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Slow Good Gas
Good Jim would be listening to country music if his dang radio wasn’t broke. It’d got slammed against the east
wall of the shop in that last little tornado. His old back is broke too. Well, almost. He sure can’t fix tires anymore.
Jim’s the kind of guy, let’s say if he’s got extra coffee and you’ve made it this far in a western Kansas
blizzard, you’ve got your own cup, he’ll fill it. And on a scorcher like today, he’ll give you a drink
of ice water—if he has ice. But today his tired old Norge is cranking barely enough to keep his ring
of baloney from going bad. Slow, but good enough. He’s thinking on a couple of slices come noon.
Any time of year a customer rolls up to his pump, asks: “How’s it goin, Old Timer?” good Jim’ll
be slow to answer, then, “Slow—but good enough.”
Seems yesterday, two good-looking dolls with Utah plates chug up to his pump, (missing a few cylinders,
Jim figures) driving a filthy hail-dinged ’83 Oldsmobile stationwagon crammed to the hilt—throwing sparks
as it drags its muffler—fat grey-faced yellow cocker spaniel slobbering on an Indian blanket behind the
head of the girl riding passenger side. The girls have fingered their names into the dognose-smudges
inside their windows so they can be read by passersby.
Driver: Stephanie. Passenger: Loretta R. S.
Jim took his sponge-bucket to their windshield straight off—wanted to look their pretty faces—not
much pretty around here. He watched Stephanie yank twisted rubberbands off her ponytail, then shake
her dishwater blonde hair out like a robin flutters its wings in a puddle of water. She winked at
him through the clean window. Loretta R. S. was not pretty like he hoped—her eyebrows, too big—her
teeth, too big. She pooched her lips. Blew him a kiss. Both girls and the cocker, sweatsopped.
He washed the rearview mirror (duct-taped to the door) as Stephanie rolled her window down.
Stinking body heat almost knocked him off his feet. The fan rattling; the air conditioner off.
“How’s it goin, Old Timer?” She had a flirty voice—like Loretta Young in the old days on TV.
“Slow—but good enough. Can’t do nothing about your cylinders.” The fat cocker curled its lip. Made
a rumbling noise: like it came from its ass. “Might as well shut her down,” Jim had said.
“First thing, we need our oil checked, Mister,” said Loretta R. S. She pooched her lips again.
Jim thought she looked like a mudfish he’d pulled out of the Arkansas. He’d never liked mudfish.
He dawdled toward the hood. Looked back at the women. Said, “I’m gonna need ya to pop it.”
They giggled. Stephanie opened her door. “Whaaaaaat?” she said, drawn out and stupidlike. Candy wrappers,
dried orange peels, roach clip, mess of Pall Mall butts, smashed-up Midwest States map, and several crushed
stuck-together gooey pop cans fell out. She threw her long legs out in front of Jim, lifted her multi-colored
paisley skirt above her knees, then leaned to one side so he’d come pop the handle for her.
The hood latch was bent. It took a crowbar and more heft than Jim really cared to dedicate to get it up.
The interiors of the wheelwells were decorated with plastic pinkish yellow roses wired to various strategic
mechanisms. Looked like a place of worship. Plastic half-fried from engine heat. Jim thought it a wonder
something had not caught fire. A leather tag, cleverly carved with words, was attached to the oil stick.
He wiped it clean with his red oil rag. It read: ASS FOR GAS!
Jim had a notion to cop the tag—hang it on his cork wall with postcards folks sent him over the past
thirty-five years saying thanks for the coffees during blizzards and ice in the midst of deadly heat.
He stepped back. Slowly and undramatically closed the hood.
“Run along, Ladies.”
“Din’t you check the oil?” cooed Loretta R. S.
“Run along, Ladies.” Good Jim was a gentleman.
“Well then…we need gas,” said Stephanie, shaking out her hair again, dipping her head coyly
between her shoulders. “We got to get to Delaware. Summer Theater. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
She was so pretty. Good Jim had to turn his head away.
“Gas for cash around these parts. I make a practice to sell just good gas. No water-down.”
Loretta R.S. fished into her wet peasant blouse, deep between her long white breasts—came
up with two sweaty dollars, wadded like a snotty hanky. Stephanie rattled a Coke can—thirty-two
cents in nickels, dimes and sticky pennies. “Fill er up,” she said. “Please.” Paused. Then, “Please, Sir.”
The girls became nervous about getting out of there. Didn’t even ask to use the toilet,
though Stephanie was desperate. She’d find a culvert couple miles down the road—hope there
weren’t too many burrs—like last time when she got them tangled in her pussy hairs.
Loretta R. S. helped twist her hair back into a ponytail, then wrap blue rubberbands around it
three times. They were pissed they wouldn’t be able to use the gas-guzzling air conditioner
for another long hot stretch across the Kansas plains. At least not until the next gas station.
Good Jim was in a slow dawdle getting to the nozzle.
The pump was slow pumping in the miserable heat.
But good enough.
He was thinking a couple slices of moderately cool baloney would taste good. It was fifteen minutes to noon.
He was thinking it sure would be nice to make just enough bucks selling good gas to order a nice
little radio with a good antenna from his PikMart Catalog. Or maybe one of those things that plays
recorded tapes so he could listen to Emmy Lou Harris whenever he wanted to.
And thinking that Stephanie girl sure did look a lot like Emmy Lou Harris.
Spiel was 6 months old when the dark years of WWII were unleashed.
He was 50 and in psychotherapy when it dawned on him the fear present in his
parent’s bodies at that time of unprecedented upheaval surely must have had a
profound affect on him. His newest chapbook, “come here cowboy: poems of war,”
recently written at age 65 and released by Pudding House Publications in the fall of 2006,
focuses on how wars, stretching from WWI to today’s aggressive territorial hostilities,
have imprinted his life and writing.
Email: Spiel
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