19. Twilight
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.
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