by Tim Westover
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Sometimes I wonder if you have been in a car chase. When I’m holding a carton, just before the foreman’s hand comes up, I wonder, Who is this carton for? What type of person wants this orange juice? Surely, orange juice alone does not define an individual. Has this person been in a car chase? Is this person an adventurer, a criminal? Does she or he enjoy pulp? My heart breaks for you, Average-Yet-Discriminating Grocery Shopper, and I mean this sincerely. You seem so urgent in your need for orange juice. I too feel that certain things cannot wait, and despite the bullet in my left foot and the ding of the low gaslight on the van’s dashboard, it occurs to me—again, again, and again—we are very much alike.
The first building I see is a dusty Texaco. The other car still follows behind me. Dark veins of engine smoke bloom in the reflected distance of the rearview, billowing toward the clouds. I pull into the gas station, delirious, thinking of you, thinking of oranges, thinking maybe there’s a hole somewhere in here maybe big enough to jump through.
