Tales From the Gas Station 2

by Jack Townsend

  I shuddered. “That’s what Doctor V said. Like, almost verbatim.”

  “Interesting.” She wrote something else down.

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “You seem a lot more hostile with me than you were with Henry. Are you intimidated by women?”

  “Do I seem intimidated?”

  “Maybe we should talk about something else.”

  “Yeah, maybe we should.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on in Jack’s world since the last visit?”

  I told her almost everything, taking care to omit anything that might give her cause to recommend I be moved to special observation. She listened intently, punctuating my story with the occasional “Interesting…” or “How fascinating…” When I got to the part about Spencer forcing me to dig my own grave, I stopped.

  Do I tell her what really happened? With Vanessa? Or do I go with the official version?

  I chose to play it safe, and skipped the part where he murdered one of my friends in front of me. By the time I got to the big lie—that Vanessa was found on a nature trail—I felt dirty.

  Doctor Weaver smiled and continued to write her notes.

  “How’s your friend handling everything? Jeremy, was it? From what I understand, he and Vanessa were close. How did he take the news of her accident?”

  “He hasn’t been to work since the funeral. He says he has the flu, but I’m pretty sure that’s all crap. If he were sick, he’d be sleeping it off at the gas station, same as he does with hangovers.”

  “Let’s talk about Spencer for a moment.”

  “There’s really not much to talk about. He tried to kill me, and O’Brien hauled his happy ass to jail. He’s not a problem anymore.”

  She seemed almost proud of her response. “I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong. He may be behind bars, but the battle is far from over. This is going to be a very difficult time for both you and your friend. You haven’t seen the last of Mr. Middleton. Even with a full confession, the wheels of justice turn slowly.”

  “Oh,” I said with a smile. “I almost forgot to tell you the best part.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Spencer Middleton is dead.”

  She blinked a few times, before making the same face I make any time someone asks me a question about cars. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “There’s nothing to understand. Spencer died a few days ago in custody. He tried to stage a prison break, and they got him. It took four bullets to the chest and two to the computer to put him down. A little faster than he deserved, but he’s done for good this time.”

  I heard all about it from O’Brien, and although I wasn’t going to admit this to anyone, especially not the shrink, I suspected that Mr. Normal’s crew had something to do with his demise. As much as I oppose conspiratorial executions on principle, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about this one.

  “Wait,” she blinked a few times. “Spencer’s dead?”

  “Yeah. All the way dead.”

  “Spencer Middleton?”

  “Yeah. That one.”

  “You’re telling me that Spencer Middleton is dead?”

  “It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, Doc. I never get tired of hearing it.”

  She placed the clipboard on the desk face down, stood up, and said, “I’m sorry. Something has just come to my attention, and I need to make a quick phone call. I assure you, I’ll be right back and we can continue this conversation.”

  “Okay, nothing suspicious about that.”

  She walked out into the hallway and closed the door behind her. It took me less than half a second to reach over and grab the notepad.

  There were no notes on here about me. No notes about anything. The only thing on the paper was a doodle of a cat (and not a very good one). To make things worse, the cartoon cat was splayed out with its stomach ripped open and its entrails torn out.

  That’s the moment I decided I didn’t really care for Doctor Weaver.

  ***

  “Jack, we need to talk.”

  These were the words that greeted me as I walked into the gas station a few hours later. I was here to start another shift because, it would seem, I hated myself. Or at least I didn’t care enough about my own mental well-being to ask for a day off. O’Brien gave me a hard time about it, but she eventually caved and took me straight from the hospital to the gas station. The door hadn’t even closed behind me before the newest part-timer was in my face and demanding attention.

  His name was Brent. He was a husky guy with brown hair and a square jaw, a year or two older than me and almost always angry at something. In the three days he’d been with us, I hadn’t learned a single personal detail about him other than his name, but I’d already witnessed him lose his temper and yell at customers, raccoons, the drink machine, and even himself. He wasn’t the best employee we’d ever hired by a long shot, but he hadn’t tried to kill me either, so I wasn’t going to complain.

  I would have bet every last penny to my name that he hated me, and I would have taken out a loan to bet he was about to quit on the spot. I’d seen the look on his face way too many times before, a specific blend of self-righteous anger, annoyance, confusion, and excitement. He was hopped up on that rare quit-your-shitty-job energy, a better-quality drug than most (or so I hear).

  “What’s up, Brent?”

  He was bouncing with the words, “A lot. A lot is up.”

  “Okay, well, do you mind if I take a seat first?”

  I had been getting by with a single crutch ever since Spencer dislocated my shoulder. My backpack full of books, clothes, and prescription medicines was hanging precariously over my good shoulder, and the longer I stood in one place, the harder it was to keep my balance.

  “There are some seriously messed up things going on around here.” Apparently, he did mind.

  “I know. Let me get settled in real quick. We can talk once I’m on the clock.”

  I tried taking a step, but he moved to cut me off. “I am sick and tired of you ignoring all the problems. You need to listen to what I’m saying.”

  “And you need to back the fuck off, Brent!” The way I screamed the second half of that sentence surprised both of us. Amazingly, it worked. He got out of my way and let me go to the bathroom. I took my time in there, changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, and tried to prepare for whatever was about to happen.

  When I came back out a few minutes later, he was standing in the same spot, on the customer side of the counter, watching me and seething in silence. He kept quiet until I fell into my seat in front of the register, then he said, “This is going to be my last day.”

  I could tell he had been looking forward to quitting since the minute he started working with us, but I was hoping we could have kept him around for at least a whole Ambrose (that was the unit of time I started using to measure employee tenures—about thirteen days).

  All the same, I had to respect the fact that he was quitting in person. Most of our employees weren’t so polite. Normally, fed up workers just wouldn’t show up at all. Sometimes, they showed up, but couldn’t reach the end of their shift.

  The day prior, a part-timer named Patrick took a bag of garbage out to the dumpster and never returned. One time, a worker named Wilbur locked himself in the bathroom for his entire shift. We picked the lock, only to find the room completely empty. A septuagenarian army vet named Otis walked out while I was in the middle of counting down his till. According to his Facebook page, he was in China six hours later (we still get the occasional postcard from him). I’m not even going to get started on all the employees that have been taken by the fox lady. Eventually, you get used to it.

  “Okay. We’re sorry to see you go. We’ll definitely miss you.” I was getting much better at casual lying, and I couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

  “That’s it?” he asked, like I had robbed him of his chance at some glorious fight he’d
been prepping for all day. “You’re sorry, and that’s that? Don’t you want to do some kind of exit interview? Don’t you want to know why I’m quitting?”

  “Sure,” I said while shaking my head no as clearly as possible.

  “Agatha Sistrunk came by, driving a truck that looked like a freakin’ tank. She made me pump her gas for her.”

  “Yeah, she does that.”

  “She tipped me for it.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “She put the money into my waistband with her creepy old-woman skeleton fingers. Didn’t ask either, just tucked it right in there, deeper than you’d expect. Then she gave me her address and told me to ‘stop by sometime’ because there was ‘plenty more where that came from.’ It was only a dollar.”

  “Yeah, I can definitely see why that might—”

  “There’s more. I know I’m not the only one that hears those voices when I’m alone. I’ve seen the ear plugs in the drawer. There’s something else going on, something dark, and you guys pretend it’s all kosher.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit—”

  “And what’s with the gnomes? I’ve never seen a single gnome delivery. Where are they coming from? Why are we all pretending they don’t move around on their own? Every time I touch one of the walls in the cooler, I get electrocuted. I went to the bathroom this morning, and the reflection was just a female version of myself. I keep having to chase raccoons out of the store now that they figured out how to dart through people's legs. When I’m all alone, I get phone calls from people saying they’re my dead family members, and I can’t tell if they’re faking or not. And I know for a fact that the smoke detector doesn’t work, because I watched one of the customers build a bucket fire next to the hot dog roller because he thought they were ‘too raw’ and wanted his cooked better.”

  He took a deep, loud breath through his nose.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Yesterday, a spider crawled into my mouth.”

  “What?”

  “A SPIDER, Jack. Crawled right into my mouth.” He tried to demonstrate with a hand gesture, as if that was going to help me to understand. (It did not.)

  “Okay.”

  “And one last thing.” He took off his name badge and tossed it down in front of me. “My name is Brett. Not Brent. You guys spelled it wrong. I’ve mentioned it at least a hundred times, but nobody will fix it. Y’all have been calling me ‘Brent’ for three days straight.”

  I looked at the name badge, then at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Fuck you.” He flipped me the bird and stormed out of the store, leaving me all alone with nothing but my books. This was shaping up to be a pretty good day.

  So what if Brent/Bret was gone? Now I didn’t have to show anybody the ropes, I could just sit here in silence and read my books and pass the time ignoring all those horrible things right there on the horizon of my mind… things like Vanessa and Spencer and—

  Nope! Not gonna think about that. It was getting harder and harder to push those thoughts into the background. What I needed was a distraction.

  The universe must have heard my silent plea, because right then I got a big distraction—the man walking through the front door donned head-to-toe in camo. The universe must also be a twisted evil genie, because my wish was coming true in the worst way possible, and suddenly I missed Brent’s company more than I ever thought possible. He may have been a terrible coworker, but at least he could have made a reliable witness. Now I didn’t even have that.

  Travis Guidry and I went all the way back to grade school. We were never going to be friends, but he always made a point to sit next to me in class so he could cheat off my tests. On a few occasions, he even paid me to do his homework. After we graduated, I didn’t expect to see much of him again. But it’s a small town, so we were destined to run into each other on occasion. I can’t say I was all that surprised when he showed up with the rest of the vigilantes that night I lost my leg.

  O’Brien was very clear when she told them all to never come back, but there was a reason Travis always cheated off of me. He was a bad listener and slow learner.

  I looked at the store phone and wondered if I had enough time to call for help before—Oh he’s already here. He put his hands flat on the counter in front of me and leaned over to say, “Hey, Jack.”

  I didn’t see any weapons on him, but it wasn’t like I could hold my own in a one-on-one anyway. The last thing I wanted was another fight after everything I’d been through, so when I spoke, it was with a careful voice, the same I’d use to try and calm a rabid dog with a knife in its mouth.

  “Hi, Travis. What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to come down and tell you… I’m sorry.” I stared at him, waiting for an elaboration, but he just stared back. “Well, ain’t you gonna say something?”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re sorry. But you know you’re not supposed to be here, right?”

  “I know, but you don’t have nothing to worry about. I’m not here to hurt ya. I wanted to come and clear the air once and for all. You know? I wanted to get this off my chest.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He stood up straight and crossed his arms. “I’m ready to put the past behind us. I’ll be the bigger man and apologize for the misunderstanding.”

  I took my careful voice and threw it right out the window. This was no job for delicacy or subtlety. He needed to hear me honestly or he wouldn't hear me at all. “You beat the crap out of me, Travis! You tried to kill me! ‘Sorry’ isn’t gonna cut it.”

  He responded to my volume in kind, going on the offensive and defensive at the same time. “Look, asshole, I’m trying to say sorry! You don’t have to be such a little bitch about it. What, like you’ve never made a mistake before? You know what? Fuck you!” He slapped the basket of pralines off the counter in front of him, showering the floor behind me with the treats. “I’m glad we beat the shit outta you! I wish we could do it all over again. I wish we had killed you. Stuck up prick! Too good for my apology, huh? Fuck. You. You got a lot of growing up to do.”

  He tightened his lips and made his mouth as small as humanly possible as he glared down his nose at me, awaiting my response.

  I felt like I had made my point. “Well, thanks for coming down, I guess. You know where the door is.”

  He relaxed his scowl and dropped his head with a sigh, then tried again, “Look, man, I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and the whole thing with you and Jerry, finding out y’all didn’t have nothing to do with what happened to Vanessa, it’s been causing me a lot of problems. I think if you just tell me it was all okay, it was an honest mistake, it would go a long way in helping me get some better sleep at night.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Aw man fuck you!” he screamed. “Fuck your whole face!”

  The front door opened, and Jerry walked into the store wearing a fur coat and sunglasses. He looked my way and said, “Hey Jack!” Then he waved at the man standing across from me and said, “Wassup, Travis?”

  Travis held up a hand and made a quick waving gesture. “‘Sup, Jerry.”

  Jerry grabbed a bottle of cheap whiskey and wandered off in the direction of the snack cakes, leaving me abundantly confused.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  Travis glowered and said, “That’s right. Jerry already forgave me. He knows we had our hearts in the right place. Now can I get your forgiveness?”

  “No.”

  He screamed loudly, “Fuck you!” Then he pleaded softly, “Come on, man.”

  “Your absolution is not my responsibility.”

  He stared at the ground for a few seconds, then said to the floor, “Please?”

  I sighed and said, “I’ll think about it.”

  He looked up at me with a big smile, “Alright! I feel better already.” He held out his closed hand for a fist bump. I knew what he wanted, but I took it and shook it anyway just to be pett
y, then I grabbed my crutch and left my post to go find Jerry.

  When I approached him, he was eating a snack cake and staring at chips with the whiskey bottle dangling at his side.

  “Hey,” I said. “You do realize you called in sick today, right?”

  “Yeah, man. I’ve got it real bad. I already barfed three times since this morning."

  "Then why are you here buying alcohol?"

  "Oh, you know what they say. Starve a fever, drown a flu."

  I followed him up to the cash register, where he went ahead and rang himself up, paid with a hundred-dollar bill, and made his own change. I didn’t bother checking his math or counting along with the bills he pulled out. At this point, I just assumed he was always stealing from us.

  “Are you okay, dude?” I asked.

  He fake-coughed into his hand and slammed the register shut. “No. But I will be.”

  As he left the store, I watched him go and wondered if there was something else I should have said or done.

  “Jack, you’re an asshole.”

  “Holy Jesus!” I yelled.

  “What?!” Travis jumped back and made karate hands. “What is it?!”

  “Sorry. I thought you left already.”

  “Nah, bruh. I still gotta pay for my gas. Like I was saying: What the hell is wrong with you? Your boy Jerry is clearly depressed as fuck. And you dismiss him like his feelings don’t even matter. That’s cold.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We all saw him at Vanessa’s funeral. He’s messed up bad.”

  “Are you seriously lecturing me right now? You tried to murder both of us!”

  “Are you ever going to let that go? I’m trying to help you now! He needs his friend to talk to. Unless you just don’t give a flying fuck about nobody. Man up, call your buddy, and go hug it out like bros, cause that’s what he needs. Trust me.”

  As hard as it was to believe, I was beginning to suspect that Travis might not be completely wrong about something. Jerry wasn’t the kind of guy to ask for help, and I couldn’t pretend that everything was okay and wait for him to come around on his own. I made up my mind. I was going to go out and visit Jerry at his place once my shift ended.