior. Some looked at me as if expecting me to explain it; most watched Travis as he completely and thoroughly lost his mind. He stood in the aisle just outside the arcade with one leg lifted in the air. His head was contorted in a neck-breaking direction and he had one hand raised, twitching. After a few seconds he seemed to come to his senses… somewhat, “What the fuck am I doing?”

He ran back to the Star Wars game and, once again, grabbed the controls, making a loud whooshing sound. He didn’t even make it past the first screen before his game was over.

After the excitement at the arcade, I took Travis over to the station to meet the guys and start my shift. That night, I would be working the second half of the shift with Josh. I was taking over for Rick the Hick. I knew that meant I would most likely end up tripping that night. Travis hung out a half hour or so before heading home to work on a model spaceship he was building out of discarded cardboard boxes, tubes, pieces of plastic and whatever other junk he could find. His models were astonishingly good and painstakingly detailed; his Tourette’s never interrupted him while he was working on them.

It was about 8pm by the time the acid really started hitting me. The rush of cars had long been over and Josh and I were sitting around stoned for Jesus, listening to the “Magical Mystery Tour” and passing around a fifth of Jack Daniels to warm up. During the rush, it was a free-for-all; you just got the next available car when you were done with the one you were handling. But when things slowed down, we took turns.

The next car was mine, and a van pulled up. “You got a live one, dude,” Josh informed me.

I looked outside from my perch on the safe that was cemented to the floor next to the door. A wave of glee washed over me—it was always kind of fun and gooey dealing with customers while so heavily under the influence of LSD. There was a small bus sitting on the far lane. Inside the bus, there was a rather plain female driver and several rows of passengers who looked to be children, “Cool.”

I opened the door and a wave of cool air came over me… or was it a wave of cool dreams? I couldn’t be sure. I walked outside, my legs feeling like Jell-O. The islands looked larger than life, with their gleaming metal parts and glossy decals. The overhead canopy seemed to stretch into the clouds and the lights all around town were dancing up and down. Streamers of light swam dizzyingly around my head. As I approached the bus, I noticed something that was simultaneously delightful and horrific. The bus was full of mentally-challenged persons who I insensitively recognized as “retards.”

I began to laugh psychotically. How could I possibly be expected to handle this while my brain was so thoroughly frying in my skull? My mind was racing. My head filled with the cacophony of a million voices. I couldn’t concentrate through the imagined sounds. I slowly got closer and closer to the bus, summoning every ounce of willpower I had to control my laughter. I couldn’t help but to look up at the windows and admire those rubbery, misshapen heads leering and drooling at me. “Oh God, I’m so fucked,” I thought through the intense noise in my head.

By the time I reached the driver, I had managed to control my laughter, only barely. “Yeah?” I asked, with a shaking voice. I could only form one word sentences.

“Fill it up, please,” she said, smiling kindly.

I smiled back widely, though not so much out of kindness. I nodded and went to the rear of the bus to start the gas. I went back up front to do the windshield.

“Oh, you don’t have to bother with that. I just had it washed…”

“Okay.”

Fuck. I wanted so badly to wash that window. Now I would have to go back and wait at the rear of the bus where all the retards were watching me like I was some sort of specimen in a zoo, pointing and laughing and generally getting excited. I could stay up front and strike up a conversation with the driver, but in my condition that would be insane. I walked back and a wave of excitement flowed from the window closest to me in through the rest of the bus. I knew the bus would take a lot of gas and I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain my composure for long.

I was right. After an indeterminate amount of time trading insane laughter with the retards, I grew curious and tapped on the window. The reaction inside the bus was one of pure elation. Heads flapped from side to side in a rubbery sway, ears twitched, drool flowed and howls of delight echoed in my head. All the retards jumped up and down and moved to the window I had blessed with my magic finger, pointing and giggling in a psychosis that was all too familiar to me. “Oh my fucking God!” my mind exclaimed.

A moment of inspiration hit me. I thought of Travis and began to surround the nearest retard with the Force, tracing the outline of his upper body with my hand. The retards followed the movement closely, some nearly falling over as they precisely followed my hand with their malleable heads. The dance with my hand had calmed them and so I tapped on the window again, sending another wave of elation through the bus. The retard sitting at that particular window smashed his face into the glass. His nose widened, one eye seemed placed higher on his enormous head, his teeth went in all directions and the glass was wet with drool. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. Then the gas pump clicked. Playtime was over.

I walked to the driver, smiling uncontrollably. I tried to mask it as just good customer service. I was so high, I guess it worked. The driver smiled back and handed me cash, “Keep the change.”

“Thanks!”

“I do need a receipt though.”

“Okay.”

I went back inside, laughing insanely.

“Dude, what the hell is going on out there?” Josh laughed.

“I… I… I can’t… I don’t…” was all I could manage.

The retards had been gazing out the windows intently, wondering about my disappearance, I suppose. As I walked back out of the building they reanimated, excitedly hopping from seat to seat, laughing and howling. I took the receipt to the driver.

“They really like you!”

“Cool!” I giggled.

“Well, take care!”

“Bye!”

I walked back toward the building and paused before going inside. I turned and waved goodbye to the retards. They laughed and pointed, their gnarled teeth reflecting the canopy lights into fragmented streams. “Damn,” I thought, “I’m gonna miss those crazy fuckers.”

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.

Shafto, of course, tried to make up for that oversight on my Uncle’s part, “whut the hell happened?”

That was my pleasant greeting as I entered the back of the house, through the laundry room which doubled as Shafto’s “office.” He had an old yellow desk setup in the corner with an adding machine sitting on it. He used it to calculate the weekly cost of keeping me alive—he even included his estimate of the kilowatt hours of energy needed to sustain my computer habit. He saved the paper printouts of the meaningless numbers and would use that as evidence of my worthlessness.

“I have nothing to say to you. Don’t bother me.”

I tried to make my way through the doorway of the laundry room into the hallway that led to my bedroom. Shafto jammed his arm across the doorway, arring my exit. He stood there in nothing but a cotton t-shirt, briefs and his dog-tags dangling from a chain around his neck. I fantasized about strangling him with that chain.

“Answer me, BOY!”

Oh, how he loved that phrase, “I slid on some ice and my car hit the gas station. There’s a dent in the front right. It’s stuck in the snow. Nothing major.”

He looked at me with indignation, his small mind searching for any way it could find to use this as further evidence that my mother had made the most colossal of all mistakes by failing to get an abortion when I was conceived.

“That wouldn’a happened if you’d been payin’ attention!”

“Hell, why stop there? It probably wouldn’t even be snowing if it wasn’t for me.” Jesus, are you really this stupid? Do you think I wanted to get stuck?

He glared at me, “Get your ass in bed. We’ll talk about this in the mornin’.”

I closed the door to Shafto and the rest of the house. It stunk of grey death to me. I fished out my aluminum can and put a lump of smoke in it. I lit my orange Bic lighter and held the flame to the mound of pot, inhaling deeply. Quietly, the black shade came—that patch of shadow that crept inward from the periphery of my vision in rhythm to my heartbeat. I plopped down on my bed, collecting pillows I had tossed to the floor during my restless sleep the night before. I pulled the blankets and sheets around me like an exhausted rat and slowly sank into blissful unconsciousness.

Slowly, awareness inched back into me. The room was chilled, as I usually left the window open a bit to keep the smell of pot to a minimum. I was dimly aware of having been awakened by a strange sound. Still somewhat confused with a pot hangover, I turned my head toward the window and saw it was morning. Shafto was standing outside, his greasy yellow “Caterpillar” hat in one hand. He had his face pressed against the screen, his grey moldy beard hairs poking through. He was looking intently from one end of my room to the other. A shot of adrenaline rushed through my body, reviving me fully.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Shafto laughed nervously, “I wuz lookin’ for Soan. I can’t find ‘er anywhere.”

Sung was my mother’s Siamese cat. Shafto didn’t know how to pronounce her name.

“She isn’t in here.”

“Well, I didn’t think so. She’s probably in bed with your mom.”

“Yeah,” I can’t imagine why you’d look there.. just because that’s where she always is. What is he really doing?

The ride to the gas station was as bad as I had expected, but for different reasons. Shafto had decided to put on his conciliatory face. He strained to produce a quality of voice that sounded artificially tender and caring, “Look. I know we ain’t gettin’ along. I jus’ wan’ed to tell you, if you wan’ ta talk sometime… we can go for a hike up on your great-gran’ma’s hill and jus’ talk. Jus’ you an’ me.”

My skin crawled. I looked at him with the deepest hatred I could squeeze out of my soul. That filthy yellow cap, those stupid big ears, that nasty beard—Christ knows what lived in it—and that signature Pall-Mall cigarette. I remembered the rifle that night in Travis’ car. I knew what he was getting at. He wanted to get me alone in those woods—those thick, dark, never-ending woods and I would never come back alive. That conniving piece of shit. If I had been born female, none of this would even be happening. Of course, the alternate hell would be far worse. He hated me because I wasn’t his daughter. He hated me because I wasn’t my cousin. You’re nothing more than an amoeba to me. I can see straight through you. I see that black greasy stain you think is a soul.

The rest of the drive was silent, with the exception of the country music oozing obnoxiously out of the radio. I thought of any way at all out of the situation. I had to get away from him. If I didn’t, one of us was going to end up dead. I thought about ways to get him. I thought about putting LSD in his tea pitcher—he drank gallons of it a day. He would go mad. His simple mind wouldn’t be able to comprehend what was happening to it. The panic, the sheer terror of the experience would overload whatever delicate synaptic connections he had managed to develop in his useless forty-three years on Earth. He might kill himself. It was even more likely he’d kill me, my mother and her cat. I closed my eyes, rubbing the lids with my hand. Is this what I had been reduced to? Surely this was the kind of thought echoing through the chasm Shafto had for a skull. I just wanted out and I didn’t care how. I needed more money so I could get out of that place.

Evidently, nobody was having a good day. Luckily, I had thought to leave the keys to the car locked in the office, sitting in the center of the desk. Ted and Daryl and Daryl had to move it so the gas truck could pull into the gravel lot and fill up the underground tanks—a process that had been described to me but I had never seen. It was an hour or so before the night shift officially began. I wasn’t in the mood to sit around dealing with those two idiots, so I offered to take over for Ted, deciding he was the greater of two evils. This would also give me the opportunity to attempt to pry some information from Daryl and Daryl. I was somewhat curious if he was mildly retarded. The only things I’d ever heard him speak were random dollar amounts when reporting the amount of his wad to Ted and…

“Maggots!” Daryl and Daryl beat his fist on the desk as he rose to attend to the customer who had just pulled in.

Longingly, I eyed the “KEEP OUT!” sign hanging on the door leading into the back room. I would be mad to go smoke pot back there while Daryl and Daryl was there. Still, he didn’t seem too bright. I doubted he would even know what the weird smell was. I’d have a cigarette burning in the ashtray. With the ashtray sitting on the desk, it would probably overwhelm his sense of smell enough to provide me some cover.

I grabbed a can out of “Ted’s Aluminum Can Jew Box” and flattened one side as best I could. I made a dent in the center of the flattened metal with my thumb. I grabbed a pen and, keeping an eye on Daryl and Daryl outside, punctured several holes in the dent. I ran to the back room with the can and loaded it with pot. I hid the can inside a wooden box that held the plastic numbers we used to display our prices on the canopy sign.

Calmly, I walked back out to the office, closing the “KEEP OUT!” door behind me. I’d wait until Daryl and Daryl’s next car before lighting up to ensure I wouldn’t be caught.

Daryl and Daryl came back inside with a credit card, “Fuckin’ maggots!”

He shoved the plastic Phillips 66 card into the manual credit card machine, set the amount and loaded a carbon. He grabbed the slider and violently rammed it over to the right and then back, making an imprint of the card on the carbon paper. He huffed back outside, angrily scribbling amounts and license numbers.

Eventually, Daryl and Daryl dispensed with the customer and came back inside, plopping down comfortably into Ted’s chair. I had assumed Daryl and Daryl’s usual position at the side of the desk. Poor Daryl and Daryl, having to sit in this metal chair all the time. No wonder he was always in such a foul mood.

“So. You’re engaged to Cheryl?”

“Yeah.”

It was like trying to break into Fort Knox.

“Cool. Where’d you meet her?”

“Church.”

“Cool.”

“So, you went to high school in Platte City?”

“Yeah.”

I tried to think of another question but realized it was pointless. I concluded that Daryl and Daryl was actually retarded—in some sense of the word. The details no longer seemed interesting and I spent the rest of the hour handling my customers and sneaking hits off the aluminum can until Josh’s glossy blue Fairlane pulled in.

Josh slipped quietly into the office. His face and hair were bloated, his eyes red and his complexion had the same ashen tone as Shafto’s.

“Hey, dude, what’s up?”

Josh put his hand on his stomach, “Ugh.”

His affability seemed to have ended up in the toilet with whatever had been in his stomach.

“That bad, eh?”

“I haven’t drank that much in my life.”

“I got a bowl going in the back… in the number box. Go take a couple of hits.”

“Dude, you’ve been smoking with Daryl and Daryl?”

“He’s a dumb-ass.”

“Dude, that’s crazy.”

Josh didn’t hesitate in stepping into the asylum with me. He scurried into the back room and took a few hits. His voice took on a somewhat brighter tone, “That’s better but my head’s still all messed up.”

He came back into the office and sat down on the safe.

“Sorry, dude, I don’t have anything for that,” I shrugged.

“I do.” He pulled out a sheet of acid and dropped four squares on his tongue.

“That’s not gonna do anything but piss you off more. You’ve been tripping the last three days, man.”

“It’ll work, dude.”

It didn’t.

Josh’s first car of the shift was Johnny Gladstone, of Gladstone Plumbing. They had an account with us, which meant they had a dedicated receipt book in the top drawer of the desk. Whenever a blue Gladstone Plumbing van came in, we filled in the gallons, gas subtotal, and subtotals for whatever else they bought. Every month, Johnny Gladstone would come in to settle the account with Ted. While he was there, he’d take the opportunity to report any abuses he felt he suffered at the merciless hands of the night shift. The abuses were many—everything from not doing windshields to copping an attitude about checking oil or tires, to overfilling some fluid or doing drug deals. Ted would write (or the closest thing to it he was capable of) down each complaint and turn them over to Lee who, I imagined, tossed them in the trash on his way to the golf course. That would be the last anyone would ever see or hear of the complaints.

Johnny Gladstone was cursing as he entered the front door, passing Josh on his way out to fill up the van, “do the Goddamn win’shield this time! Goddamn kids!”

I got up and lunged outside to do the windshield while Josh started the gas. I’d rather freeze to death with a hung-over acid-head than sit inside and listen to Johnny’s toasty warm insults. Johnny sat on the desk and lit up a cigarette, shaking his head disapprovingly at us while we toiled away on the blue van. Josh looked as though he was turning a subtle shade of green.

“Dude, you don’t look so good.”

“This sucks.”

Josh always smiled. I hadn’t seen him smile once thus far. His high-top sneakers were untied and flared open at the ends. He had a couple of layers of jackets on and the outer one had a hood that was twisted around itself. He stood holding the gas nozzle at full speed. When the pump clicked, a large wave of gasoline splashed back out of the tank and soaked his right arm.

We finished the van and took the receipt book inside to get Johnny’s signature. We sat around the office dissociated while he hurled a stream of insults at us. Finally, he left and the blue van topped with various diameters of PVC pipe drove off behind the snow-covered trees.

Josh’s condition only worsened as the acid slowly started to heat up enough to begin to fry his brain. He folded his arms on the desk and laid his head there. I’d have to prod him any time he got a car. If I was already outside getting one and another pulled in, I just went ahead and did them both. It was easier than nursing Josh.

Then the rush started. We were standing on the near island, both filling up a car. I was leaning against the Premium Unleaded pump and Josh had just started a middle-aged woman. He went and grabbed the squeegee and started cleaning the window. I noticed the scent of gasoline—stronger than usual. Then I noticed a splattering sound over the churning and whirring of the pumps. I looked down and saw a growing pool of red snow. Josh had not put the nozzle in the gas tank. The car was of the variety where the tank was filled from behind the license plate. Josh had just shoved the pump in and thought he had gotten it in the tank, but he ended up just sticking it in empty space. There was five dollars of gasoline on the ground. I pulled the lever on the nozzle so it would stop and motioned for Josh.

“Oh fuck!” He said quietly. He took the nozzle, inserted it into the tank, and started it going again. He charged the woman for all of the gas, even the five dollars he had put in the snow. She didn’t seem to notice and drove away in blissful ignorance.

With each car that pulled in, Josh grew more frustrated. “Fucking customers!”

I expected him to start yelling out, “Maggots!” at any minute.

I’m not sure if it was the acid having some small effect on him or if it was the sheer desperation of his condition, but Josh had evidently had enough and wasn’t going to take any more. He went into the back room and retrieved a garden hose. He screwed one end onto the water faucet outside—the one we used for filling radiators and cleaning the lanes in the warmer months. He turned the faucet on full blast and began hosing down both entrances into the station.

“Dude, what the fuck?” I chuckled.

“I’m sick of these fucking customers, dude! I’m sick!”

Josh stood there for ten minutes with water spewing out of the hose and rushing down the north entrance into the station. Once he grew tired of standing outside playing in the water, he tossed the hose down on the ground and left it running while he came inside to warm up. I let it run, mostly curious to see if his idea would work. Cars continued pulling in and out, tracking water all over the north entrance. It was thoroughly soaked, but I couldn’t tell if it was freezing. Whatever snow that hadn’t been disturbed by cars turned into slush.

It didn’t seem to impede the customers. We let the water run until 8:15pm. That was the final straw for Josh and he moved the hands of the clock ahead forty-five minutes and turned the closed sign. I sent him home and brought everything inside.

The next afternoon, I got to work and found Daryl and Daryl’s car parked in the usual spot, but with a large dent near the rear of the passenger’s side. Interesting.

“Dude, what’s up with your car?”

Daryl and Daryl scowled, “I skidded on some ice when I pulled in to work this morning.”

I was shocked he had managed to glue more than two words together into a coherent expression of English.

Ted shook his head in contrived empathy for his future son-in-law, “Skidded into one of the support beams out there.”

My stomach knotted and my face reddened as I attempted to contain the laugh trying to force its way out like something out of the “Exorcist.” I faked a cough that came out sounding like someone who had just taken a scorching hit off of a joint. The realization made me want to giggle even more.

Then it occurred to me. Pot. That was my ticket out. Josh sold tons of acid every night—the same kids would buy even more pot. Acid was something you did once in a while—unless you were Josh or his coworker—unlike pot, which was a drug we all used every waking hour. I knew Bunt had a friend who would be able to supply quarter, half and full pounds of high-quality smoke consistently and for an extremely low price. I could make a killing. I smiled—even beamed—as the realization soaked into the core of my consciousness… as far as I was concerned, Shafto would no longer exist.

Ted watched him nostalgically, “He’s gonna make a great son-in-law. Damn good kid there.”

I nodded silently, realizing the responses erupting in my mind would be far too much for the sarcasm translator. I only hoped the long-term exposure to gasoline would sterilize Daryl and Daryl.

“So, anyhow, I gotta go for trainin’ all next week at the National Guard…”

I turned my attention to the mole, half-wondering if Ted had ever tried to communicate with it, “Oh yeah? What kind of training?”

“Special combat trainin’. They put us in an air-tight room and flood it with gas while we wear our gas masks so we know how to do that stuff. That kinda thing.”

I glanced down at Ted’s Aluminum Can Jew Box and chuckled. I wondered how well he got along with the people running this gas chamber.

“Anyhow, I was wonderin’ if you could cover the day shift for me next week. You’d have to work some night shifts too, since we’re short on help.”

Gee, I wonder why that is, you idiot.

I couldn’t think of anything more terrible—working five days in a row with Daryl and Daryl. I would have to be at the station at six in the morning, plus two or three night shifts… my body ached just thinking about it. On the other hand, I would finally get to meet Lee and I doubted this offer was so much a request as a subtle order. If I declined, Ted would most likely fire me.

“Yeah, I can do that.” I made no attempt to sound happy about it.

All through the week, Josh pleaded with me to at least work three doubles—he couldn’t bear the thought of having to work with Daryl and Daryl. My constant reminders that I would have to work with Daryl and Daryl five days in a row didn’t seem to lessen his angst. I couldn’t really blame him. I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of Daryl and Daryl working on the night shift either. It was bad for business… at least the drug business. If I wanted to keep Josh employed at the station and keep his steady supply of hallucinogens along with the cute girls looking for them – as well as preserve my own upcoming sales venture—I would have to keep Daryl and Daryl out of our turf. For the greater night shift good, I decided to work double shifts all week. Josh rewarded me with ten free hits of blotter which I consumed over the weekend.

My first morning with Daryl and Daryl got off to a very rough start. I had spent the day before enjoying several bizarre LSD experiences, culminating in an hour-long self-hypnosis session of staring in the mirror until my face bubbled and turned brown, and then sprouted hair. I passed out in my bed at four in the morning and only heard the alarm after it had been blaring for an hour, finally awaking just around the time I was supposed to be arriving at the station. Then I had to do all of the cars during the morning rush while Daryl and Daryl sweated over the previous day’s books.

I couldn’t tell if Daryl and Daryl was upset about my tardiness. He was completely silent all morning, as was his wont.

The day shift was completely different from the night shift. We only had half the amount of business and they were mostly elderly people, housewives and Gladstone Plumbing vans. I overheard several customers complaining to Daryl and Daryl about the cluster of kids they’d seen hanging out at the station on various nights. I was insanely curious about the specifics, but never managed to work myself into a position to hear any significant details.

Once the morning rush was over, we sat around for hours listening to Ted’s favorite talk radio station. There was nothing to break the monotony. No cute girls looking for acid, no deluding ourselves into thinking we were manipulating time by moving the clock hands forward, and not a single visit to the back room. It was just me with my thoughts and Daryl and Daryl with his low-frequency mental hum..

I felt a mixture of nervousness and relief when I saw Lee’s BMW pull into the gravel lot. By all accounts, he was a staunch Republican and had little tolerance for those who dwelt on the outer perimeter of society. From all that Ted had described, I almost expected to be relieved of my duties upon sight.

I watched as he opened the trunk of his car and collected the various forms and bank bags that were tucked underneath his golf clubs. He was shorter than I expected, much shorter than me, and had blue eyes. He looked younger than forty-three, though I eventually noticed his blonde hair was peppered with grey.

“Afternoon…” Lee smiled, pleasantly.

I nodded back, “Hey.”

Daryl and Daryl forced a wisp of air from his lungs, causing his vocal chords to rattle off something that resembled a distorted “Hello.”

Lee held his hand out to me, “I’m Lee.”

I shook firmly, “Darren. Nice to meet you.”

Lee turned to Daryl and Daryl, “How’s business today?”

Daryl and Daryl responded with a mumble that sounded like, “ahhh eye.”

Lee glanced at me with a half-grin and I shook my head in response. This was encouraging – a private moment with the owner at the expense of Daryl and Daryl. Lee just told me, without speaking a word, that he knew I was with it enough to recognize that Daryl and Daryl was deeply disturbed. I had an ally.

A customer pulled in and I was extra careful to smile and be courteous to her. I did both her front and rear windshields and even offered to check her oil. I also hoped the shock of actually getting good service would induce some sort of cardio-pulmonary episode once she left.

When I returned to the office, I was shocked to find Daryl and Daryl engaged in a dialogue that appeared to surpass the eloquence of a chimpanzee.

“We been gettin’ a lot a complaints about drugs on the night shift.”

My rectum tightened and a pang of foreboding shot through my stomach. I looked away, expecting Lee to shred me right then and there.

“They always say that, Daryl. Ted always says that. The police are right behind us and they buy gas here two or three times a night. Tell these old women to go gossip to their sewing circle.”

My eyes widened. This was incredible.

A few minutes later, Daryl and Daryl stomped out to start another car. It wasn’t the same when he didn’t yell out, “Maggots!” in his normal fit of rage.

Lee’s eyes twinkled as he coolly and expertly punched numbers into the adding machine and wrote results down in his white ruled accounting sheet.

“The old man was a little more uptight about that stuff,” Lee confided in me, “but he’s doing less and less these days—getting ready for retirement. I know what goes on here at night. I know why you guys do three times as much business. As long as the place doesn’t get a bad reputation… just keep bringing in business.”

I was flabbergasted. Was this a trap? I couldn’t think of a direct response, so I clumsily changed the subject in a desperate attempt to not confess anything incriminating.

“How are the books working out? Ted seems to think we’re bleeding money, but I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“Ted’s an idiot.”

I was unable to control my laughter.

“He’s more of a pain in the ass than he’s worth. I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be here but I’m certain Daryl isn’t going to take his place.”

I felt like I had been inflated with helium—like I could float away into the sky and I wasn’t even stoned. I sat in shock for the remainder of Lee’s visit, mulling over the implications: Josh and I were more important to Lee than Ted and Daryl and Daryl. Suddenly, there seemed to be some sort of weird cosmic force at work.

Lee spent an hour or so doing the accounting before tossing his paperwork and bags stuffed with cash into the trunk of his BMW. I sat in Daryl and Daryl’s chair, giddy with my newly-discovered powers, while Daryl and Daryl sat in Ted’s chair staring blankly out the window.

Our meditative interlude was interrupted by a rather odd looking woman. She appeared to be in her forties, had long, stringy brown hair striped with gray and was shaped strikingly like a weeble toy. Slowly, she got out of her blue Pinto and wobbled inside. I was immediately struck by her nonsensical grin. Her voice was loud and cheerful, “Do you have a phone I can use?”

Daryl and Daryl stared out the front window and I could almost hear a rush of air as it was sucked into the vacuum of his skull.

“We only have that pay phone on the well right next to you.”

The woman turned around, startled, “I see.”

She fished some change out of her tight jeans pocket and dumped it into the black payphone. She punched in seven digits and paused.

“Uh yes. I was calling to file a report on a stray dog.”

I watched in fascination. Entertainment was hard to come by on the day shift.

“Well, he was in the southbound lane on nine highway. I would suggest sending a patrol car to Parkville. At his current velocity, I would think he would reach the city limits within ten minutes or so.”

The road to Parkville consisted of many curves, lights, stop signs and left turns. How she surmised the dog would end up in Parkville was something I could probably spend an entire year trying to figure out.

“OK. Thank you.”

The woman hung up the phone and stood there in the doorway grinning, seemingly deep in thought. After a minute or two, she finally shook her head, grunted and went back to her Pinto. I watched her pull onto nine highway and head south – no doubt to witness the apprehension of this criminal dog.

I chuckled quietly and glanced over at Daryl and Daryl to see if his brain was still seizing or if the oddity of our visitor had penetrated some shred of consciousness buried in the murky depths of his mind and dredged up some emotion at least vaguely resembling amusement. He continued staring out the window, completely devoid of any discernable emotion.

I wondered if forcefully applying a two by four to the side of his head would elicit any response from him. I doubted it. I relished the irony—I had seen more “normal” behavior from people under the influence of LSD than I had from Daryl and Daryl.

* * *

A few weeks later, I had agreed to take Travis out job-hunting while his Colt was in the shop with transmission problems. In exchange for driving him around, he offered to buy me dinner at Dairy Queen.

I took him to the airport, a nursing home and a few warehouses. Our last stop was a hotel where he wanted to apply for a room service position. I waited in the car and smoked a joint while he was inside filling out the application. After about thirty minutes, he emerged through the front door, wearing his white dress shirt, black tie and slacks and blue high-top sneakers. Two female airline attendants passed him on their way in. I noticed them look at him with amusement and giggle between themselves. Travis lumbered over to my car and got in, causing the passenger side to sink significantly.

My eye gleamed with mischievousness, “Dude, did you see those two chicks?”

“Oh yeah!”

Travis’ eyes lit up and I could see the drool pooling in his mouth, ready to dribble down his chin.

“Did you see what that one had in her bag?”

“What?” He turned quickly to look, but they had already entered the building.

“A dildo!”

“No shit?!”

“I’m serious. I saw them watching you as they went inside too. They were nodding and nudging each other, dude. They thought you were hot!”

Travis started digging his right little finger into his scrotum. He always did that when he became sexually excited.

“You’re gonna regret it the rest of your life if you don’t get your butt in there and ask them out.”

“Which one?!”

“Fuck it, man. Ask them both. I can tell they were wild. They’d probably do a threesome with you.”

“Holy shit!”

Travis flung open the car door and bounced back inside the hotel. He was only gone five minutes before returning. His pallor had given away to a deep, sweaty red. He glistened like a red sausage, sweating as it cooked.

“Fucker.”

I giggled, “What? What did they say?”

His tone was one of utter defeat, “Nothing. Just drive to Dairy Queen.”

We went inside Dairy Queen and placed orders totaling nearly eight dollars. Travis pulled an old sock – a long tube sock with red stripes at the top – from his pocket. The bottom was nearly black with dirt and the entire thing was a stiffened cast of his foot and calf. I could smell it from several feet away. He dumped a pile of pennies, nickels, dimes and a few quarters from the sock onto the counter.

I laughed uncontrollably as the cashier watched in disbelief. An elderly couple behind us turned and left.

Travis turned around, confused, “What are you laughing about?”

“Dude, what are you doing throwing that dirty-assed sock on the counter? People get food there!”

“It’s an old head trick, man!” It was a phrase Travis picked up from Bunt, meaning it was common practice for old hippie stoners to carry around change in a dirty sock.

Travis counted out the exact change for the bill, using as many of the small coins as he could before resorting to using two quarters to complete the payment.

We took our food and, as we were returning to the car, I noticed an oddly familiar woman standing at the exit on the other side of the building. She was looking out across the highway, her arms folded disapprovingly and a stupid grin on her face. The weeble shape of her body made her instantly recognizable—it was the Dog Lady! What was she doing?

I saw a small dog wandering around on the paved shoulder across the road. The woman was studying it intently, but not calling to it or anything—just standing there staring at it like an idiot. I watched as a car approached from the distance. I cringed. The dog sniffed around the shoulder a few seconds and then wandered out into the road, just as the car reached the same spot.

The car continued on its way while the Dog Lady looked on, still smiling. She shook her head as the lifeless body of the dog rolled in the direction the car was traveling and then finally stopped, limp on the highway. The Dog Lady stood there several minutes without moving.

My mind reeled and I shivered. I prodded Travis to get in the car and sped away from that Grim Reaper of dogs as fast as I could, noting that the world I experienced on drugs was becoming increasingly more sane than the one I experienced while sober.

Eventually, the front door creaked open to reveal a warm orange glow inside. A giant stood in the doorway–he was even bigger than Travis–grinning down at us with his round glasses and long black hair. Even with the goofy grin and glasses evoking fond images of John Lennon, Willie was intimidating.

We wasted no time escaping into the warm cocoon of the house, passing over creaking floorboards and winding around unrecognizable clutter. Dee filtered into the cramped kitchen with Willie’s wife and I followed Willie and Bunt into the living room. The white walls were peppered with a strange collection of paintings: a small white cottage in a forest painted on black velvet, dogs playing cards, a castle surrounded by lightning.

Willie sat on what I figured was his end of a green vinyl couch that had a number of tears leaking foam. To his side, a large black trash bag sat on the floor, filled with pot. I tried to guess the pounds of grass in that bag–I had no experience with quantities that large and it was futile to guess what had to be an enormous weight. The skunk weed had such a strong odor that I could smell it from where I was standing on the opposite side of the room. Next to the trash bag, a black Mossberg shotgun rested against the arm of the couch. Bunt sat in a high-backed, rose-colored chair next to the couch. Willie’s rickety wooden coffee table was covered with magazines, rolling papers, ashtrays, empty Doral cigarette packs and a full gallon of Jim Beam. Upon close examination, I noticed the large bookshelf next to me was filled exclusively with pornographic video tapes.

As I looked around, I realized I was standing in the doorway to a pre-teen girl’s bedroom. Her walls were papered with heavy metal posters, leaving no trace of white paint. She was sitting on her bed talking to a very attractive blonde woman who appeared to be in her early twenties.

“Hey Darren!”

“Josie! Long time no see.”

It was a small world indeed. I had met Josie before but had no idea she was Willie’s stepdaughter.

I remained somewhat subdued, deciding it was probably best not to do anything to agitate Willie.

Josie noticed my extreme fascination with the blonde, “This is my Aunt, Samantha.”

I thought of Elizabeth Montgomery in “Bewitched.” How appropriate. “Cool name,” I grinned mindlessly.

Samantha smiled, probably more out of pity than anything, “Thanks.”

I was invited into the room to join Josie and Samantha and I plopped down on the bed with them, somewhat nervously. I imagined the disgust going through their minds at having to sit next to such a loser as myself.

“So, what’s up, Darren?” Samantha smiled.

I felt as though she was mocking me. How could something that cute really care what I was up to? I replied, my voice shaking, “Oh nothing much. Just trying to stay high, you know.”

She grinned–again out of pity, I imagined. “Well, this is some New Years Eve party. We need to liven things up a bit!” She pinched me on the side of my butt. My face turned red. It was one of the few times my mind couldn’t produce a witty response.

A pang of nervousness shot through my gut. My hormone-addled mind imagined a wide spectrum of activities that could liven up the party, each of which involved Samantha and I in a moment of private ecstasy.

“What do you suggest?“ my voice quavered.

“Let’s go jump on Willie and Lena’s bed!”

Oh my God! She was inviting me to jump on the bed with her? That could lead to acts I would have thought impossible. My imagination was getting carried away with me. Maybe it was a trap? Maybe she wanted to watch Willie blow me to shreds with that black Mossberg. A girl this cute surely would have nothing at all to do with the likes of me.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’m not anxious to get killed tonight.”

“You’re no fun!” Samantha winked at Josie and engaged in conversation I sensed was designed to exclude me.

I hung around awkwardly a few moments before moving out to the living room, onto the opposite end of the vinyl couch, near Bunt in his chair. Bunt removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes and nose in his usual masturbatorial way. Up and down, up and down. After a few strokes, his hand would go further down, over his mouth, his chin and to his neck. When he was finished, he replaced his glasses, “Yeah. I was with some friends out in the desert in Arizona.”

He laughed loudly and took a hit off the joint before passing it to me. I inhaled deeply, determined to forget my complete failure with Samantha, and listened intently.

“We ate a bunch of peyote,” he nodded reassuringly, “and this one cat… man…” He laughed again.

I passed the joint to Willie as Bunt continued, “he laid out on the floor. He was paralyzed man!”

More laughter. He took the joint from Willie and held onto it as he resumed the story, “His eyes were wiiiide open man! His pupils were tiny little points.” He heightened the pitch of his voice at the end of the sentence and slowly moved his thumb and fore-finger together to better illustrate the contracted pupils. He took another toke and passed me the joint.

I took the final hit and put the roach in an amber ashtray sitting on the coffee table. That was the money hit. The one where you feel it pounding into your head with your heartbeat. I exhaled the smoke as my mind was overcome with a euphoric rush and my vision clouded by blobs of color.

“And we kept saying, hey man are you alright?! He couldn’t even say anything, man!” Bunt shrugged and shook his head, “so I just got a straw, put a horse tranquilizer in it and shot it into his mouth!” He guffawed heartily.

Willie and I laughed along with him. Not so much at the story, but at the fact that he actually expected us to believe it.

Bunt finished, “So the next day, we asked him what the hell was going on. He said he could hear every word we were saying but couldn’t respond. He was completely unable to speak.” Bunt laughed hysterically.

Bunt had introduced me to Willie a few days before. Willie had agreed to supply me with a pound of pot that I was certain would sell within days at the station. My mind, trained from all the computer programming to look for patterns, realized there was a niche begging to be filled at the station. What if the customers could get smoke there too? Now that would be a “full service” station! I asked Bunt if he could hook me up with someone who could supply me a lot of good smoke and he brought me to Willie.

That night, I cashed my check at work and took a fifty dollar charge so I’d have a full two hundred dollars and some extra. That was enough to buy a half pound of the best skunk weed I’d ever smoked from Willie. I’d be able to make over four hundred dollars profit on it. What a racket! I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to sell that much pot. I hoped my intuition was right, and I could get rid of it in at least a week, so I wouldn’t be out the money too long.

I sat next to Willie on the green vinyl sofa with a half pound of pot shoved down the front of my pants. Bunt was to my left and, having decided our laughter meant that Willie and I had bought his story, decided to cap it off, “That was back in my day,” he nodded reassuringly, “back in the ‘60s.”

Willie shook his head, “Man, that’s fucked up.”

I nodded in agreement.

He poured a glass half full from the Jim Beam on his table, then filled it the rest of the way with Coke. He handed me the glass.

“Oh dude. I don’t drink. That shit tears me up.”

“Come on, man. It’s the last party of the year!”

It never took much to convince me. I took the glass, “Here’s to the first hangover of the next one.”

I drank the whiskey slowly. I could barely get it down, though the Coke helped.

“Finish it up man, and I’ll make myself one.”

Oh no. I took another swallow–horrible. Another–that one went down a bit easier. Another–easier still. Another–the glass was empty. Willie prepared himself a drink and downed it in one massive gulp. My back shivered.

Two hours later and the entire bottle was gone. Half of it was eating away inside my 120 pound body. I felt absolutely nothing except the room spinning wildly. If I could put so much as two words together in my head, I couldn’t get them out of my mouth without distorting them into a sloppy, unintelligible mess. It didn’t stop me from trying. My mouth was normally shackled thanks to the low self-esteem Shafto had burned into my mind. The alcohol unlocked the demon and I sat there between Bunt and Willie spouting a constant stream of utter nonsense. They just sat there laughing at me.

Willie reached into the trash bag and rolled a joint so perfect it looked exactly like a factory-made cigarette. He lit it up and handed it to me. I looked at the joint in my hand and completely forgot what I was supposed to do with it. With some labor, I lifted it to my mouth. That seemed like the right thing to do. I looked down my nose at the white tube between my fingers, the glowing ember emitting a stream of pungent smoke. I desperately tried to focus my eyes. It was impossible. I brought the joint to my mouth, hesitated and then put the cherry to my lips.

Bunt and Willie both called out to stop me, but it was too late. I could taste the ash, but I felt nothing. I took the joint out of my mouth and felt my lips with my finger. They felt alright, as best I could tell. Willie relit the joint and I was able to finish it with him and Bunt.

Eventually, it hit midnight and Willie grabbed the Mossberg and shot it off outside a few times in commemoration of the passing year. The dogs went wild upon hearing the sharp bang of the shotgun. When Willie came back inside, I was still releasing a constant stream of incoherence that had been bottled up after years of hiding from Shafto. From somewhere within the deep recesses of the foam-vomiting green vinyl couch, Willie brought out a vial filled with a clear liquid. Another mysterious, shadowy place gave birth to a syringe.

“Here, man. I think you need some of this.”

Bunt waved his hand, “Oh no man! Don’t give him that!”

I flopped my hand spasmodically at Bunt, “pppfffuoch it!”

Willie chuckled and took my right arm and plunged the needle in. I felt nothing there, but almost instantly began to feel a wave of euphoria spreading out from my spine and overtaking the rest of my body. I warmed even more than I already was from the whiskey. My faces numbed and I was overcome with joy. It was like an orgasm that lasted several minutes. My vision blurred and my consciousness shrunk steadily until it was black, taking the years of torment from Shafto along with it. I had finally found that beautiful pure blackness I had been searching for so long…

The next thing I knew, I was standing outside in the freezing cold, propping myself up against a tree. No, Bunt was propping me up against the tree.

“Hey man, are you OK?”

I keeled over and vomited forcefully.

“I s… s… s… orre…e…, Bun…”

“Just get it all out man, so we can get you in the car.”

I vomited more. And more. And again. My stomach wrenched but seemed empty. I tried to spit, but my mouth was dry as cotton. Even in my extreme nausea, I wondered what happened to Samantha. I hoped she wasn’t aware of this most unbecoming behavior.

“Are you done, man?”

I nodded lazily, then my stomach spasmed and I vomited again. After thirty minutes of wondering where all this liquid was coming from, I finally settled enough that I was able to flop into the back of the Bunt’s little white Subaru. Bunt got in the back with me and propped me up, aiming my head out the partially opened window. I rambled incoherently the entire twenty minute drive back to Bunt’s house, a constant stream of vomit issued from my mouth out onto the back of the car.

Dee was silent until we reached the house. I got out of the back of the car on my own, took two steps and fell flat on my face. Bunt closed the car door and lifted me up.

“Man, are you OK?”

“Man, just leave me here. Let me sleep. I don’t care.”

Chuck laughed, “I don’t think I wanna explain to the cop next door why you’re laying out here in the grass, man!”

I was closer to consciousness, at least.

Dee rubbed my shoulder, “Honey, why do you do that to yourself?”

The question took me by surprise. It was the first time anyone had asked me that. It wouldn’t be the last. I shrugged and shook my head. The etiquette of proper conversation prevented me from telling her the truth. I wanted to flush away everything that had congealed in my head. I wanted to forget the past, ignore the present and not know there would be a future.

* * *

I awoke the next morning, laying on one of Travis’ model spaceships. It, along with my hair and shirt were covered with vomit. I was so ashamed that I left immediately. I went home, took a shower and arrived at work two hours late. The kids were packing in as usual looking for acid. Josh let them know I had some awesome cheap pot for sale. It was gone by the end of the night. Four hundred dollars pure profit, just like that.

Willie had taught me to roll joints properly. They looked exactly like cigarettes. I rolled one and smoked it with Josh. The pot was so potent it was nearly hallucinogenic. With each hit off the joint and each bag I sold to some kid coming in looking for drugs, Shafto melted further and further into obscurity.

Willie had taught me something else that night–the wonders of opiates. A path down which I would wander and not find my way back for years. If Shafto was an impending storm, opiates were a tornado that would chase me relentlessly until they had shredded my soul to pieces.

I didn’t care. I had long realized having a soul was nothing more than a burden gifted to me from hell.

I was a favorite among the airport employees during my brief stint at the gift shop. Anyone I recognized was free to come in and take whatever knick-knacks they wanted. The gift shop was also kind enough to supply me with complimentary cigarettes, candy and magazines. Sometimes, I made extra money by selling the outrageously overpriced gift shirts without ringing them up and then pocketing the money. My friends benefited from the gift shop’s generosity, as the extra cash paid for an endless flow of drugs, electronics and food.

When I took Travis out to apply for jobs, the airport was the first place we stopped. As luck would have it, he was hired as a security guard. He quit after two weeks, claiming the pressure was too much for him, “I can’t handle the responsibility, Darren. What if something happened to one of those planes and it was my fault?” Of course, his other concern was that he wouldn’t be able to lay around the house eating thinly sliced bread stuffed with two-pound bricks of cheese and covered with mustard. Being a slacker myself, I couldn’t really blame him.

It occurred to me that Travis would probably make an ideal security guard, though, with his conscience. Other airport employees were far more questionable.

It was late February and spring was fast approaching. I had been making lucrative profits at the station selling weed to go along with all the LSD Josh was moving. Ted was becoming more and more irate, as each day more legitimate customers would complain about the blatant drug traffic overwhelming the station on the night shift. Of course, Daryl and Daryl remained silent about the whole affair, limiting his reactions to a few random disapproving shakes of his empty head.

One day, Ted called a company meeting. Josh and I knew it was going to be about the drug problem. We stood next to each other, in front of the safe, while Ted stood at the desk eyeing us like a principal about to punish a couple of trouble-making kids. Daryl and Daryl sat at the side of the desk, barely registering the slightest look of relish on his dull face.

“So, it looks we got ourselves a little problem here. I keep hearin’ stories about a lot a drugs comin’ out o’ this place. I’m givin’ y’all two weeks to put an end to it before I let Lee know what’s goin’ on and y’all be lookin’ for employment elsewhere.”

I looked at Josh and grinned slyly. I had told him about my conversation with Lee during my week of hell with Daryl and Daryl. Poor stupid Ted.

Daryl and Daryl managed a smirk. I could only imagine his eagerness to get rid of us filthy druggies. Little did he know, he would be getting a surprise too.

“Yeah, Ted. We’ll watch that.”

“Are you gettin’ smart with me?”

“Not at all. I could never get smart with you.”

Ted held up his index and middle fingers, “Two weeks!”

Josh and I nodded.

During the next two weeks the drug trade increased exponentially—we both made a concerted effort to sell as many drugs as possible in those fourteen days. We didn’t even attempt to hide the deals from legitimate customers, laughing between ourselves knowing they would be flying into the station the next day to report the criminal activities on the night shift.

Finally, the deadline passed and I received a phone call at home. Shafto answered, “Warren, you got a phone call!” The tone in his voice made it sound like he’d been interrupted in the middle of delicate brain surgery.

I was somewhat nervous as I took the phone. Perhaps the whole thing with Lee really had been a trap. Perhaps this was the end—another interminable period of dealing with Shafto’s degradations. He handed me the phone, “Lose another job, eh?”

As usual, I didn’t bother to respond, “Hello?”

It was Lee. I must admit I was somewhat nervous upon hearing his voice. Years of abuse at the hands of Shafto had caused my self-confidence to plummet and, though intellectually I suspected the news was good, I couldn’t help but be concerned. Lee explained that he had expunged Ted from the station, even going so far as to toss Ted’s Aluminum Can Jew Box out into the blue dumpster outside the station. He asked if I could come in early and work with Daryl and Daryl the next few days, since Josh was still in school. I was so elated, I didn’t even have to think before I answered, “Absolutely!”

* * *

Needless to say, Daryl and Daryl wasn’t in the best of moods. He had lost his only ally, his only friend, his beloved future father-in-law. I sat at the desk, staring blankly out the window with Daryl and Daryl until Josh arrived.

“Dude, where’s Ted?”

I couldn’t help but smile, “Ted is no more!”

Daryl and Daryl darted an evil eye at me, making the moment even more delicious.

“What?”

“Lee let him go. He called me in to fill in until you got here.”

“Holy shit, dude!”

“Yeah!”

Daryl and Daryl grabbed the clipboard filled with orange accounting sheets and angrily stormed outside to read the pumps.

“Daryl and Daryl doesn’t seem too happy, dude.”

“Yeah, well, he may not get to fuck Ted anymore, but at least he still has his daughter.”

Josh laughed, then paused as he considered Daryl and Daryl engaged in a sexual act with Ted’s daughter, “Dude, that’s sick.”

Josh paused again, this time he seemed somewhat concerned – even terrified, “Daryl and Daryl isn’t going to be the new manager is he?”

“No way, dude. I don’t know who Lee’s gonna bring in, but there’s no way in fuck he’s gonna let that idiot run this place.”

We quickly ended our discussion of station politics as Daryl and Daryl came back inside. He didn’t bother to do the books – opting to collect his green hunting coat and John Deer cap and leave without saying a word.

“See ya, Daryl!” We called after him as the door slammed shut.

It turned out to be a short shift that night. With no manager to whom the customers could report, we took every advantage offered to us. Drugs were flying out of the lanes at record rates. Not a single windshield was washed and wild tales of LSD trips long past were told next to the opened windows of old ladies.

By seven o’clock, we decided to shut down the station. We didn’t even bother to move the clock hands forward. Ahhh – the freedom. We dropped four hits of blotter each and embarked on a road trip, seeing where we’d end up getting lost.

Coincidentally, we ended up at the airport. Of course, this day and age, that would be nothing short of suicide, but these were simpler times. It was around midnight and there was hardly any traffic in the terminals. We walked past a few rent-a-cops, breaking into hysterics as we passed them, and eventually sat down near the Continental gateway.

An old woman who was working at the restaurant came over and sat next to us, engaging us in conversation. She didn’t seem to care – that nothing we said made any sense whatsoever.

“So, what are you boys doing here at this time of night?”

We both laughed psychotically, “Uhhh. I think we’re hunting green frog soup!”

She looked at me quizzically, “Never heard of that.”

“Me either! But it’s gotta be good!” I guffawed.

“You boys aren’t on somethin’ are ya?”

Josh looked around nervously, “I think we’re on these chairs! Are we supposed to sit here?”

“Well, you can sit there if you want. But there’s a plane comin’ in. The security guards are gonna be comin’ out any minute. Might be a good idea for ya to take off.”

I stripped my shirt off and threw it into the air, giggling like an overjoyed retard.

“I been around the block a few times. You boys better be cool. Beeeee cooool!”

She got up and returned to the restaurant as Josh and I chuckled for no reason at all.

Minutes later, a few security guards filtered into the terminal and took their positions at the Continental gate.

Josh’s eyes widened, “Oh my God, dude! Dude! Oh my God! I can’t handle this! Oh my God!”

“Dude?”

Josh pointed over at the terminal. There, standing in a blue uniform, his bloated gut hanging out over his tightened belt, was Ted.

“Oh holy mother of Christ, dude! What the fuck are we doing!”

Josh and I lunged from our seats, but not fast enough for Ted to spot us, “Well, well, well. Fancy seein’ you two assholes here. What’d you decide to stop by and make fun of the loser who couldn’t hold a job at a gas station?”

The man who took such immense pleasure in firing innocent people from a mindless job had now found himself in yet another mindless job, chasing down his two favorite nemesis. I can only imagine the joy he felt, since he never could have done something like that back at the station.. Even through the intense love with which the LSD had filled me, my hatred for him reached critical mass and exploded in a mushroom cloud of emotion.

“You know what, you can go fuck yourself, Ted. And while you’re at it, why don’t you shove that sickening goddamn mole up your fucking ass.”

“You know I could have you two arrested!”

Our laughter at his response only angered him more. He flung open the gate and began chasing us down the hallway, yelling out to anyone who would listen to apprehend us. Fortunately, Ted could only run about forty feet before nearly collapsing from exhaustion, while Josh and I were invigorated with the rush of hallucinogenic magic.

We made our way back to the safety of my car and sped away from the airport, pitying the poor souls whose lives would be in the hands of a man who couldn’t even hold a job at a gas station.

“What’s in there? What makes her alive? A random collection of synaptic connections? Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts? Or is there really such a thing as a soul?”

My mother watched me, listening, no doubt wondering if I had slipped into madness. She knew I was on LSD, but she didn’t have any more of a clue what that meant than I knew what it was like to give birth. The expression on her face was one of confusion mixed with concern.

I put Sung down on the hardwood floor and she walked off toward my mother, chattering in her Siamese way. I called to her, mocking the way Shafto spoke to her, “SOAN!” I snapped my fingers a few times, “SOAN! COME HERE!” More finger snapping. She ignored me just as she ignored Shafto.

“I hate it when he does that,” my mother sighed. “He doesn’t even know how to talk to a cat.”

“Yeah. He talks to her like she’s a dog. I’d love to see her shred into him just once.”

I could sense there was much more about Shafto that my mother hated. I had gotten my mother high on pot for the first time in her life. That probably wouldn’t have happened had she been happily married. She also probably wouldn’t have started drinking so heavily if it hadn’t been for him. It had gotten to the point where the only happiness to be had in that house was when Shafto was gone—for my mother as well as me.

I saw the headlights of the maroon van careening swiftly down the old gravel road. A pang of nervousness shot through my stomach, causing it to knot. My muscles tensed. I got up from the couch and headed for my room.

“Darren, you don’t have to leave. This is your home too! You’re my son!”

Sung slipped under the couch, escaping Shafto in her own way. I smiled smugly to myself. Even a freakin’ cat understands what a piece of shit he is.

“The more I’m around him, the more I hate him… the more I hate myself. I can’t stay here.” With that, I quietly shuffled into my room and resumed reading Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. As I read, I wondered how much energy would be released if I could force Shafto to undergo a nuclear reaction. With that blissful thought dancing through my mind like a fine ballet, I drifted to sleep, only to awake a few hours later in a cold sweat. It was late, but I knew Willie would still be up—no doubt watching a pornographic movie. The house was quiet, my mom having gone to work and Shafto dreaming fitfully of his tortures in an Army kitchen deep in the jungles of Vietnam.

I called Willie in need of more pot. It was selling at the station faster than I could buy it. My plan to become self-sufficient was working even better than I had dreamed. But dreams came in many forms and my desire for independence was starting to drift into the backdrop of my mind and morph into something else. Despite having all five—arguably six—of my senses obliterated by a half gallon of whiskey, I was still bewitched by that warm glow that flowed quietly throughout my bloodstream. For the past several weeks, all I could think about was going back to that place. Back to that rabbit hole where the truth was buried in a warm swirl of liquid bliss. I sat on the edge of my bed, having agreed to meet Willie in an hour. A mixture of joy and sadness came over me, ripping me in two. I had to get out. I had to find that blackness I had been searching for in every dark filthy unturned piece of rubble littering my soul.

Yet there was one thing I knew I would never be able to kill. Despite all the pot, all the acid, the angel dust, the opium, the valium and the methaqualone, it survived. Nothing would kill that goddamned conscience. It ate away at my heart. It stirred some small thread of emotion buried deep in my gut and I shed a tear—a tear for my mother. I knew the path I was taking. I knew it would change me. I knew she would lose her son. She loved me probably more than anyone ever had and I was going to kill her only child. I only hoped she could forgive me for breaking her heart. But then, it hadn’t been my decision to marry Shafto. Oh dear, sweet Shafto. Maybe he was better than me. If only I could live a life without the burden of conscience—the demon sitting on my shoulder criticizing my every decision.

I sped along the twisting highway at seventy miles per hour, passing cars on turns where I couldn’t see the oncoming traffic. Part of me hoped one would come around the turn and slam into me head-first, killing me instantly. Splattering the red goop in my head all over the road with nothing left to show for it but a few black hairs stuck in thick, crusty blood congealed on the pavement. Part of me wanted nothing more than to survive, survive forever—forever wasn’t even long enough to experience the ecstasy of morphine. If heaven was twice as good as any man of the cloth would tell you, it was still only half as good as the rapture of morphine. Getting that warm cloud of joy flowing through my blood meant more to me than my own life.

It took me ten minutes to make the twenty minute trip. I ignored the floodlights, which blasted on in response to my motion, and tuned out the snarling dogs trained to kill. I was shaking as I followed Willie inside and sat down next to him on the green vinyl sofa. A geyser of foam spewed out of the tears in the fabric.

“Dude, where’s your sister-in-law?”

Willie grinned slyly, “Ya like her, huh?”

I tried to hide just how much I really had liked her, “She’s kinda cute.”

“She’s workin’ at the hospital tonight.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“You shoulda talked to her, dude. I think she had the hots for ya.”

I suspected Willie was making fun of me, or at least exaggerating. There was no way a girl that cute would have the hots for me. Even someone as stupid as Shafto could have told him that. “So, ya got any more of that morphine by any chance? I wouldn’t mind buying some of that and another couple pounds of grass.”

Willie reached into the hidden crevices of his workspace and produced several vials, glass syringes and needles.

I watched carefully as Willie showed me how to use the implements of bliss. He took a vial of the clear liquid morphine and drew some up into a syringe.

“So, you get that from Samantha?”

Willie tapped the syringe, “Well, you didn’t hear that from me.” He carefully stuck the needle into a plump vein in my arm and drew up the plunger on the syringe. A cloud of blood mixed with the morphine. I hated needles; I hated seeing my own blood. But that sight had a warm pleasantness to it that was almost sexual.

Finally, the plunger was depressed and the mixture flowed into my vein.

“That’s how it’s done dude. You think you got it?”

My only response was a fading moan as I drifted away into a netherworld from which I hoped never to return. I could a feel an intense warmth flooding my body. Then euphoria. Did I overdose? Was I dead? Was this heaven? No. It was better than heaven ever could be. Shafto was as distant to me as the fires of Hell now. And suddenly, nothing in the universe seemed to matter more than that colorless liquid.

Once I revived enough to realize what was going on around me, I gave Willie the money for two more pounds of weed, plus 40mls of morphine. He gave me a new syringe and needle all my own. The drive home was much slower than the drive to Willie’s. I kept my speed below the posted minimum and found the only way I could see was to keep one eye closed. Even then, I believe I dipped in and out of consciousness several times.

Finally, I pulled into the driveway, careful to park my car off the circular gravel entranceway so as not to further inconvenience Shafto—my very existence was enough of a burden to him without me parking my car in such a way that he may have to turn his steering wheel a few inches to maneuver around it. I closed my car door quietly and tip-toed into my bedroom. I left the light off, lit a candle and turned on the computer, expecting to do some programming. I sat on the hardwood floor, looking up at the television I’d had to wire up as a computer monitor. The hundreds of lines of computer code scrambled in my brain. Within minutes, I was unconscious.

I awoke the next day, neglecting to take a shower or change clothes so I could make it to work on time and make a good impression on the new manager. Tardiness was out of the question. With the two pounds of marijuana shoved down the front of my pants and the vial of morphine warm in my pocket, I hurried out to my car. The vial almost seemed to be calling my name, begging me to follow it into Wonderland. Even after only two experiences with the substance, the siren call was insanely irresistible. I thought of the program I had been working on the day before—it was the only thing that I could think of to keep my mind off that soft sweet voice calling my name like some unimaginable angel drawing me into that warm light at the end of death’s tunnel.

I sped to the gas station, managing to arrive ten minutes early. Daryl and Daryl was sitting at his usual post, with his usual blank stare. The man I saw in the manager’s seat was nothing short of a complete shock.

It was Toad!

I had known Toad for ages. He taught history at the high school before being fired for buying pot from a student. After that, he worked at the north station for Ted’s wife and would buy my cousin and me alcohol when his shift was over. Oh what incredible fortune this was! Had I any sense, I would have immediately taken up gambling—my luck was approaching astonishing proportions.

“Toad!”

“Hey Darren!”

“So, you’re gonna be managing the station now, huh?!”

Daryl and Daryl scowled. I could tell he was none too happy about being overlooked for the promotion—if one cared to use the term “promotion” so loosely.

“Oh yeah. I guess I paid my dues in the coffin.”

“That place fucking sucked, dude.”

Toad chuckled mischievously, “Yeah, I heard about the deal with the police.”

My face reddened, “I probably should have stayed home that day.”

Toad’s laugh was loud and rapturous, contrasting deeply with Daryl and Daryl’s morose glaze.

“Wow, dude. This is cool. I’m glad Lee picked you.”

“Well, thank you sir!”

I turned to Daryl and Daryl. There was a bonding moment to be had here and I doubted Toad wanted that retard stinking up the festivities any more than I did, “Hey, man, why don’t you go ahead and take off. I’m ready to start now. Go hang out with Cheryl or something.”

Daryl and Daryl counted his money angrily, tossed the wad on the desk and stormed out the door.

Toad looked at me and shook his head, “Yep. I have a feeling we’re going to be hiring for the day shift soon.”

“Good.”

I pulled out the brown paper bag full of weed and rolled a joint that rivaled one of Willie’s pseudo-cigarettes, “Let’s celebrate!”

“I’m with ya.”

Toad and I retired into the back room, taking turns hitting off the joint and watching for the few random customers straggling in. I chuckled to myself as I imagined them coming in to complain to Toad about the horrific goings-on during the night shift. I knew Toad would do whatever he could to pacify them, but Josh and I would never hear a word about it. The takeover was nearly complete. All that was left was to get rid of Daryl and Daryl and the gas station would officially be the drug capitol of Platte County. People would come from miles around to buy all manner of drugs. There would be no Ted with that stupid mole that was probably more intelligent than he was. There would be no having to appease idiotic customers with their outdated beliefs that businesses were no place for drug trafficking. There would be no more senseless firings.

There would only be Toad, Josh, me, pot, LSD and cute teenage girls who would do just about anything for drugs. There was nothing at all standing in my way now. I could smell freedom just around the corner. Freedom from Shafto and his black, murderous soul.

And then there was that warm clear liquid seducing me from my pocket. I could feel its warm tendrils wrapping themselves around my back, slowly slithering up my spine to gently caress my brain. I knew Toad well, but I wasn’t sure how he felt about morphine and needles. I didn’t want to bring it up in front of him. I thought about heading out to the women’s restroom and loading up. It would be the perfect cover. All the employees used the women’s restroom rather than stink up the office.

But I knew I would have to wait. There would be no way I could hide the effects of the morphine. The nausea, the nods, the slurred speech, the blurred vision, the warm wonderful itching.

I could see the sludge that I was becoming—the thing into which Shafto had turned me. All my life I had been fascinated by the idea of true love. A soul mate. A partner so perfect that I would feel complete for the first time in my life, as though we had been split apart somewhere in the heavens. Split apart so that we could be reunited on Earth after a long, cold, empty wait and then the world would be like an orchestra and life would be filled with music.

Then an empty song crept into my heart, with a slight melody of sadness.

I realized I had already found my soul mate. And her name was Morphine.