23. The Circle of Life

Lawrence was like a post-secondary education graveyard. I’d seen several people proclaim their intent to move there to take up their studies at Kansas University, only to fall into a trap of constant partying. Sometimes, they’d take a class or two one semester but rarely more. Roy called it the “next cultural Mecca.” Obviously, he was interested in something other than “finishing school” there.

Roy’s departure ushered in a new age at the station. Josh started college at UMKC and filled in from time to time, while Dustin covered most of the night shifts with me. Toad also started hiring a new crop of teenagers, all of whom were Dead-Heads, from the high school to cover some weekend shifts and fill in when somebody was sick or hung-over or driving to some other unpredictable state on a pixie binge.

By my estimation, there were over a hundred Dead-Heads. Tracy was friends with a few of them and we joined them for a movie one night. Half the theater was filled with Dead-Heads. They would usually cluster together inside a Winstead’s hamburger joint and overflow the inside of the building so there was always a large crowd hanging around outside in the parking lot playing hacky sack or whatever it was they did. But the core group—the lead Dead-Head, Trent, and his closest friends—were always inside.

It was the end of the Summer and Tracy started her last year of high school with the Dead-Heads while I started my freshman year of college. I never really officially declared a major. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to study mathematics or philosophy. Math seemed to be at the core of everything in which I was interested, but philosophy really intrigued me. I ended up taking a mish-mash of classes that added up to eighteen credit hours. All of the math classes were first thing in the morning, at hours I hadn’t experienced since working the day shift with Toad.

The first week of school was somewhat of a shock. The first day consisted mostly of standing around in lines. Long lines. I ended up taking out several charges at the station to buy books, since I was out of money after making the “down payment” on my student loans. I found it somewhat annoying that a large chunk of the student body seemed to be coming from outside the United States and seemed to be getting more in the way of grants than I was. As the day wore on, though, I snuck outside several times to get high and began to find the foreign students more and more fascinating as I would overhear random pieces of babble while standing in line.

“In Namibia, we are a nuclear-free country!”

“I heard an amusing story about a genus in a bottle.”

“A genus?”

“Yes. A genus. A magical person.”

“Oh, you mean a genie.”

“Yes. A genus in a bottle.”

After spending the day waiting in lines, getting high and performing miserably on various tests, I was informed that the freshmen and seniors would be given a new test called the “ACT-COMP.” The college had decided to begin giving those tests that year so they could find the difference in a student’s score at the start and end of their college career and measure how much they learned in school. I made a mental note to be sober that day—whatever day it was.

I was happy when that first day came to a merciful end. I headed to the station, where Dustin had already taken over for Toad. I could immediately see he was completely pixied up.

“Darren!”

“Dustin!”

“Come here! Hurry!”

I followed Dustin outside, knowing better, but deciding “what the hell.” He pointed across the street, to the Texaco.

“What?”

“Look! That fat-ass motherfucker was in here a minute ago!”

The “fat-ass motherfucker” he was speaking of was Fat-Time Charlie. Fat-Time was a gas pumper at the Texaco across the street. Recently, he had decided to come to Phillips and make us pump his gas for him. He would always get small amounts, usually never exceeding five dollars worth, and make us check everything under his hood. His final insult was to leave us with a tip that was usually a quarter but sometimes as much as fifty cents. He also had a nasty habit of spitting his tobacco-browned saliva at our feet. Dustin hated him with a passion, even more than I did. Probably because he had to handle him more often, for some reason.

Indeed, there was Fat-Time waddling across the lot to start a customer, “Yeah, what about him?”

“Look!”

Finally, I noticed what Dustin was excited about. There was a small humanoid figure hopping in and out of a Jeep.

“What the fuck is that?”

Dustin’s eyes widened, “It has to be a midget, Darren. It has to be!”

I’m not sure what the significance was, but I did have a feeling it was significant. I’d never actually seen a live midget before. Maybe that had something to do with it. I guess they were rare around this part of the world, so it was like spotting a duck-billed platypus or something. I rushed into the back room to grab the pair of binoculars Toad kept on the shelf—I guess for hunting down unidentified flying objects.

I could hear Dustin calling after me, “Hurry, Darren! Before he goes away!”

I returned with the binoculars and focused in on the small figure in the distance. Texaco wasn’t that far away—just across a two-lane road. But it was far enough that the midget could have been a pudgy child or something—which would still be somewhat amusing.

“Yep. It’s a midget.” The midget was hopping in and out of a jeep for no apparent reason. It reminded me of something out of Twin Peaks. The skin on my back crawled as I handed the binoculars to Dustin.

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