Day 30: Gas Station

If we had a meter, would we stop

more often? For a good meal or 

check up?  Replace coffee with

green tea?  Spend an hour in

the sun rather than in front of

a screen?

You'll have to remind me to pay attention 

to myself.  If not, my tank may run until

it just runs dry.

Day 25: Dobject's Gas Station

 

I don’t think any one remembers a gas station. Or at least I don’t. No one makes eye contact, people hide in the snack isles looking for their favorite potato chips, multitudes line up for cigarettes, and we avert our gazes to the gas pump screen, rub our phones, or riffle through our wallets.

            Everything about a gas station is about waiting: for the tank to fill up, for the cashier to take your order—a break before hitting the road again. It’s like some sort of purgatory: no one wants to stay, someone can’t leave, and there’s usually nothing interesting to speak of. But everyone ends up there at some point or another in some transitional period of living, or maybe in ecstasy or despair, but the gas station doesn’t care either way: it just sort of exists like a landmark or a mountain, patiently stocking its shelves and trading gas for time like an ascetic monk. It doesn’t make anyone’s day, but it doesn’t really ruin anyone’s life either.

            I wonder if they’re the last commonwealth—more so than say, national parks, which, lets remind ourselves, are not always wealthy enough for the common, or common enough for the wealthy. But a gas station in the middle of nowhere is very nearly the same as a gas station in a bustling suburban area, and that is almost as similar as an abandoned gas station that still tricks people into its parking lot. Gas stations are perhaps the last places on Earth that everyone, at one time or another, takes a part of, and freely participates in without extravagant emotions or feeling. It’s just another chore, sometimes a minor inconvenience, but no one can blame the gas station, it’s just sitting there waiting. We all bring our baggage there, and cart it away with us. We only make a small impact on it by either taking or leaving some small something’s behind. No one remembers the inside of a gas satiation, unless of course they work there, and even then I’m not entirely sure one can love it and hold it fondly in their heart like some sort of divinity. At least I can’t. It just feels like miles and miles of space. 

Day 8: Lobject’s gas station

It was hard to get into that jeep wearing a dress and still consider myself a lady. The curly hair humidity was common in North Carolina but the air this night was sweating, so I took my chances on the sundress for a casual, get-out-of-the-house hang out with friends.

A few other cars followed the red jeep for a quick stop at Exxon. We needed some provisions. What we got something else. Everyone went into the store but me and Jason. I was too young for a fake ID so I stayed in the car. Jason went the bathroom. The doors were on the back of the building where we parked to hide my age. He was only in there a second before opening the door and waving me over. I jumped down from my seat.  “I need someone else to see this,” he said seriously. He paused with his hand on the door. I think he changed his mind about waving me over, but he opened the door anyways. The room was painted with vomit, blood, and excrement. A wallet was in arms reach and it was full. A bag of what was probably marijuana leaned against the wall next to the toilet.    

I haven’t thought about this story in years. I might be making the whole thing up. Except the blood and feces. Yeah, I definitely remember bodily fluids and wet, summer air. 

Day 5: Pobject's Gas Station

The epitome of isolation –
somewhere in the Bayou, in Barely-USA-UP,
or Arizona (xeriscaping
works wonders out there, sagebrush
(cool, clear water, water,
                    water, water) and saguaros)
                    – the perfect place for a robbery-turned-double-homicide.

No one to chase you when you run, so why
run at all? Take your sweet time, mosey
          into the cochineal sun.
What would it be like to live on the lam?
(When I was young I imagined making
my getaway on the back of a stout young sheep.)
No credit cards, no honest work, maybe washing off
the grease stains at a dive diner
or knocking over a new gas station

every time you needed a few more gallons in the tank.
We used to talk about where we’d hide the bodies
          (quicklime and ammonia),
but if we were near enough
maybe we could simply take them to the sea?