On GAS STATION

March 4th

On GAS STATION

(or, as it’s known in the United Kingdom, a ‘filling station’)

A man driving a silver Cadillac was driving down a highway outside St. Louis, Missouri when he spotted a sign for a gas station. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and had a Burt Reynolds mustache. He was wearing a brown suit, orange business shit and a tie with a modern design. He had a huge cigar in his mouth, and the open window was allowing the breeze to flap through his shock of white hair. He had a ruddy complexion.
He pulled into the gas station, which had only two pumps. The pumps were located under a large white structure made of aluminum alloy, and had a swooping aspect to it that made it appear like a space saddle. The name of the gas station was ‘75’ and it was obviously an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the gas station ‘76’. The number ‘75’ was printed in blue on an orange sphere, which was on top of a pole 60 feet high so as to be seen from the highway.
The man in the cadillac drove up beside the first pump, and a youth in grey coveralls hopped up from the stool he was sitting on, reading a newspaper, and hurried over to the car. The man hadn’t realized it was a full-serve station. He didn’t see many of those anymore.
“Fill ‘er up, mister?” asked the youth. It was a tall youth, with a hunched over posture, short, spiky blond hair, a pale complexion with an array of pimples, and puffy, formless red lips.
“Yeah, I guess,” frowned the man. He put his cigar into the car’s ashtray. He watched the youth as he went about opening the gas tank on the cadillac, inserting the nozzle, and started pumping the gas. The man in the sunglasses leaned out the driver’s seat window.
“Hey, are you new at this job?” he asked.
“Just started today,” replied the gas jockey.
“You’re pretty good at it,” complimented the man.
“Thank you, sir,” replied the youth graciously, “I try my best.”
“Well, that’s all anyone can ask, ain’t it?” said the man, and smiled, showing a silver tooth. “Hey, you wanna know a secret?”
The youth’s face revealed hesitation and mistrust. “I guess so,” he said. There was a deep click, and the nozzle stopped releasing gas. The youth put the nozzle back on the side of the pump, where it rested like the arm of a short waitress.
“Come here,” said the mysterious man.
The youth looked back at the station office, but no co-worker was there to help him if this turned into something weird. Against his better judgment, the youth walked up to the driver’s side window, and leaned against the other pump.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Right down here,” clarified the man, motioning with his hand that he wanted to whisper in the youth’s ear.
The youth leaned down, pale pink ear right by the man’s tobacco-stained lips.
“This station,” said the man in a hissing whisper, “this station is more than these two pumps, this overhang, and that office. This station has a whole tank filled with gas underneath here, big as a fucking submarine. And that gas is just ready and waiting for someone to light a match and then – boom! – Arrivaderchi, amigo. You gone.”
The youth lifted his head back up and tried to take in what the man had said. None of the facts he had spoken were news to him, but the way he put it together scared the bejesus out if him. After a minute of looking around for miscreants who might be coming by with a lit match, he turned back to where the car was, only to find the man had driven off, without paying. What a tool.