24. Tripping Frogs in Mecca

I leaned against the square brown canopy pillar waiting for the minivan to fill up. I could hear the muffled babbling of the driver over the churning of the pump. I made it a point not to remember her name, even though she came in at least twice a week. She always had a McDonald’s cheeseburger in one hand and a mobile phone held up to her ear with the other. She was grossly overweight and used her stomach as a table for her fries. It seemed like I always ended up getting her, much to my disgust. I’d walk up to the window and she’d lift her cheeseburger hand up and down, sending grease and bits of food flying. She couldn’t even stop eating long enough to speak on the phone in any intelligible way.

I decided not to do her windshield. She wouldn’t even notice. She was so absorbed in all her artificial bullshit. It occurred to me that she was just a junkie. Her world was consumed with input and she contributed nothing to society except the waste into which she converted that input. She was a giant, overweight entropy machine. I guessed, in the end, we all were.

On the far island, Dustin and Josh were having a little more fun than I. Fat-Time had come in again. He was standing outside his car, spitting at Dustin’s feet and keeping watch while Dustin overhauled his engine. Josh was stoned. I heard him laugh in between deep hacking coughs.

“So, why do you come in here?”

I failed to hold back a snort. I was the closest thing to an authority on the night shift and didn’t want Fat-Time to think he could come to me and complain. I grabbed the nozzle filling up the minivan and squeezed it to full speed. I would probably end up with gas all over my arm, but I wanted to get inside before Fat-Time decided to complain to me about the crappy service.

A tint of indignation mixed with genuine confusion was in Fat-Time’s voice, “Huh? Whatta ya mean?”

What a fucking idiot.

“Why do you come in here and make us pump your gas? You work at a gas station, dude.”

“I work hard all day. It’s nice to have someone else do it for me.”

Josh laughed and coughed while Dustin cursed his way inside to grab various fluids for Fat-Time’s engine.

It took Josh a few moments to recover from the coughing, “Dude, it’s not like pumping gas is hard.”

“Well then why are you complainin’ about it?”

“I’m not complaining, dude. I just asked why you come in here.”

Fat-Time fell silent.

Dustin caught my gaze on his way back to Fat-Time’s engine. We scowled and shook our heads in mutual hatred for him. The gas wars were heating up.

Josh waited with me while Dustin finished off Fat-Time. He was chuckling and coughing uncontrollably, “Dude, fuck that idiot.”

I nodded in agreement, “Maybe he won’t come back now.” I hoped.

I was still holding the pump at full speed. I wanted to get the minivan out of the station as soon as possible so I could go back inside and hang out with Tracy a bit. Even with the pump at full speed, I wasn’t fast enough. Tracy came outside, damp with perspiration from the hot humid air.

“I’m going to hang out with my dad and sister for a while. Give me a call later!” She smiled.

“Okay.”

I waved at her, somewhat disappointed. I was so entranced by her, that I didn’t notice the gurgling sound the minivan’s gas tank was making. A wave of gasoline spewed out to soak my arm.

Josh gave me a sly look. Then he watched as Tracy hopped in her Probe and drove away. He stared into space a moment then turned back to me, “Dude, I think that Tracy chick likes you.”

I started to laugh, then realized Josh was serious, “Ya think so?”

“Yeah, dude. If I were you, I’d get on that.”

I paused for a moment, pondering and patting gasoline off of my arm with a paper towel from the squeegee bucket, “Yeah. You might be right. Maybe I’ll call her tonight.”

I finished off the fat bag of entropy and Dustin got rid of Fat-Time and we all retired back in the office. I started to light a cigarette and noticed my lighter was missing. Josh had a bad habit of stealing lighters, though it wasn’t intentional. Usually, I tried to keep my lighter in my pocket whenever Josh was around. Once in a while, though, he’d catch me by surprise and my lighter would always end up missing. Not even Josh knew what happened to them. He would use them a few times to smoke out of his bowl in the back room and then they would vanish. He’d end up walking over to Amoco to get another one.

“Man, where’s my lighter? Josh?”

Josh looked around, confused. He patted himself down and went to the back room looking over the shelves, “Sorry, dude. I lost it.”

“Jesus. Okay. I’m going to Amoco to get another one. I’ll be back.”

* * *

With a pocketful of lighters that evidently violated the first law of thermodynamics and materialized from pure vacuum, Josh headed to Lawrence with Tracy and me to visit Roy. I never did explain to him that Tracy and I had been seeing each other for some time now. I think he just assumed we started dating shortly after he pointed out she might be interested in me. It was a long drive and we spent the time smoking joints, talking, laughing and, in Josh’s case, coughing.

Roy had moved in with a friend who was attending Kansas University. Randy was Roy’s and my age – we were a bit older than Josh and Tracy – and sounded like he was a career student. I think he’d been taking classes at KU for a couple of years and wasn’t anywhere close to a degree.

Josh, Tracy and I sat on the floor while Roy and Randy sat in some torn-up chairs. The apartment was small with four rooms – a small living room, two dinky bedrooms and a closet that was converted into a bathroom. It was sparsely decorated with beads and Christmas lights, and had a strange, surreal feel to it with the pot, the Flaming Lips background music and the multicolored lights and lava lamps.

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