I had the day off and spent it camping with Tracy, her dad, sister and brother-in-law. It was the first day I had spent both sober and out of the apartment in years. We found a stream and followed it, holding hands and spotting deer, snakes, fish and even a bobcat. Lost in conversation, laughter and each other, we walked a couple of miles without even realizing it. We stopped at a spot where the stream opened to a large pool resting at the bottom of a small quarry. We spent a couple of hours making small sculptures in the mud before returning to the campsite.

Tracy’s dad looked us up and down. I was wearing blue jeans, sandals, a black t-shirt and a green flannel. I was covered with mud. Tracy was wearing a dark green dress and was barefoot. She was covered with mud.

“So, what have you two been doing out there all this time?”

Tracy giggled, “Oh God. Shut up, you freak!”

I laughed nervously but relaxed when I realized Tracy’s dad really didn’t care what we had been doing. This was my kind of family.

Everyone else had started cooking before we returned and we ate hot dogs and sat around the fire singing Beatles songs while Tracy’s dad played the guitar, finishing with the “Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.” Tracy’s dad put down the guitar.

“So, Tracy tells me you work at the Phillips there next to the police station.”

“Oh, yeah,” I wondered if I was being interviewed, “I’m going to be starting college in the fall.”

“You know just this past winter, I had an accident out front there.”

This was interesting. Tracy hadn’t said anything about it, “Oh really?”

“Oh yeah. Some woman pulled out in front of me on my motorcycle. I’d just started going from that stop at the intersection there so I wasn’t going too fast, luckily.”

“Holy shit, that was you?!”

“Yeah, that was me. You were there?”

“Yeah.” It figured. That damn hick’s mother had almost killed Tracy’s dad. The world had such a sick sense of balance to it. I shivered and hoped this wouldn’t induce some sort of acid flashback.

“So what’re you studying in college?”

At that moment, my choice had become crystal clear, “I think philosophy.”

We all talked into the night until the air chilled and the fire died. Tracy’s sister and brother-in-law retired to one tent, her dad to another and we had one of our own. Years of lying in bed for hours, tossing and turning, or passing out instantly in a pool of my own vomit melted away as I easily slipped into unconsciousness warmed by a cocoon of our combined body heat.

The next morning I awoke to the feel of the cool, damp air and the scent of Tracy next to me. I was struck by how natural it all felt. We were both still covered with mud and dried perspiration, but I felt cleaner than ever before. It seemed like I’d known this girl all my life, like a piece of my broken soul had been returned in the night.

I had to work that day, so Tracy drove me home. We had the White Album going at full volume, singing along loudly. We both knew every word, every accent and every staccato.

I walked into the building, my head swimming with clarity. It was like an opiate high without the distance from the outside world. And just as quickly, with the sound of the Probe faded into the distance, a melancholy came over me. Many things were changing rapidly after years of stasis. I knew, somehow, I’d be leaving this apartment soon. In some ways, that brought me relief, in others it left me saddened. In truth, I’d always felt more like I had abandoned my mother as a child to stay in the more stable comfort of my grandparents’ home. Now, I would be abandoning her again and this time she would be alone. This led to another complication.

I unlocked the door and swung it open energetically. There was a thump as it hit something. I cringed, knowing what it was. Sung had quickly lost a tremendous amount of weight and was nothing more than a skeleton now. She would move from spot to spot, half-sitting and half-standing in discomfort. At some point, she moved to a spot near the door – perhaps waiting for someone to come home. I rushed inside to see if I’d hurt her. She appeared to be uninjured.

She was fading quickly. She could barely lift her head. It was too heart-wrenching to bear. Sung was eighteen years old. I almost couldn’t remember I time when she wasn’t around. She’d survived two stepfathers, countless gerbils, a handful of fish and an opiate addiction. All I could do was helplessly watch her slip away.

Guiltily, I got myself cleaned up and headed to work. Aaron was sitting at the side of the desk with the “Thousand Yard Stare” everyone who worked with Toad acquired. He was a tall kid, almost as thin as I was, with long, black hair. People often confused us for one another and we called each other our “Evil Twin.”

“Hey dude, how’s it going today?”

He glared at Toad, who was talking in hushed tones on the pay-phone, and rolled his eyes.

I sat down on the safe, feeling a tension in the room. Aaron and I sat in silence while Toad alternated between long pauses of compulsive rubber straw sucking and low-volume emotional bursts. Suddenly, Toad slammed the phone onto the receiver. His face was red and his eyes watery.

“It just isn’t fair.”

Aaron knew better than to ask, but I was always fascinated by the bizarre, “What’s up, dude?”

“Sally and I have been fighting.” Shaking, he took another draw from his vodka and Mountain Dew mixture, “Now she’s dragging Kacey Bleau into it. I was supposed to take him to get his hair cut this weekend.”

Incredible. Kacey Bleau was Toad and Sally’s dog. Evidently, he was now being used as a helpless pawn in the continuing battle that was their marriage.

Maybe I should warn Toad that Kacey Bleau is in danger of becoming a morphine addict if he doesn’t get some counseling or at least some semblance of stability in his life.

I knew Toad was taking all of this completely seriously. I had worked with him long enough that I had controlled my initial instincts to laugh out loud at such situations and to instead feign genuine concern.

“So, what happened?”

“She went and took him to Pet Mart during lunch.”

“Man. How could she do that?”

Aaron watched in fascination, probably frightened that I seemed to actually be as serious as Toad about the situation.

“I don’t know, Darren. I try to work things out rationally…”

My mind strained to imagine such a thing.

“But she goes and pulls shit like this.”

Toad was visibly shaking. He jaunted to the men’s room and closed the door. I had his island that night, so I went ahead and did the shift-change so he could go home and work out his family issues–and leave Aaron and I with some sense of sanity.

We watched, laughing, as Toad sped off, sucking on his rubber straw with chunks of rusted blue metal falling off the Death Trap which still proudly displayed the “Watch That Child!” bumper sticker.

After work, I hung out with Tracy only an hour or so. I had to see her, but still felt I needed to go home for a little grounding. I also knew Sung would be dying any day. I returned to the apartment and planted myself on the couch and watched whatever garbage the television decided to feed me. I helped Sung up onto the couch with me, but she didn’t stay there with me long. It was too uncomfortable for her in her usual position nestled between the fold of my bent leg.

My mom got home and put her things away and started some soup in the kitchen. She burst out in tears. I went in and held her.

“She’s dying, Darren.”

“I know.”

The next morning my mother awoke me in tears. She had been awake all night with Sung. She passed away a few minutes before.

* * *

I sat in Toad’s chair at work, in dazed silence after having smoked a joint with Roy. Josh stopped by and was getting on my nerves a bit, as he was doing nothing but hanging out in the back room snorting coke. Just the image of the black Ford Probe pulling into the lot lifted my spirits. I had talked to Tracy earlier on the phone, so she knew what was going on. She came inside and hugged me, then sat down on the desk next to me.

“I feel like shit. I grew up with that cat. My mom’s a mess.”

I expected the usual, “It’ll be okay… it’s a part of life… blah… blah” speech. What I got instead took me completely by surprise. It was like the Theory of Relativity. After reading it, one can only think, “Of course. This is so simple, so obvious. How could I have not seen this?”

“You should go to the shelter and get your mom another cat from there. That way Sung’s death will have some meaning. She’ll have saved the life of another cat.”

I looked into her big brown eyes and an explosion of emotions bursted in my head. The cacophony finally congealed into a single thought, “I don’t deserve you.”

I convinced Josh to cover my shift while Tracy took me to the animal shelter. He was so hopped up on coke, he would have lifted a dump truck if I’d asked. As Tracy and I pulled in, a scrawny farmer-looking guy was walking in with his son. He was carrying a small, incessantly meowing kitten. Having grown up with cats, I knew it was starving, or at least thought it was. I stared at him and he glanced back at me. Then glanced again, noticing I was still watching.

“Want a cat?”

“Yeah!”

He handed the kitten to me, “There ya go.” It was a female tabby–gray with black stripes and a black “M” shape on her forehead.

And that’s how my mother got Mathilda.

It was a warm Saturday morning. Roy and I had offered to take over the entire Saturday shift so we could spend the day drinking beer and getting high. I brought a half ounce of weed to work and Roy supplied a case of beer, which we kept in the ice machine—a big white metallic refrigerator appropriately marked on the side with the word “ICE” in frosted red lettering. The ice machine was used more by us employees than customers, since people rarely bought ice from us. Instead, we used it to store beer and food and sometimes took turns sitting in it during those humid, 100 degree Missouri days.

I was looking forward to the day—I knew it would be one for the history books. Not that that would have taken much at that point in my life. I had spent the past several months—practically all summer—being tortured by that atrocity of a job. That period of time was a waste, getting up at the ass-crack of dawn, sitting in that chair all day suffocating in the heat while Toad blathered on about things I couldn’t even begin to explain to any rational person. Once my shift was over, I would go home, too exhausted and stoned to do anything but lie on the couch in my shorts and watch television with Sung nestled between my bent leg. Usually, she would lick my bare knee until it was almost bleeding. It probably would have hurt if I hadn’t had enough morphine in me to kill several whales a thousand times over.

Part of my hermitic lifestyle was a leftover from Shafto. He had taught me well to avoid the world. And then my legal troubles. Any moment outside the apartment was potential to get arrested for something and sent to prison for five years. Then I’d be shacked up with hundreds of Shaftos.

Roy, Sky and I were becoming close friends. I was always somewhat aloof and hadn’t exactly realized they intended to set me up with this friend of Sky’s. In my recent self-absorbed ever-internalized world, girls were something to admire from a distance and not much more. Roy and Sky fully intended to change that, starting with the Cajun Festival that evening.

We got our morning duties out of the way quickly. I dragged out the heavy, greasy trash barrels. They appeared to have been painted bright orange sometime in the past but were now a dingy rust color. We always wore rubber gloves when handling them, since they were thickly coated with grease. The cans had metal rods bent into a u-shape welded to the insides, near the top, where we kept the long plastic funnels for filling oil and power steering fluid. The cans looked to have suffered years of abuse—they were dented so badly, they could barely be called cylindrical. They had heavy plastic brown covers that we placed over them.

Next came the squeegee buckets. They slid onto metal slats welded onto the pillars that held up the canopy. The tops of the buckets dispensed paper towels. Phillips had the best paper towels—far better than the Amoco’s next door or Texaco’s across the street—you could almost wipe your ass with them. Below the towel dispensers were the buckets, which were removable. They were always filled with plain old water, except when it was really cold outside, then we’d put just enough windshield wiper fluid in them to keep the water from freezing.

Once the trash cans were set out and decorated with their covers and the squeegee buckets set out and filled, we brought out the air hose and the water bucket, which had a spout for filling radiators. Finally, the pumps were unlocked and everything was switched on from the fuse box in the back room. We turned the “Opened” sign and were ready for business. I immediately rolled a joint while Roy opened a couple of beers and we got to work doing our jobs—getting wasted, watching television and doing our best to drive away customers.

Saturdays were usually pretty slow business-wise and Roy and I made the most of our leisure time. We went through both the pot and beer at speeds that would have dizzied Toad. We made fun of “90210” reruns and discussed all the latest gas station gossip. Evidently, Aaron was being driven mad by his days spent with Toad. I felt for him.

“So. Tell me about this Tracy chick.”

“She’s hot, dude. She doesn’t go out much though, since her mom died. But she’s cool. Kind of an alternative chick. She doesn’t talk much.”

Oh this was going to be fun. I didn’t talk much either. I decided any chance with Tracy was a lost cause. Still, I was determined I would make the most of the evening, “I’m gonna go get some more beer.”

* * *

The day went by quickly, despite the lack of customers and receiving only a handful of visitors. Roy and I were both too wasted to do the books—we were doing well just to get everything inside and stowed away in the back room, the pumps locked and the “Closed” sign turned. We left the books for Toad to do in the morning, hoping maybe it would give Aaron some relief from his psychotic ramblings. I doubted it would work.

It was about ten minutes after seven that a car pulled in—a blue Audi. Though now it didn’t look as new as the first time I’d seen it, with a large dent in the driver’s side door. My jaw dropped. It was that beautiful angel with the long dark hair I’d seen the day Toad was pulling some crazy martial arts move on Josh. What a wonderfully small world.

Roy was right. Tracy didn’t open up much. Roy and Sky sat in the back seat while I sat up front with Tracy, who had decided there was no way she was going if one of us two drunken bastards was going to drive. She had the radio going pretty loud. I turned it down a bit, as the B52′s “Loveshack” were grating terribly on my nerves, numbed as they were. I made idle chit-chat, and found out her father worked at a local Ford plant and the Audi had belonged to her mother. She had an older sister, Susan, and a poodle named “Sheri.” She loved butterflies and oil painting. She never mentioned anything meaningful about her mother.

We got to the Art Institute and started celebrating Cajun culture. Tracy and Sky pretty much kept to themselves. I bought Tracy a couple of beers, which she partly drank. Roy and I mingled with the crazy throng of hippies, drunks and deadheads who were all there in intoxicated celebration. We watched two lesbians getting it on in the bushes near the Art Institute and talked to some long-haired, homeless-looking guy who was wandering around handing out Libertarian pamphlets. I swayed forward, losing my balance in my drunkenness and fell into his beer, spilling it all over myself. I bought him another one and, somewhat embarrassed, went to wait in line to use the port-a-potty.

The line didn’t move at all and my bladder was about to explode. It had started to rain very lightly and that wasn’t helping me hold it in. I was too drunk to care. I went over to the East wall of the Kansas City Art Institute, unzipped and urinated freely on the building. I turned and noticed the lesbians watching me, lying in the grass one having her hand up the other one’s blouse.

“Nice, you fucking jackass!” The bottom lesbian scowled at me.

I smiled in blissful relief.

Once I had finished my business, I zipped up and strolled past the lesbians whistling “Singin’ in the Rain” and grinning like a butcher’s dog on Thanksgiving. I was still whistling when I reached Tracy and Star. Tracy smiled for the first time that night. “I love that song!” she exclaimed, “Have you ever seen A Clockwork Orange?”

And that’s all it took.

The rain kept getting heavier and we decided to leave. We drove back and dropped Sky and Roy off at the gas station, where his white Rabbit was still parked. Sky drove them off into the darkness and Tracy and I went back to her place, stopping by a video store to pick up A Clockwork Orange.

Her dad had a nice house—big, with a recreation room downstairs where he had a pool table and an entertainment system. Tracy put the movie in and got a couple of glasses of water for us. We sat on the floor watching, laughing and talking until it was over. It was after 2am and I was still pretty lightheaded from the beer and pot.

I decided to get Tracy to open up gradually.

“You know, I was mostly raised by my grandparents. I mean, my mother married all these assholes and I just always sorta ended up staying with them. I know a little of what you’re going through with your mom’s death.”

“Your mom is still alive,” she answered, rather coldly.

“I know. But imagine if you were a kid and your mother married all these assholes and you had to stay with your grandparents to get away from them. Would you have a little suspicion somewhere that maybe they mattered more to her than you did?”

“So you blame your mother for abandoning you?”

“No, not really. It was my decision to stay with them. It was more stable that way. Somehow, I realized that even as a kid. It’s not my mom’s fault she doesn’t know how to spot an asshole from a mile away. And you know, they always start out really cool and then after she marries them their true colors come through.” I laughed, “I always thought that was interesting. It means they knew they sucked. Anyway, you don’t understand all that when you’re a kid.”

Tracy looked down at the floor, I could see what was going through her mind. She was beautiful. God, she was beautiful, but nobody wanted to go near that thing swimming around in her head. Nobody wanted to face that monster. Maybe the thought of their own parents dying scared them, or maybe they just didn’t know how to deal with it.

Whatever the case, I wasn’t scared. I’d seen all the filth that life had to offer. I knew how to kill it and I knew how to use it to empower myself. Maybe I could help Tracy see a simplified truth: sometimes shitty things had to happen before something good could grow from the rot.

“So really, my grandparents had more of a hand in raising me than anyone. It was a pretty shitty time when my grandmother died. I was only fourteen. She got cancer of the pancreas. She waited three years before ever going to a doctor. Not that it would have mattered. My mother married my last stepfather a few weeks before she died. We have a picture of her at the wedding, sitting on the front porch, wearing a robe that hung on her like a gunny sack on a twig. Everyone else was standing around the ceremony, about thirty feet away. Well. My cousins and I weren’t. We’d gone off to play on the railroad tracks. None of us cared much for Shafto.”

“At least she got to see the ceremony.”

I pondered a moment, “Yeah. Too bad her daughter couldn’t have been marrying someone worth a shit.”

Tracy’s eyes watered, “My mother won’t even get to see me graduate high school.”

“But those are just random moments that mean nothing. My mom’ll never see me graduate high school either. Going to your kid’s graduation, first birthday party, wedding… Going to the prom. That’s all bullshit to make people who’re zombies feel like they have some reason to be here. Don’t focus on meaningless events you’ll never have. Cherish what you did have. I can’t see any other reason for being here. We have to make our own meaning in life. You and your mother did that. You experienced life together. That’ll never go away.”

Tracy was crying uncontrollably. Her entire body was heaving. I felt like a nihilistic asshole who had just plucked the wings off a butterfly. I expected any assortment of reactions to follow—I would be hit, I would be kicked, I would be slapped, I would have dog feces rubbed into my face or, if I was lucky, I’d just be asked to leave.

But Bob Barker had spun the wheel in my favor and I was shocked at the wedge the ticker had stopped on. Tracy threw her arms around me and held me tightly. I was a bit stunned and slow to react, but eventually realized it would be nice to put my arms around her. We sat there on the floor, in the dark, holding each other for what seemed like an hour. Her face was buried in my shoulder and my shirt was soaked with her tears. I rubbed her back softly, feeling every bump of her vertebrae. I felt a stirring somewhere in my chest. That richly-colored sky I remembered from when I was twelve, with the tall brick building reaching above the trees on the other side of the river. I was looking back now and realized I had crossed the bridge. At that moment, I would already give up anything for that girl. I would take away all the horror and loneliness and guilt and anger her mother’s death had caused her all this time and gladly shove it all into myself. I would kill it for her.

Tracy looked up and I gazed into her eyes, the spark in them clearly visible even in the darkness. We kissed and though it was soft, gentle and short, the magnitude of the emotion attached to it made it the most powerful kiss I have ever had. We slowly got up off the floor and lied on the couch and I fell asleep with Tracy on top of me, holding her tightly, with her head on my chest and her long dark hair warming my arms.

I couldn’t bear another day working with Toad. Waking up that early in the morning was utterly inhuman. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had was subjected to hours of his inane “comedy” radio shows. His psychotic rants about the moderation in drug use, all the while guzzling gallons of vodka and Mountain Dew. Things turned even worse when the Gulf War started. We had two types of customers who came in and sprinkled their two cents worth on the war.

The first set were enraged they had to pay more than a dollar fifty for gas. I was never really certain whether Toad actually believed a single word he said or if he just liked to argue with people, no matter how insane the position. Those who complained about the price of gas were usually greeted with the utmost hostility. They were first reminded that people in Europe have long been paying exorbitant prices for fuel and that we should consider ourselves lucky. In fact, Toad argued, Americans have been paying far too little for gasoline. That would usually end the discussion, unless it was an old man—as the day shift customers often were. Especially old men who had fought in World War II or Vietnam. They would argue with Toad for hours without paying a care in the world to the fact that I was handling every other customer that decided to swamp the place whenever Toad was on his soap-box.

The second set of customers who liked to come in and debate the war with Toad were the war supporters. They got the greatest rise from Toad, who was a hippie down to the very core. I picked up on this quickly and used the opportunity to send Toad on lunatic ravings that would make Charles Manson look sane. I’ve never seen a human face turn such a deep shade of purple as when I would tell Toad we should dump our entire nuclear arsenal on the whole of the middle east—thus solving at least fifty percent of the world’s problems. Germany was another point of interest. Since the owners of the station and I had German last names, Toad was convinced some sort of conspiracy was going on behind the pumps, so to speak. It also provided me with further ammunition in my battles with Toad over the Gulf War. My claims that we should have let Germany goosestep into the Middle East and solve the problem for us sent his blood pressure soaring to heights I never would have believed if I hadn’t seen it myself.

But now I was back on the night shift with all the drug dealers, cute girls and weirdoes who only came out at night. Josh had gone to working only weekends and so I was mostly teamed up with Roy. Roy was in his second year of college—the same private school I would be attending in the fall. He played soccer which surprised me, because he didn’t really strike me as the jock type. We got along well, since he liked to write and was interested in astronomy and things of a philosophical nature. We would often hang out at the park near the river getting high, reading our writings to each other and talking about philosophical problems that interested us—problems of consciousness, order in chaos, the flow of time and the ultimate questions of the universe. It was a far cry from Shafto’s inane babble, Toad’s psychotic rantings, Travis’ sexually obsessed mind and Willie’s shotguns and tormented pit-bulls.

Roy had a girlfriend named Sky. She had long, straight hair and was rather thin and pale, which I attributed to her vegetarianism. Sky’s hippy leanings could be somewhat annoying, but I generally found her to be pleasant company and she was as easy to talk to as Roy was. Though, I could have done without her turning off the television whenever she stopped by the station to visit. She didn’t seem to understand that we weren’t watching it to learn anything or out of any particular interest—we simply liked to make fun of whatever garbage happened to be spewing through the airwaves.

Troy had a friend named Aaron who would take over my spot on the day shift. Aaron wasn’t the most strong-willed person I’d ever met and so I decided he would probably get along perfectly with Toad, Aaron was part Native American, he was tall and had curly black hair. He had some sort of condition that caused his eyes to protrude out further than they should. It made him look like he was always making faces at people and some would call him out on it.

As it turned out, this was all just the change I needed. My regular coworkers weren’t taking acid constantly, though they did dabble in it from time to time, and none of them were addicted to opiates. I was beginning to feel like I had been trudging through a dark swamp and finally found solid land. There, I stood, under the clear evening sky admiring the stars twinkling playfully down at me. There was hope in that starlight, as though it was made of that same dust that had colored the sky that beautiful summer day when I was twelve. Something was on the horizon. I could feel it. Maybe it was college I was seeing—propelling me to heights nobody ever thought I could reach. Maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, I could feel it inside me. A mixture of calm and hope and happiness.

Real happiness. I had been off of opiates long enough that I could feel the real thing again. No more did I have to control my emotions with pills. They came from inside now. This was what it was like to be healthy.

And so, I spent the evenings at the station telling Roy and Sky about my love affair with morphine and other opiates and how I’d taken enough acid to kill a whale. I’d still smoke a joint with them—since I was a master at rolling them—or drink a beer, but the hard drugs were behind me.

“So, what are you planning on taking in college anyway, dude?”

“I dunno. I think philosophy. Maybe math, just because it’s the hardest subject for me. But, with the experience I have with computers—it would probably be my easiest ticket to a career.”

“You should think about writing, man. Fuck that computer shit. I see how it got you through a bunch of shit, but is that really how you want to spend your life?”

Roy was making a convincing argument and the truth was, I was quickly losing interest in computers.

Sky cocked her head to the side, sending her long sheeny hair dangling to the floor, “You’re way too creative for that. Get into some sort of art program.”

“Art doesn’t really pay the bills though.”

“Would you rather live rich and miserable or broke and happy… happy with yourself.”

“I suck at art anyway.”

“Not writing. I’ve read your writing. There are people published out there now who are shit compared to you. You have a lot to say, Darren. I see it behind those brown eyes. You’ve just spent so many years hiding it from your father and stepfathers, you’ve lost sight of it. Think about it.”

“Okay, Sky. I’ll think about it.”

Our conversation was interrupted by a blue Skylark on the far island, “Oh Goddamnit.”

Roy looked outside, not seeing anything of concern, “Ms. Whipple. Out there in the Skylark.”

Sky’s eyes brightened even more, if that was possible, “Didn’t she teach English at the high school?”

“Yeah, that’s her, dude.”

Sky followed me outside as I approached Ms. Whipple’s window, ”Hi there.”

“Fill it up please and check the oil.”

Goddamnit,

I started the gasoline and pried opened the rusty old hood, holding it up with my head. I could feel the thick glops of oil-soaked foam embedding themselves in my hair.

“Hi Ms. Whipple! Remember me? Sky? I had your creative writing class last year.”

“Oh yes, how are you, dear?”

Ms. Whipple’s tone was so sweet it was giving me a cavity.

“Oh, just getting ready for college.”

“Have you decided what you’re going to study?”

“I was thinking of taking up writing. Or teaching. Or maybe teaching writing. Because of you. You did more for me than any other teacher in that school.”

Ms. Whipple put her hand on Sky’s cheek, “What a dear thing to say. I wish you all the best.”

I slammed the hood of the car, with bits of foam snowing from my hair, “Your oil’s fine. So, that’s fifteen in gas.”

Ms. Whipple handed me a twenty and told me to keep the change. I should keep Sky around more often.

As we walked back the office, I told Sky of the Ms. Whipple curse. Though, I could tell Sky and Roy things I couldn’t tell others. As annoying as it was to get Ms. Whipple’s greasy foam in my hair, something still made me feel sorry for her. Something deep down and intangible. Like a shadow you could only see out of the corner of your eye.

“Be nice to her. She’s lonely you know. She only has a few cats—no boyfriends, never married. Her parents are dead. I don’t even think she has any friends. She devotes her life to teaching. I owe her a lot.”

Another illusion shattered. First that rotten Johnny Gladstone gets cancer and now Ms. Whipple turns out to be a human being. What would be next? The Metro Baptist guy would actually pay me to save my soul?

The night was drawing to a close. It had been filled with revelations, personal insights and discussions about things that I thought only I liked to talk about. As we brought in the trash cans and air hose and locked the pumps, Roy pulled me aside.

“Hey, man. They’re having the Cajun festival at the Art Institute this weekend. Sky has a friend—she’s really nice. She’s a knockout too…”

“She’s pretty and nice? I smell a rat, dude.”

“Well, her mom died about a year ago. She’s still kinda ate up about that. She hasn’t dated anyone since. Come on, dude, give her a chance.”

“Yeah, man, that’s cool. It’s not like I have anything better to do. I just hope you appreciate I’m giving up a hot night with Sung and a computer for this.”

“Well, I’ll try not to let you down. Bring some clothes with you to work—we’ll be leaving from here. And if you could pick up some beer, that would be totally cool.”

“No problem, dude.”

“What’s this chick’s name, anyway?”

“Tracy.”

There was something bittersweet about my last day with Toad. Despite his crazy paranoia, political rantings and sausage-filled cavities, he did have his charming side. Toad was in an especially good mood that day—it was his way of letting me know that he wasn’t upset that I was leaving for school and going back to the night shift He was letting me know he didn’t take it personally. I was my usual hour late and brought out the trash cans, squeegee buckets and air hose as fast as I could, without even stopping to chit-chat with the guys next door at Amoco. They had taken a special interest in me since my overdose in their air-conditioned waiting area. They had been especially impressed by my guzzling of three or four bottles of Gatorade—I ’d lost count in my delirium.

I unlocked the pumps and awaited the first customer of the day while Toad reported the tank levels to Lee. It was a long wait. The station opened absurdly early and hardly anyone was out driving at that hour. Toad turned on his favorite radio station—KY-102, which had a morning program that one could loosely describe as a comedy show. Toad laughed uproariously at the crazy antics of the deejays while I buried my head in a futile attempt to hide from the annoying blather. Occasionally, they would play a compact disc for those who happened to like bad ‘70s music. Invariably the disc would skip, sending Toad on an hour-long rant about how compact discs were inferior to vinyl.

“Yeah. Yeah. CDs don’t fuck up.”

“What?”

“CDs don’t fuck up.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Remember when compact discs first came out. Part of the hype was that they never fuck up. So why did that CD just skip?”

“Maybe because they scratched it?”

“That shouldn’t matter. CDs don’t fuck up.”

“Dude, I think you’re confused.”

“CDs don’t ‘fuck up’.” Toad was becoming clearly irate, “Well what do you call that?”

“Look, if you take a knife and run it across a CD, of course it’s going to skip.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“The advantage of CDs is you can play them indefinitely and, as long as you take care of them, you don’t lose quality. Vinyl, on the other hand, loses quality just by playing it, because you’re running a needle across it. Just by playing it, you’re degrading the sound quality.”

“Well, that’s not what they said when they were hyping compact discs.”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what they said when they were hyping compact discs.”

“I would expect something like that coming from a German. They invented compact discs you know.”

I looked at Toad, wondering if he was joking, “Huh?”

“’Mann”—that’s a German name isn’t it?”

I chuckled briefly, thinking Toad must be fucking with me, but soon realized he was dead serious.

“Dude, are you out of your mind? How much have you had to drink this morning?”

“My drinking has nothing to do with it. I practice moderation remember? Unlike some opiate eaters I know.”

“I think you better go to Amoco and get some coffee or something.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Tom and Lee are German too. The entire petroleum industry is run by Germans.

“That has to be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’ve heard some pretty fucked up shit… coming from people frying their ass off on acid.”

“What country has started every world war?”

I’d had enough. I refused to be sucked further into this insanity. I could be just as absurd as Toad if I wanted….

“Well, look at this way. Human beings have no natural predators, right?”

“Yeah….”

“Well, that’s what Germany’s for. If it wasn’t for Germany, the world would be overrun with human beings. All natural resources would be exhausted. Nuclear winter would run rampant. If you ask me, you owe Germany a big ‘thank you’ for keeping the population thin. Your standard of living would be worse than the Neanderthal if it wasn’t for Germany.”

“How can you be so callous, Darren.”

“It has nothing to do with being callous. It’s simply the truth. You owe your way of life to Germany. I think you should go to Oktoberfest with me.”

Toad shook his head and gazed out the front window, deep in thought. A car drove by with a cute blonde driving, “Wow, did you see that?!”

I did, but I was having too much fun fucking with Toad, “See what?”

“That girl driving down the highway—she was hot!”

“I didn’t see any girl. All I saw was a German Nationalist.”

“So sad.”

Our conversation was interrupted by Johnny Gladstone. Not even his rotten surliness could destroy my fun with Toad. As Johnny approached, I noticed he was carrying a metal device. He entered the office and held the device to his throat, “How are all you doing today?” the metallic voice monotoned.

I was stunned. The rotten old bastard had his vocal chords removed. As mean as he was to us, I couldn’t help but to feel pity for him. After having both grandmothers die of cancer, I couldn’t wish that upon anyone. His demeanor was drastically different. Facing death had brought out the good that he had long ago buried deep within himself.

“Hey, Johnny,” I replied.

The metallic voice lent a creepiness of sorts to the room, “I just came by to square away my accounts. My son’s gonna be takin’ over the business now.”

My heart sank. I could tell the cancer was advanced. I could smell that sweet, musty scent that portended death. I was relieved to see a car pull up outside. That scent was too much for me. It reminded me of my grandmothers. As I walked out to start the car, I considered Johnny’s predicament. There was a level on which I would gladly have traded places with him. Legal morphine was worth any degree of pain.

As I finished up the car, Johnny came back out, waving kindly as he got into his car. It was the last time I ever saw him. A few weeks later, his wife pulled in crying and asked me to fill her car up.

I had one more piece of business to take care of before leaving the night shift forever. We kept a series of maps on the oil shelf which sat behind the desk. The Kansas and Missouri maps sold rather quickly but there was an Iowa map that had been sitting there for years. I bet Toad a dollar I could get rid of that map before my final day shift was over. Of course he completely underestimated my ingenuity and took me up on the bet.

The day was drawing to a close and I still hadn’t gotten rid of the map. After a short lull in business a cute girl pulled in driving a Nissan 200sx. I went out to greet her and she asked me to fill it up and check the oil. The oil was full and once the gas was finished, I took her credit card inside and inserted it into the machine. As I laid the carbon over and swiped the handle, a moment of inspiration hit me. I grabbed the Iowa map from the shelf and tucked it out of sight in my back pocket. I had the girl sign the receipt and gave her copy. She thanked me and started her car.

“Wait!”

She looked at me in total surprise.

“You are our one millionth customer and you have won a special prize!”

The girl’s eyes lit up. I could see visions of a free year’s worth of gas dancing through her head. Or maybe free oil changes for life. Little did she know her real prize was something far more special.

I removed the map from my back pocket and carefully handed it to her as though it was a priceless gem, “You have won a free map of Iowa!”

The girl laughed and thanked me for the free gift, certain it would come handy during an exciting adventure through Iowa.

Toad was stunned. That map had been sitting on that shelf for years. No matter how much he racked his brains, he couldn’t figure out how I had managed to get rid of it. I have no doubt visions of German conspiracies and compact disc scams played some part in it.

Toad filled his plastic mug with vodka and Mountain Dew and took a large gulp, “Well, it looks like you’re going to be going back to the night shift soon.”

“Looks that way.”

“Who’s gonna help me figure out my life now?”

“I dunno dude. I kinda need to figure out my own life, you know?”

Toad sucked on his gray rubber straw and laughed hysterically, “I guess moderation is the key.”

If heaven was twice as good as the Metro Baptist guy claimed it was, then it was still only half as good as an opiate high. It should have been no surprise, then, that opiate withdrawal was far worse than any hell I ever imagined.

I told Toad I wouldn’t be able to work the entire weekend and probably Monday. I knew the horror would last longer than that, but the first three days would be the worst and I planned to spend those three days at home locked in my room.

The first day without opiates wasn’t too bad. Brains have a habit of trying every trick in the book to coerce your body into obtaining more opiates. I guess I still had enough in my system to fool my brain into thinking it wasn’t quite dying yet.

The second day was pure hell. I awoke with my bed sheets completely soaked with sweat, as if someone dumped a bucket of water on me in my sleep. My clothing and sheets stuck to my skin. I covered myself because I was freezing cold, yet having the sheets and blankets wrapped around me was extremely uncomfortable because they were drenched.

I only stopped vomiting when there was nothing left for my stomach to expunge and that would lead to dry-heaving and gagging. It was pointless to eat—it would end up in the trashcan next to the bed, if I managed to roll over fast enough to hit the trashcan. Every muscle in my body ached. Every nerve grated when touched by even the softest material.

A constant stream of fluid ran from my eyes and buttocks. I might as well have been defecating a constant stream of liquid acid.

Sleep was impossible, as was any degree of happiness. I was basically a sentient corpse with no ability to experience any form of joy, happiness or contentment. The complete lack of motivation was the only thing that kept me from blowing my own brains out.

An inspiration hit me. Pot would take away the nausea. I knew it would. Maybe some valium would alleviate the utter despair and sleeplessness. Both substances helped tremendously in getting me through that first week. I suffered the tortures of the damned for a solid month, after which, my distress was slowly replaced by attractive gas station customers wearing alluring clothes and suggestive smiles. The diarrhea was still a problem and I still felt largely hopeless, but not to the extent of that first week. Anytime I wanted opiates, I just thought about the withdrawal and that was enough to kill the cravings. I thought of sexy female customers with their flirtatious ways. I knew I would never again allow myself to get addicted—the horror of going through that again was intolerable.

Many changes took place at the gas station during my Lost Month. Toad had finally hired more than enough help to cover all the shifts. Josh split the night shift with two college students, Tony and Roy, and they all took turns working various hours as needed. Toad and I split working weekends with one of the three night shift people. Eventually, Roy and I got to be good friends and would frequently hang out even outside of work. It got to the point where we told Toad we would handle the Saturday shifts ourselves from open to close, just so we could hang out and party at work without any inane early morning radio shows and Toad’s constant ranting about current politics. His favorite subject at the time was the Gulf War. Customers would inevitably complain about gas prices and Toad would take it personally. He usually gave the customer a fifteen minute lecture about how gas prices in the United States were the cheapest in the world and it was about time we kicked in our fair share. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most popular attitude about the subject.

Roy usually brought a twelve-pack of beer to work, which we kept cool in the ice machine outside. I’d supply the pot, which I still obtained from Willie. Roy’s friends often came by to hang out, talking about whatever college classes they were taking. After weeks of sitting in on these conversations, I realized college might not be so bad. It certainly sounded more promising than high school. It wasn’t about social cliques and other such meaningless drivel. My interest in writing and philosophy grew and, as the icing on the cake, I decided returning to school would be the perfect excuse to get away from Toad and his nonsensical drunken ramblings.

It wasn’t long before Toad hired a day-shift side-kick, Aaron. Aaron was a high school dropout as well and had no interest in college. As a chronic pot smoker he fit Toad’s criteria for an employee perfectly. When Aaron took over the day shift, I alternated working with Tony, Roy and Josh, who all were more than content to get less than forty hours. I ended up working 43 hours a week and signed up for 21 credit hours at a private college, concentrating on Mathematics, Philosophy and English.

Even though I had returned to my beloved night shift, I was still never less than thirty minutes late, as was Josh. For some reason, Toad ignored my tardiness, but constantly harassed Josh about it. One day, I arrived at work with Josh still nowhere to be found. I had Aaron’s island that day, so I took over so he could finally go home. Toad seemed to be in good spirits until Josh arrived, nearly an hour late.

Josh and I hung around the desk while Toad stressed over the cut-off. The cut-off was a particularly tense time for Toad and tense times always put him in a bad mood. He had to perfectly coordinate counting the money and reading the sales numbers off the pumps, and do it in between cars. One truism of gas station life—any time you had to do anything, you would get a rush of cars. And so it was—the office was chaos. Toad was red and sweating, as usual, reminding me of a large Eckrich smoked sausage. Cars kept pulling in and the customers were getting impatient.

“Don’t just fucking stand around, Josh, count your goddamn money!”

That would take at least ten minutes. Toad quickly counted his wad and rushed outside to read the pumps. Josh began fanning through the wad of cash. We exchanged glances, daring one another to laugh.

“Josh, you’re on the fucking near island aren’t you?” Toad’s voice cracked.

“Uhhh, yeah!”

“Well start this goddamn car!”

Toad was cracking under the pressure. Josh stuffed his wad into his back pocket and went to deal with the customer.

Josh was funny. He would take any drug you put in front of him. He smoked pot the way other people smoked cigarettes and he had a chronic cough. He wanted to become a weather man. We all used to laugh at the thought of him on television giving a weather report, pausing in the middle of his forecast, “Hang on dude!” They would then have to cut to a commercial and when they returned, Josh would be red and coughing uncontrollably. He was a little on the short side, blonde and from an Italian family. His dad was some sort of official with a city restaurant association. Nobody was really sure what his job actually was, but he made a lot of money. Josh wasn’t used to being told what to do and didn’t take instruction well. Needless to say, he was a constant source of friction with the customers, though all of us on the night shift loved to party with him—he was a blast and always had the best acid in town.

Toad waddled back inside worn out from the arduous task of reading both sides of the four pumps. Josh had finished his count, but got distracted by Toads panting.

“Well?” Toad demanded.

“One twenty three seventy five…”

Toad started to write down the number.

“No wait. One twenty eight seventy five,” Josh was still pulling money out of various pockets.

“Well, do you wanna lift up your skirt and show us the color of your panties?” Toad scowled.

Josh grew more and more nervous, “It’s one thirty two seventy five.”

Toad wrote down the number, sighing and shaking his head while Josh snuck out the door to start a customer.

I went over to the desk and quickly verified the amount of Aaron’s wad. Josh walked back into the office in a huff, “That dumb bitch called me ‘kid’! ‘Hey, check my radiator, kid!’”

Toad shook his head and sighed audibly, but Josh wouldn’t leave it alone, “Dumb cunt. Fuck that lady!” Josh went behind Toad to get a jug of radiator fluid off the shelf. I realized the radiator was the cause of Josh’s irritation, not so much being called “kid.”

Toad reddened even more. Something I had thought impossible. “Josh. Do I have to pick you up by the neck and throw you out that fucking window?”

Josh was stunned, “Dude, what the fuck?”

Toad was irrationally drunk.

“You didn’t even do her goddamn windshield, Josh! So… fuck that lady! Kid!!”

Josh’s eyes were agape, “What?!” He half chuckled.

Toad jumped up from the desk as I lingered near the door. I had a customer I had to start, but there was no way in hell I was going to miss a minute of this. Toad ran to the side of the desk, where Aaron sat day after day like a faithful dog. Toad lifted one leg, bent at the knee and partially squatted on his other leg. He raised his arms to his side like wings, “How about doing your job, Josh!”

I was speechless. Josh looked at me with his mouth wide open, “Dude! You fucking alcoholic psycho!”

“I do my job Josh,” Toad yelled, looking like he was on the verge of tears. He was shaking visibly.

I scurried outside, in shock. I could hear Josh’s uncontrolled laughter dissolve into a deep hacking cough which faded away as I walked toward a shiny new blue Audi on the far island. The driver’s side was facing away from me and I habitually walked around the back of the car. I had had too many close calls with elderly people who were more incoherent than Toad on a bad day.

When I reached the driver’s window, I looked inside and felt like someone had dropped a ton of bricks from the canopy squarely onto my head. My shock at Toad’s behavior transformed into a different kind of shock. I was certain, with no doubt at all, that this was unequivocally the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. I believe that’s still true to this day. My withdrawal symptoms melted away never to be remembered. Her long dark hair was braided and looked as though it went down to her mid-back. Her eyes were dark brown. She was thin and untanned. Her skin was astonishingly smooth. She had to be an angel—I couldn’t imagine anything that beautiful coming from the gooey slop of human procreation.

“I just need ten dollars,” she smiled with straight, white teeth.

I couldn’t respond other than to smile stupidly and nod. I started her gas and did her windshield, feeling like I was in a daze. I completely forgot about Toad and Josh. She watched as I moved the squeegee back and forth over the windshield, smiling cutely the whole time. She had Elton John playing on her cassette deck.

I finished the window and completed the gas and collected her money. I watched her pull away, my senses slowly returning as I rejoined Toad with his martial arts moves and Josh’s horror at Toad’s insanity.

I guess my empty opiate stare betrayed some inner unrest. The Metro Baptist Church minister, whose name I never could remember, was hell-bent on bringing me into the fold. I resented his advances deeply. It was an insult that he concentrated so intently on my soul and none of my coworkers’. I cringed when I saw his blue four-door pulling into my island. Standing outside baking in the hundred degree heat, I could barely breathe the thick, moist air. I watched with dead eyes as the car slowed to a quiet halt next to the premium unleaded pump. The minister energetically opened his door, releasing a brief, refreshing blast of air-conditioned relief over me. It was almost as if God had farted on me.

“Hello Darren! How are you today?!”

That sparkling Christian Glow sickened me. I wanted to kick him in the nuts. As sedated as I was, I doubt I could have lifted my foot that high.

“Wonderful,” I replied in a dead-pan tone that was almost imperceptibly laced with sarcasm, “how’s it going?” Not that I cared.

“Great! Great!”

Jesus Christ.

“Go ahead and fill her up with premium!”

I started the gas and returned to the side of the pump, resting my arms and head on top of it.

“You look a little down today.”

Here we go.

“Well, it’s kinda hot and I’m a bit tired.”

“You know Jesus’ll fill that hole in your life, Darren.”

A small pulse of electric hatred sparked somewhere in my gut. It had been a long day with the wretched heat, Toad’s drunken ranting and old women forcing me to bake over their blazing hot engines because their husbands were either dead or close to it. The Baptist minister—whatever the hell his name was—was going to pay for it all.

“You know, I don’t understand how you can actually believe everything in the Bible literally. I could see it if you treated it like Greek mythology or something.”

I didn’t even put a dent in that Christian Glow of his.

“Well, I don’t see how you can be a moral person without believing in God.”

“Oh wait. So, you’re saying the only reason you don’t murder or rape is because you’re afraid of being punished by God? I don’t murder people or rape people and I don’t believe in God. I don’t do it because I know how I’d feel if someone did that to me or someone I care about.”

“I’m just saying bringing Jesus into your life will wash away those demons that are tormenting you.”

“What? Demons? That’s just crazy. We have science now, we don’t need demons or God to explain things.”

“What about love?”

“Brain chemistry. If you don’t believe me, go to the hospital and get put on morphine. It’s the exact same thing as ‘love’.”

“That’s a pretty bleak view you have there. How can you live and be happy thinking like that?”

“I do what I can… “ and a lot of it, I finished mentally.

At least I had managed to shut him up. We stood in awkward silence until the tank filled. I filled out his receipt book and marked the sale down on Toad’s custom accounting sheet. I returned to my chair and sat in the choking heat of the office. Flies buzzed around me and the fan hummed as it blew hot air into the room. I took a couple of painkillers from my pocket and swallowed them with a swig of Dr. Pepper. I’d probably taken some no more than a half hour ago and forgotten.

Toad extracted a brown paper bag from one of the bottom desk drawers and removed the fifth of vodka it hid. He filled his plastic convenience store mug three quarters to the top with vodka and then topped it off with Mountain Dew. He replaced the blue plastic cover and grey rubber straw and took an enormous gulp, then sat back and stroked his bushy beard.

“You know, for some reason when I’m around you, I get analytical about my life.”

I looked at him suspiciously, “That’s sick, man.”

“What am I going to do with my life, Darren? I’m 36 years old and managing a gas station.”

“I’m probably the last person you should ask. Maybe you should take it up with that Metro Baptist guy. I mean, I’m not even manager of a gas station.”

Toad laughed, “I guess that’s true.”

Toad was being uncharacteristically lucid. The whole thing troubled me somewhat. I was annoyed to find myself contemplating my life. As idiotic as the Baptist guy was, he was right. I had a void lurking somewhere in my head like a black hole sucking up anything it could find to fill itself. I reached into my pocket and tossed the hole another painkiller. Life suddenly seemed like an enormous ocean and I was afloat in a raft in the dead of night.

My introspective interlude was broken by Johnny Gladstone. Vile old bastard. I slowly rose from my chair and grabbed the receipt book for Gladstone Plumbing. I didn’t bother greeting Johnny as I passed him on the way to his van. I could hear his gravelly voice spouting profanities about the night shift in between drags off his Lucky Strike cigarette. Toad smiled calmly and suckled obsessively from his gray rubber straw. I returned to the office to get Johnny’s signature on the receipt as Toad reassured him he would forward his complaints to Lee. Johnny lit another cigarette and left completely unsatisfied.

I sighed, “Where the hell do these people come from?”

Toad scratched his chin through the graying strands of his beard as he looked thoughtfully out the front window, “Hell.”

As I slowly shuffled back to my seat, I suddenly felt a wave of queasiness creeping over me. The combination of heat and painkillers had finally caught up with me. My legs weakened and my stomach quivered and then forcefully tightened, sending its contents rushing into my mouth with an audible heaving sound. I swallowed the vomit, washing it down with Dr. Pepper. I wasn’t about to spill three painkillers all over that filthy floor.

I slumped into my chair, trembling. “Fuck.”

Toad took a swig of his vodka, “I find moderation is the key.”

“Dude. You’re halfway through your second bottle of vodka and it’s not even two o’clock.”

“Do you see me eating my own vomit?”

I leaned my head back, covering my eyes with my clammy hand. The world seemed fragmented and confusing. I didn’t even know what my emotions were. Everything I felt came from chemicals I ingested. The heat was growing more and more unbearable. I felt like I was dreaming.

Somewhere in the darkness, the pay-phone rang. I heard the shuffling of footsteps and Toad’s heavy breathing as his lungs struggled to expand against his enormous beer-gut.

“Phillips, this is Toad.” His voice sounded like a distant echo, almost as though it traveled from another time.

“Oh hi, Jenny.”

The rest of the conversation was a random collection of blurry “yeah’s”, “okay’s”, “sure’s”, “oh really’s” and “uh-hu’s”.

Toad returned to his seat, “Yep. I guess Jenny’s looking for someone to cover Cheryl’s shift.”

The piece of news was interesting enough to revive me somewhat. I opened my eyes, as much as I could and rolled my head to the side so I could look at Toad. I managed to croak out an “Oh?” The white-trash, Jerry Springer drama of Ted’s family was endlessly fascinating to me.

“Yep. I guess they had a big fight and Cheryl ran away.”

“About what?”

“Cheryl got pregnant by some black dude.”

“Holy shit! Are you serious?”

“Yep.”

“What about Daryl and Daryl?”

Toad shrugged.

“Wait, so Ted’s going to have a half-black grandkid?”

“Yep.”

“That is fucking awesome! Maybe there really is a God.”

I tried to hold on to my elation—savoring it would take my mind off my worsening physical state. But it was like trying to grip a soggy noodle and my stomach started trembling again.

“Dude, I have to go down to Amoco and hang out in the air conditioning for a bit. I really feel sick.”

“Yeah, you don’t look too good.”

It was worse than not looking too good. I wasn’t even sweating anymore. I was almost completely dry and my complexion ashen. The Amoco next door was a garage as well as a gas station and convenience store, so there were chairs for waiting customers. I bought a large fruit punch Gatorade and drank it in one continuous stream. I drank two more similarly, curled up in one of the waiting chairs, shaking and confused.

I heard the phone ring and the clerk answer. It was Toad checking on me. I felt blackness closing in like it was absorbing the world around me. My pulse was absurdly slow and my breathing shallow. As my awareness faded into the tightening blackness, some part of my consciousness realized that I had to change. Life wasn’t going to mean anything if I didn’t give it meaning.

I heard the Amoco clerk hang up the phone, “Are you okay?”

My only response was a faint smile and nod as I gave in to the blackness.

The morning air was dead and stagnant. It reminded me of the stasis of my mind—a numbness inside my skull. I had been working with Toad on the day shift for a few months and never managed to be less than an hour late. Every morning was the same: The spine-chilling electric throb of the alarm would bore into my head at six o’clock. I had the alarm on the other side of the room so I would be forced to stand up and walk over to it, thinking that would get my circulation going enough to keep me awake. I don’t know who I was trying to fool. I would shut the alarm off and virtually collapse back into bed only to be awakened one to two hours later by a phone call from Toad.

Toad’s wakeup calls were usually just enough of an adrenaline rush to help me overcome my narcotics hangover. I popped some painkillers, pulled on some clothes and groggily drove to work—I never remembered so much as a second of the fifteen minute journey. I was rarely ever certain whether I was awake or asleep.

Once at the station, I dragged out the heavy metal trash cans, air hose and squeegee buckets, then unlocked the pumps. Toad gave me my blue bank bag full of money which I counted to verify it was all correct. With all of my duties out of the way, I dropped my head to the desk and begged for death to the accompaniment of the clattering adding machine and the annoying “comedy” radio show Toad liked.

Eventually, we received our daily call from Lee to get the tank levels and Toad opened up the morning paper so he could read me whatever stories he found interesting. This was always accompanied by his commentary, which bordered on complete lunacy. It was so annoying it actually made me desperate for a customer to pull in so I could escape.

Toad paused from his newspaper rant to take a large swig from his old 40 ounce convenience store soft drink cup. He used a piece of gray rubber tubing he bought at a car parts store as a straw. It was constantly filled with a mixture of vodka and Mountain Dew, reminding me of radiator fluid. He swished the liquid around in his mouth a bit before swallowing.

“Awww damn!”

I looked at him suspiciously, almost afraid to encourage a dialog, “What?”

“I had a piece of sausage I was using to plug up a cavity back there,” he patted he jaw, “I just dislodged it.”

I sighed, popped another painkiller and thanked God for the car that just pulled in.

There were three basic types of customers on the day shift: lonely housewives, business accounts, and the elderly. Sometimes, it was fun to flirt with the lonely housewives, though none that I can remember were particularly attractive—some were cute, I guess. They desperately wanted attention and would be overt about getting it. I think some of them thought of a trip to the gas station as a wild night out on the town. I remember one had very long blonde hair. She was pregnant and would get out of her car and chat while I did her gas. She wouldn’t let me do the windshield or anything, preferring to talk instead. Laughing hysterically at anything I said even remotely funny, she’d put her hands on my shoulders as if to prop herself up. I would always back away like she had a disease—she was pregnant after all—and that would make her laugh even harder. She already had two daughters who looked exactly like her. Sometimes I gave them stuffed animals that another customer always left us as a tip. Toad loved these women… to me they were just a way to kill time.

The business accounts included the Metro Baptist Church and Gladstone Plumbing, run by that bitter old man Johnny Gladstone. The minister from Metro Baptist Church was really creepy. He was tall and white as a sheet, with coal-black hair and extremely red lips. His mousy wife and three sons looked like him in a sort of inbred way. He was constantly trying to get me to go to church. Constantly.

Everyone at the station had customer groupies. Some customers, for whatever reason, would become attached to a certain employee. They would demand that only that employee put gas in their car, check their oil and air up their tires. Some of them got downright mean about it—if Toad was busy mowing the lawn or unclogging the women’s toilet and I tried to pump one of his groupie’s gas, they would yell at me angrily and demand I get Toad. One was a woman in her fifties who claimed to be a psychologist, but as far as I could tell, wasn’t practicing. Every single time she came in, she had gauze wrapped around her neck and hands. She’d been wearing that gauze for years. Sometimes it would unwrap and fall off while she was digging for her credit card and there would be nothing unusual about her hands.

There was another regular who worked as a salesman for a major drug company—I felt a sort of camaraderie with him. He was into music quite a bit, had personalized license plates that said “SUBPOP,” and always gave me new bands to listen to, one tape I particularly remember. I got to listen to it in full once I started using a Walkman to escape Toad’s rantings and the more I listened to it, the more I loved it. The name of the album (you couldn’t call anything that wasn’t pressed on vinyl an “album” around Toad without inciting a one hour long diatribe) was “Bleach” and it was from a little-known band called “Nirvana.”

Another of my dayshift groupies was an old woman who was clearly getting a bit senile. Toad called her my Princess. She came in every Tuesday at exactly 10:45am. She’d always pull in the exact same lane and park at the exact same spot. She always got ten dollars worth of gas and had me check the oil, which was never low, and the tires. Her gas cap was behind the license plate, in the middle-rear of the car, so she could have pulled into any spot. But she would even wait behind another other car so she could pull in where she wanted. She’d always give me a fifty cent tip, which was good for a Dr. Pepper at least.

Toad was driving an old blue 280zx at the time—Toad had a different car every few months, because they were usually throwaways from friends and relatives. He really was an excellent mechanic and he taught me a lot about it, but the 280z was on its deathbed. It was pretty much 90% rust and chunks of it would fall off when he drove it. I remember traveling from Kansas City to Saint Joseph with Toad one rainy day to pick up some morphine. Every time we hit a pool of water on the highway, the floor mat on my side of the car would get pushed up by a gush of water. It didn’t make me feel any better when Toad told me the friend who had given him the car had referred to it as a Death Trap.

Later in the day, Toad and I had just finished off a couple of cars and were standing outside chatting. He had registered for membership in the “Traveler’s Protection Association”—”TPA” for short—through a regular customer who was always trying to lure us into joining this or that club or attending some youth function at the community center. Toad could never say “no.” In exchange for his signature and twenty-five dollars in dues, Toad received an official, blue TPA sticker that read in big white lettering “WATCH THAT CHILD!” He affixed it to the rear bumper of the Death Trap, positioning it so it covered a large rust hole.

As we stood in the shade of the canopy, Toad looked out to the street, “There’s your Princess!”

Sure enough, the old woman was driving along—and she didn’t stop. The station had two entrances, she usually came in the south entrance, but she passed it. I wondered if she wasn’t going to get gas or if, due to some bizarre glitch in the fabric of space-time, she had actually decided to use a different entrance. Except she didn’t turn. She stopped right there on the street. A couple of cars pulled up behind her and stopped. Toad and I watched as she put her car in reverse and started backing up. The two cars lined up behind her turned and drove into the other lane, honking their horns. Cars traveling in the southbound lane swerved over on the shoulder to avoid the oncoming cars and started honking their horns. Employees of the Amoco next door and Texaco across the street all stopped what they were doing and watched the ballet. Finally, the old woman had backed up thirty feet or so, which was enough to turn into the south entrance of the station. She pulled into her regular position, acting as though nothing unusual had happened.

The old woman got her usual ten dollars, but didn’t ask me to check the oil or tires. She heard the pump stop as I let go of the trigger right at ten dollars. (An experienced gas pumper could have the pump going at full speed and stop at an exact amount; you would get to the point where you were able to feel the rhythm of the numbers changing on the analog pumps.) She called me over to the window and I left the nozzle in the tank, thinking maybe she had decided she wanted more gas.

“Could you tell me the number of gallons.”

“Sure. It’s 10 gallons.”

“But, you didn’t check the pump.”

“Ummm. Gas is ninety-nine point nine cents per gallon and you got 10 dollars worth, so it was 10 gallons.” It was amazing how many times I had to explain this to people.

She scowled and wrote the number down in a small notebook, then turned the car on and threw it in drive.

“Oh, wait, I didn’t take the noz…”

“You’ve changed! I’m never coming back here again!”

“What??”

But it was too late, the car lurched forward as she took her foot off the brake. She hit the gas and tore the hose out of the pump, which snapped around and lashed Toad in the leg, startling him. He stepped back, tripped and crashed into the bumper of his Death Trap. The force was enough to knock it completely off the car. Somehow, it broke the back hatch as well, since it wouldn’t stay shut after that. The old lady drove off with the gas nozzle and hose still hanging out of the back of her car. Indeed, she never came back.

Yep. Fuckin’ employees, fuckin’ with elderly customers.

Fortunately, the pumps were outfitted with a mechanism that prevented gas from spewing everywhere when a hose was snapped off like that. It wasn’t the first or last time that happened. Sometimes, the nozzle would come out of the gas tank and leave a nice big scratch on the side of the car. Those customers would eventually be referred to Tom or Larry and then never heard from again. They also told us that if anyone gave us a hard time to tell them to leave and not come back.

Toad killed two birds with one stone. He reattached the rear bumper of his Death Trap by running a piece of rope through the trunk, down through a rust hole in the floor and around the bumper, then back up through the top of the hatch where he had drilled a hole. He wrapped it around several times and drove the car that way with that stupid “WATCH THAT CHILD!” bumper sticker patching up a rust hole like some decayed piece of food plugging one of his cavities.

The hallway was filled with well-dressed, nervous people. I peered through a slim sheet of glass embedded in the heavy wooden door that led into the courtroom—there was nobody inside. I scanned the hall for my lawyer, but there were too many people: fellow alleged criminals, their families, friends, and legal representation. I was alone.

After a thousand dollars and several months, the only advice my lawyer had given me was to dress nicely for the hearing. Evidently, everyone else’s lawyer had given them the same advice. I found the suggestion somewhat troubling. I thought judges were supposed to be impartial to that sort of thing. Maybe I was supposed to be showing my respect for the court, in which case I was lying—I had none.

The combination of heavy dress clothing and painkillers made me uncomfortably warm. I was saturated with perspiration. It was my first hit of pills that day, so I wasn’t nodding out yet and my eyes were probably reasonably sparkly, at least more than they would be later. I spent several minutes drinking from a water fountain.

Finally, I saw my lawyer push his way through the crowd. He was tall and heavy-set with balding blond hair and an eye-patch. He reminded me of a used car salesman, but he was supposedly one of the better lawyers in the county, whatever that meant.

Gabe walked up to me smiling and shook my hand, “Good to see you Darren.”

“You too.” What a liar.

“You wait right here, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

Gabe scurried off around the corner which led to some unknown hole in the courthouse. My mouth was still completely dry and I was nearly dehydrated from all the sweating. I returned to the water fountain and spent several more minutes drinking. When I lifted my head, everyone was filtering into the courtroom. I was getting a bit nervous. Where the hell had Gabe gone?

Several minutes later, he came bouncing around the corner. He stood uncomfortably close to me and spoke in a hushed tone, “Did you have any alcohol in the car?”

“No, I don’t really drink.”

“Not even empty cans or something? We can work on getting your charge reduced if you only had some alcohol in the car.”

I shook my head, “I really don’t drink.”

“Okay,” he replied, in a somewhat defeated voice. He turned and headed back around the corner, “Wait here.”

I sat down on a bench outside the courtroom. The hallway was mostly empty except for me and a few other people, no doubt with lawyers as flaky as mine.

Again, Gabe came around the corner and invaded my personal space, sitting right next to me. I wouldn’t even let some girls sit that close to me.

“Please tell me you had some alcohol in the car. Even if it was a friend’s.”

He looked at me with a perceptible pleading in his eye. Suddenly, I got it. He wasn’t asking me if I really had alcohol in the car. He was asking me to say I did, whether it was true or not. He was back there making a deal with somebody—the prosecutor? The judge? Whoever it was, they obviously didn’t care about the truth. The fact that I didn’t like to drink and didn’t lie about it meant nothing. As a lawyer, Gabe couldn’t simply ask me to lie. That could get him disbarred. He had to maneuver me into it.

Well, if they weren’t interested in the truth, then neither was I, “Oh yeah. I think I did have some friends drinking in the back seat. Come to think of it, they did leave some cans in there.”

Gabe popped up off the bench, his eye brightened, “Good!”

He scurried back around the corner, returning only a few minutes later to accompany me into the courtroom. He patted me on the shoulder, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

I sat and watched with only mild interest as Judge Stuckey dispensed justice upon one person after the other. Most were bad checks. A few were people on probation making their scheduled appearance before the court. Eventually, my case was called. I walked up to the table with Gabe, somewhat proud that mine was the most significant charge yet that morning. I smiled at the spectators as I made my way toward the judge’s bench.

The hearing itself was a joke, taking no more than ten minutes. Everyone spoke so fast, I couldn’t even catch half of what they were saying. Gabe spoke first, at the prompting of the judge. His speech reminded me of a used car salesman.

“My client has low mileage and an excellent exhaust system. He was in an accident but has been fully restored with all new paint and tires and new brakes. He’s a steal at one year probation, a hundred fifty dollar fine and drug education classes.”

The judge turned to the prosecutor, “Is that okay with you?”

The prosecutor nodded.

The judge looked at me, “Mr. Mann, I am inclined to be lenient with you. I’m giving you one year unsupervised probation. You will have to appear before me every three months. You must attend two drug counseling classes and pay court costs plus a fine of one hundred and fifty dollars. If you satisfy all these requirements, your charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor minor in possession of alcohol. If you fail to meet these requirements, you will be charged with felony possession of marijuana and your sentence will be five years in prison and a five thousand dollar fine.”

Wow, what a scam.

So this was it? This was the American justice system which was supposed to be the best in the world? Where deals are made behind closed doors and hearings are simply technicalities? Suddenly, the picture became nauseatingly clear. It was all about money. Gabe hadn’t said anything I couldn’t have said myself. Yet, if I had gone up there before the judge and spoken the exact same words, I would probably have been sent to jail. The only thing that mattered was that I paid him a thousand dollars.

Lawyers had a monopoly. Gabe could charge me whatever the hell he wanted, because every other lawyer in town would do the same and I would be fucked up one side and down the other without one. Then court fees and fines—the judges had to get their sticky little hands in my pockets too. Not to mention that the “drug education class” to which I was assigned was run by a friend of the judge and cost over a hundred dollars an hour.

Drug dealers had it just as good. Anyone with an addiction was at their mercy. At that point, I would have done anything to get my opiate fix. All Willie had to do was supply me. The only people left at the bottom of the food chain were the drug users. Politicians, judges, lawyers, cops, shrinks, dealers—they all preyed on people’s addictions.

I was in a daze as Gabe led me out of the courtroom a mostly free man. He shook my hand and pointed to an office down the hall where I would pay my fines. He briefly reviewed the outcome with me, pointing out that if I made it through the year without getting arrested, the charges would stay a misdemeanor and the whole thing would remain sealed. It would be as close to never happening as it could legally get. He patted me on the back and headed back down the hall and around the mysterious corner to save some other poor schmuck’s ass.

Having spent all my money on lawyers and fines, I had no choice but to move in with my mother in her new apartment in Platte City. Platte City was home of the north station which was still under Jenny’s management. She replaced Toad with her daughter Cheryl, who was Daryl and Daryl’s fiancé. Her other daughter worked on weekends. The place was infested with Ted’s family and I avoided it as much as possible.

I moved into the apartment a few days before my mother. Shafto was overjoyed to come home one night and find me gone. He even offered to take my mother out to dinner, completely unaware that she and Sung would be gone in two days.

Once the divorce was final, Shafto wasted no time in marrying his waitress princess. The ceremony was held at the bar in which she worked. Only Shafto could have come up with something that romantic. This woman was much more compatible with Shafto—she was a hick and she had a young daughter.

Having some time before my shift at the station began, I decided to head home and get loaded in the blissful Shafto-free environment. I rolled up a joint and sat on the couch watching shows on cable—a luxury we hadn’t had out in the country. Halfway through my joint, the phone rang. I let the answering machine get it as usual, turning down the television so I could hear the caller’s message clearly.

“Uh yeah, this is Toad. It’s 10:33:17 am. Tuesday.”

I wondered if Toad set his watch by some atomic clock. It was even worse getting directions from him—he would describe the route down to the foot. If a customer came in asking how to get to L.C.’s from the gas station—which was just down the road—Toad would most likely have them so confused after fifteen minutes of his directions, they’d end up in Canada.

“I need you to come in as soon as possible.”

Oh God. What now?

“It looks like Daryl has left.”

Well, at least there was a silver lining. I looked at the glowing ember of my joint and watched the smoke rising hypnotically into the air. My stomach churned. I was used to staying up until hours most people weren’t even aware existed. Now Toad was going to make me work on the day shift. I was the only one who could do it, since Josh had school. I would have to get up impossibly early. I would have to work with Toad. He was fine in small doses, but every day… my nerves would be frayed in a week.

I extinguished the joint, took a deep breath and sighed. I didn’t even have a chance to enjoy my freedom. I might as well have been thrown in jail, I thought as I left for work. I wondered how long I was going to have to give up my beloved night shift.

* * *

Wednesday, Phila Lawyer will be posting the third part of his series “Witness Preparation”. It’s a well-written set of stories detaling the maneuvers Gabe used with me during my hearing, from the perspective of someone closer to Gabe’s side of the situation. Our two pieces were written without the other’s knowledge but turned out to be complementary. I highly recommend checking out his site for more insight into the process.

-DM

I nestled into the green vinyl of Willie’s couch, my head gently tilting into the back-rest. My awareness was caught in a wave of morphine and it slowly ebbed away from my surroundings, withdrawing to some unknown part of my mind, leaving my subconscious to deal with the messy world. A fog of intertwined pot and tobacco smoke dissolved into billowing clouds aflame in the orange light of sunset. The drab white walls melted into a sky blanketed in yellow gradually blending into orange then red then purple and finally a sliver of blue midnight peeking over the horizon.

It was a fragment of a memory long since broken like cheap glass by time, drugs, stepfathers and cops. It was my twelfth summer, nothing special. A brief moment of reprieve with my grandparents after watching my mom take a beating from her second husband. I lounged in the quiet of my grandparents’ yard that day, reading “A Wrinkle in Time” and drinking grape juice until the sun set behind the brick buildings rising above the trees on the other side of the river. The moment awoke an unfamiliar feeling somewhere in my chest. Those clouds, those colors—they called me like a voice from some unknowable place. There was something wonderful and magical out there in the world, if I could only find it. As the sun slowly sank behind the distant trees, I was left feeling at once joyful and melancholic. That feeling yanked me back into the ratty den of Willie’s home.

Bunt was sitting on the floor, his legs crossed. Willie was still at the end of the couch, keeping company with the Mossberg and trash bag filled with pot. Travis sat in a chair next to me and from the adjacent kitchen, Samantha, Josie and Willie’s wife filled the air with incomprehensible babble.

Travis’ head contorted into something that looked horribly painful, “Man why do you do that shit? You just sit around like a zombie all the time, fucker.” Travis often used the word “fucker” the way others might use “man” or “dude.”

I could only muster the willpower to spit out a weak, “Chill out man.”

“Yeah, dude. Quit trying to kill his buzz.” Willie lit up another expertly-rolled joint and passed it to Bunt.

“So hey man,” Bunt said, rubbing his war-wounded arm. I was never clear what the cause of the injury was, but it looked pretty gruesome, as though a large chunk of flesh had been scooped out of his forearm. Above the wound was some sort of faded Marine tattoo. Bunt’s arm always reminded me of the ape in “Donkey Kong” when it climbed the ladder at the beginning of the game—kind of furry and misshapen. He exhaled a blue cloud of pot smoke and passed the joint to me, “What’s up with your trial now?”

A loud snort blurted from Travis’ sinuses. He had been having some sort of allergy problem the entire evening.

I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to revive enough to hold a conversation, “Uhhh,” I tried to think, “it’s in a couple of months. I don’t know what my lawyer’s doing. Other than stealing my money.”

“Don’t worry about it man…”

I couldn’t imagine what gave Bunt the impression I was worried about anything.

“I called and talked to the prosecutor.”

A rush of adrenaline coursed through my body. My heart rate doubled to eighty beats per minute and I coughed out my hit of pot smoke, “You what?”

“I talked to the prosecutor. I told that sucker you’re a good kid and they should leave you alone.”

I could only imagine that conversation. I suspected the prosecutor and judge were warming up the electric chair for me by now. I shook my head futilely, “What did he say?”

“He said not to worry, man. You’ll be okay.”

I relaxed back into the couch, having learned many times over that Fate would have her way no matter what feeble attempts anyone made to change her course. Better to just ride the waves and keep afloat. Fuck wasting energy on trying to swim against the current. “Cool.” It was my way of saying “whatever” without being rude.

Travis twitched and snorted again. I wondered if this was another new manifestation of his Tourette’s. His tics changed frequently. I eyed him glassily, “Man, are you alright?”

A loud rain of mucous clattered in the murky cavities hidden beneath his face. His jaw stretched out in an uncontrolled jerk, “Sure. Fucker.”

Bunt pulled himself to his feet, “Ah, man, he’s okay. All he needs is a job. Listen, I gotta split. The old lady’s waitin’ for some lovin’.”

Not even the morphine could have weakened my stomach as much as the mental image Bunt had just implanted in my mind so carelessly. Dee was enormously overweight. I imagined her glistening body lying like a beached whale on Bunt’s waterbed, rippling in synchronization with the mattress—it would be impossible to tell where it ended and Dee began.

Bunt held his hand out for me to shake—grasping each other’s thumbs in old hippie fashion. I was always wary of that hand, having seen the places it had been, but shook it anyway, “Catch ya later dude.”

“You kids take care now!”

Bunt shuffled out the living room and through the kitchen, stopping to kiss Samantha’s hand before making his way outside.

“That old man’s crazy.”

Travis snorted deeply in response. Suddenly, I felt a thick tension congealing in the room.

Willie examined Travis for a couple of moments, his eyes half-open and glassy, “Dude, why don’t you blow your nose?”

I looked over at Travis, his eye gleaming with a look I’d seen before. Most recently, around the last fourth of July. He had taken an old flute of Bunt’s and shoved some sky rockets in his back pocket, with one mounted inside the flute. He then, for no discernable reason, chased down a neighborhood kid, yelling in a crazed voice, “I’m gonna get you fucker! I’m Rambo!” The kid ran down the street screaming in a terror I couldn’t imagine with Travis lumbering behind him. Finally, Travis lit the rocket and it whizzed past the boy’s leg before slamming into the concrete road and exploding in a ditch.

Travis didn’t have enough sense not to provoke someone sitting next to a shotgun. He held his finger against his right nostril and blew forcefully out of his left nostril. A large glop of mucous plopped onto the carpet. My jaw dangled in shock while I watched the disaster unfolding before me in slow motion.

Willie sat forward, grasping the arm of the couch with his massive hand, “What the fuck is your problem? You come around here calling everyone ‘fucker’ and then you drip snot on my fucking carpet?”

Travis stood up. I wanted to run. I was either too stoned or too shocked to do anything. I just sat there uselessly watching a volcano exploding five feet in front of me. Willie’s wife was now standing in the doorway to the living room and the kitchen was completely silent. Travis pointed at Willie, “Hey fuck you! Junkie! Fucker!”

Willie rose, “Get the fuck out of here before I blow your fuckin’ head off, retard!”

Travis stood trembling, Willie stood bristling and I sat frozen. Willie’s wife broke the stalemate, “Why don’t you both calm down. Travis, you better go home.”

Travis twitched his shoulder. It was always amusing the way he used his Tourette’s so expressively, “Fine. Come on Darren.”

My heart slowly decelerated to its normal forty beats per minute. I looked at Willie, at the empty vials of morphine and bottles of painkillers strewn across his table like rubble after a nuclear detonation. I looked at Travis, trembling and in need of the only real friend he thought he had in the world. I made my choice faster than my brain could even realize it, “Nah. I’m gonna hang out a bit.”

The last look I would ever get from Travis was one of complete betrayal. He thudded out of the house and my life forever.

I sat on the couch in silence with Willie for a half hour or so before awkwardly announcing my departure. As I made my way through the kitchen, Samantha pinched my butt.

“Thanks.”

She smiled at me with sparkling blue eyes filled with mischief, “You crack me up. You always look like you’re about to say something but then you don’t.”

I wasn’t sure if that comment would have made sense even had I been sober, “Hmmm. And what would it be that I want to say?”

She grinned at me, her eyes dropping to my feet and slowly moving back to hold my gaze, “I’d bet you can think of something interesting.”

I smiled at her, politely. She was so cute. But I hadn’t seen her in that richly colored cloudscape, “Later, Samantha.”

Travis was quiet as we headed south to the quarry. I could smell his old underwear and socks even with the window rolled down and his heavy splashing of Brut 33. I chewed up and swallowed the two hits of blotter that had been under my tongue. I knew it would be creeping over me at any moment and wanted to go into it with just about anything on my mind other than Travis’ body odor.

“So, I guess Piper and Whitney are gonna be there tonight and probably a bunch of their hot friends.”

“Yeah. They’ll all be doing acid, probably.”

“Yeah. Does that bother you?”

Travis shrugged, “What’s it like?”

I pondered a moment, “I can’t really explain it. It’s something you have to see for yourself.”

“You got any?”

Whatever sensibilities I had left told me to say “no.” I had no idea how Travis, with his Tourette’s Syndrome and the medication he was taking for it, would react to acid. Considering his strength, it wasn’t something I really wanted to play around with. Still, unlike most, I could see past the pure brutishness of his exterior. Travis had shared some of his deepest dreams with me. I knew he was basically a good person.

“Yeah. I have one hit. I’ll split it with you.”

His eyes brightened a bit, “Cool.”

We made it to the quarry and I emptied the last hit of blotter from an unlabeled vial in which I kept it. I cut it diagonally in half using a razor blade I carried for splitting pills. I put one half under my tongue and gave Travis the other, “Let that sit under your tongue until it gets soft. Then just chew it up and swallow it.”

“Okay!”

“So, ya ready to mingle?”

“Let’s just hang out in the car a while.”

I shrugged, not exactly anxious to move either, though I wanted to get rid of the quarter pound of pot I was carrying around. I decided it would be best to observe Travis’ reaction to the acid before unleashing him onto the unsuspecting public, “We can wait a bit.”

After about forty minutes of idle chit-chat Travis looked at me intently, “Man, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay…”

He looked away, “It’s hard. You have to promise to keep this to yourself.”

I was intrigued, “Okay.”

“Nylons really turn me on.”

“Oh. What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I wear my sister’s or mom’s nylons.”

“Oh.”

I sat blankly a moment. I could almost hear the sizzling in my skull and thought I detected the distinct scent of a burnt capacitor. The part of me that stayed up days in a row programming the PC-XT I had bought with my drug money wanted to analyze this fascinating revelation into oblivion, savoring every aspect of it fully. The part of me under the strict tutelage of opiates and LSD wanted no part of this, self-absorbed as it was. The two met somewhere in the middle, working together to avoid having to deal with someone else’s psyche.

“Well, you know, that’s no big deal. I mean, whatever. Everyone has their thing.”

“Yeah. What’s your thing?”

Some blood, desperately needed by my brain, found its way to my face, causing it to redden.

“I guess I have this fantasy involving needles.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh Jesus, why do we have to do this now?

“Well. Like, when you do morphine, you stick the needle in your vein and draw some blood up into it so it mixes with the dope, then inject it.”

Travis eyed me suspiciously.

“So, if there was a girl and she drew her blood into the syringe, then I injected it and the other way around and then we did it… that kinda turns me on.”

Travis broke out into an insane laughter, then abruptly stopped. I realized he was starting to trip. He was staring out the front windshield and slowly turned his head toward me. The look in his eye was so terrifying I had to turn away. It was as though his mind had been completely emptied. He had the same cold, insane hatred on his face as Charles Manson. He broke out into laughter again and didn’t stop for at least ten minutes. Tears were running down his face and his eyes were red.

“Oh my God this is fuckin’ hilarious!”

It’ll be okay, I tried to comfort myself.

I finally dislodged Travis from the passenger seat, convincing him to roam around and enjoy the acid while it lasted. I sold two ounces and a quarter bag of pot and paused to chat with Josh and Piper. Travis ended up sitting on a rock near the edge of the quarry, staring out into the darkness.

It was approaching midnight when I noticed several headlights pulling into the quarry. I thought I saw dim rows of red and blue on the tops of the cars, but realized that in my condition, that could have been anything. Still, I watched closely. As a couple of the cars came closer and stopped, the headlights of the others illuminated them and revealed that they really were police.

“It’s the fucking cops!” I yelled.

There was a flood of chaos. Red and blue lights started flashing obnoxiously. If I hadn’t been faced with such depths of shit, I would have savored every second of it. I ran to my Monte Carlo, yelling out on the way, “Travis, get in the fucking car!”

Travis bounced to the car, laughing without care. I started it up and waited nervously for him to get in. As soon as he touched the seat, I threw the car into gear and hit the gas. The tires spun uselessly on the loose gravel a few moments before latching onto something solid and propelling us out of the pit, past several cop cars.

“Oh shit! Oh shit!”

No other words could express what was in my head. I repeated them until I reached Travis’ house.

I waited in the driveway watching him giggle his way inside and trying to collect my thoughts. I left to find someplace else to meditate, since having a county cop next door to Travis was a bit disconcerting. Quietly, I slipped out of the driveway in the Monte Carlo and headed for home, ending up in the same spot where Shafto had stalked Travis and me with a rifle. I decided to wait there for a bit and count my pot, which was all divided up into quarter bags, and ride out the LSD storm before going back into the house.

My mom was still at work and I didn’t see Shafto’s van in the driveway. I assumed he was at the bar, hanging out with the waitress there he was screwing behind my mom’s back. I could only imagine that woman’s desperation. I could slap a dildo on a chunk of overcooked roast beef and give her a more attractive love-interest.

I had a tendency to drive the car pretty hard, ignoring anything resembling a speed limit or the laws of physics. It had a blown gasket somewhere and was leaking oil all over the engine block. Whenever I stopped it, a large cloud of thick smoke would billow out from under the hood. As I sat counting my bags and taking hits off of a joint, the smoking oil burned my nostrils and throat.

I noticed a car pass by on the highway, a short distance from where I was parked. It had come from the opposite direction Shafto would approach, so I didn’t worry about it. Until I saw the headlights turning onto the gravel driveway.

“Oh great.”

The dickhead must have gone to the gas station down the road to pick up some Pall Malls or something. I began to calm myself mentally. Maybe it wasn’t so much calming as dissociating, which was very easy with the LSD. I put out the joint I was smoking and buried it in the ashtray. Suddenly, the two headlights were overpowered by a bright beam of light focused directly on me. I knew instantly what it was.

“Oh shit!”

I began shoving the quarter ounces of pot under my car seat, knowing it was futile. My mind raced. I had to stay calm. Clinging to one tiny shred of hope, I popped the hood of the car, got out and walked around to the front, opening it completely. The billowing smoke of the oil was an impressive display and I knew they wouldn’t smell the pot over it. Maybe I could worm my way out of this. How stupid.

A county cop walked up to me. He was shining his flashlight in my face.

“You know this is private property?”

“Yeah. I live down there, “ I pointed to my house.

“What are you doing parked here.”

“My car was smoking. I stopped here to look at it.”

I cringed as some sane relic of my brain realized what it had just uttered.

“What did you shove under your seat?”

“Nothing.”

He reached down and felt under the seat, removing the baggies one by one. At that point I shut down. There was now no point in saying a word. This dickless fuckhead would screw me no matter what I said.

“Well. Look at that! You’re just full of lies, aren’t you? Get up against the car.”

I complied silently, not even respecting him enough to look at him.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

He slapped on the metal cuffs. I was so skinny, he could barely get them tight enough. He felt me up, probably enjoying it in more ways than I cared to contemplate and found the empty vial in my pocket.

“What are you doing now? Cocaine?”

What a dumbass. Please, go ahead and have it tested for cocaine, you fucking idiot. I’m sure whatever process is used will completely destroy any evidence of LSD.

At least I hoped.

The cop hauled me over to his car and sat me in the front passenger seat. He closed the door, while I stared blankly ahead, and got in the driver’s side.

“Give me one good reason why I should let you go.”

Oh, you’d just love that wouldn’t you? You’re so desperate to watch me grovel. It gets you off. You took my drugs, asshole, I’m not giving you yours.

I continued to stare ahead, not speaking a word. Eventually I ended up in a holding area at the county courthouse sitting next to some middle-aged drunk guy. He demanded a cigarette of me and I gave him one, not interested in starting any trouble with whatever sludge was locked up with me.

The cop had my pot sitting on his desk as he wrote up the paperwork. The holding area had a large window where he could watch me. Or I could watch him. There were two locked doors into the holding area, one on the side and one that split the window, leading into the rows of desks. I could smell my own marijuana from where I sat, it was so strong. The other cops joked about it and made fun of me while my new friend weighed my drugs and scoured through my wallet, finding my license.

“18? You don’t even look 15!”

I remained silent.

“Well, you got 42 grams of marijuana here.”

Of course I do, asshole. My shit always weighs.

“That’s enough for a felony. Intent to distribute.”

Whatever.

Eventually the cop filled out his paperwork. Probably the most difficult part of the job for someone who was no doubt completely illiterate.

“Go ahead and use the payphone there to call your parents.”

I was exhausted. Completely exhausted. The last thing I wanted to deal with was Shafto. I wanted nothing but sleep.

“I’d rather you just put me in jail. I’m tired.”

“No, go ahead call your parents.”

Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t you idiots live for this shit? Put my fucking ass in jail already.

“I don’t want to call them. I want to go to jail.”

After a couple more similar exchanges, the cop finally called Shafto for me. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just put me in jail.

What a disappointing process. This incompetent boob hadn’t bothered to read me my rights, he let me keep my drug money, completely sabotaging the “intent to distribute” case over which he was arousing himself, and he made my one phone call for me. I had been cheated of the full felon experience. At least I had been harassed for a cigarette.

Twenty minutes later, Shafto arrived with a smug look on his overcooked roast beef face. I ended up having to pay fifty dollars to the bail bondswoman, they took my fingerprints and I was set free. Shafto drove me home, gloating the whole time—probably in a good mood from screwing his desperate waitress or maybe he got to feel up her little daughter. When we finally arrived at the house, I was allowed to go to my dungeon and I almost instantly passed out.

The next morning, when my mother got home, Shafto convened an emergency meeting with her and me. Shafto sat in his usual lazy-boy throne, the back of which had a grease stain from his hair.

“Give me one good reason why I should let you stay in this house.”

I was finished with everything. Legally, I was screwed. Mentally, I was screwed. Domestically, I was screwed. I decided to throw my hands up and get it all off my chest. If I was going down, by God, I was going down in flames. It would make the Hindenburg look like the potassium nitrate smoke bombs I made when I was a kid.

“Aren’t you smart enough to think one up on your own?”

“Answer me boy!”

Ah yes, it wouldn’t be a Shafto conversation without that phrase.

“Go ahead and kick me out. I really don’t give a shit.”

I really didn’t give a shit. And I knew I could leave at any time I wanted. But there was more at stake here. This was a chess game with my family and I was going to play for the only parent who gave a shit about me.

“If you wanna go, nobody’s stoppin’ you.”

“I’m not going to leave. You’re going to have to kick me out.”

I smiled. I was setting up the board and he didn’t see it coming. Sometimes I loved morons.

“Why do I have to kick you out?”

“Because then my mother will leave you.”

Shafto was silent a moment. I had sealed the coffin on that marriage. Some rusted gears in Shafto’s head screeched slowly into motion, barely able to overcome their own inertia. Shafto looked at my mother. I could see the fear and confusion in his eyes. She sat watching with interest, knowing what I was up to. She wanted out as much as I did.

Shafto finally looked back at me and blurted out a weak, “I don’t care.”

The look in his eyes said otherwise. He regretted it the second he puked it out into the air.

I shrugged and beamed at Shafto, “Bye.”

Checkmate.