I walked into the station and sat down on the old safe. Poopie was already there milling about the cigarette machine rambling on about a GWAR video he'd seen the night before. Pedro was sitting at the side of the desk receiving Toad's legendary German petroleum industry conspiracy theory. I couldn't resist.
"Oh man, that reminds me. We were talking about World War II in one of my college history classes."
Toad eyed me warily. He seemed somewhat annoyed that I had interrupted. Pedro maintained his usual glassy stare.
"I think the historians have it totally wrong about Hitler."
That seemed to get Pedro's attention, "What da fuck do you mean?"
"Well, any man of honor, which Hitler clearly was, wouldn't commit suicide in the middle of such an important mission as the one Germany was engaged in."
"Brotha, you is fucked up!"
Toad's eyes filled with disapproval, "Oh, this is rich."
"No, wait. I think Hitler's subordinates lied to him. They told him that the Jewish population had been completely wiped off the Earth. I mean shit, look at the scale of their cleansing operation. Of course, he believed them. They were German, after all."
"Darren, what the hell are you talking about?" Toad was turning a deep red.
"Hitler killed himself because the mission was complete. He always feared he had Jewish blood in him. Once he saw his vision realized, he sacrificed himself for the greater good."
"Man, that is some fucked up shit!" Pedro yelled, his yellowed eyes flashing for the first time ever.
Toad stroked his beard thoughtfully. Had Pedro been more subdued, Toad would have had an outburst of his own. He always had to be different.
"Well. Now we know why you dropped out of college."
I chuckled, appreciating the good comeback, "Yeah. Guess I won't be managing a gas station ten years from now."
Toad had enough and responded by carrying the clipboard outside to read the pumps. Pedro started counting out his money.
"Darren, call the dating mailbox for me!"
"Oh Jesus, Poopie."
Pedro's jaw dropped.
"What did you jus' call him?"
"Huh?"
"What da fuck did you jus' call him?"
"Poopie?"
"Dat's what I thought! You fuckin' homo?"
"Dude, just count your money. Fuck."
"I'm not a fucking fag!" Poopie protested, "Darren call the mailbox!"
"Fine."
I dialed the number, which I had memorized over the past few weeks. Poopie had renewed the ad in what appeared to be a futile effort at attracting a mate. He would change it slightly from week-to-week, fumbling for the right words that might net him a juicy catch.
I punched in the access code and waited for the usual response so I could, once again, tell Poopie what a Big Zero he was, "You have. ONE. message."
"Oh my God." I held the phone out to Poopie, "You got one, dude."
Poopie lunged for the phone and pressed the "1" button.
"Holy shit! Vanessa! She's a goth! She's into piercings! And black leather! And bondage!"
"Sounds like a real catch, Poopie."
Poopie slammed the phone back into its cradle and jumped up about an inch - the most his atrophied muscles could squeeze out against the force of gravity.
"I have to go shit!" He yelled, running to the women's restroom.
Toad finished the shift-change and left me alone in the office, with Poopie still "checking the plumbing" in the women's restroom. I picked up the Kansas City Star and shuffled the papers to the classifieds section. I had been trying to find a cheap car that sounded like it would at least pass the state inspection.
I was rewarded with a surprise of my own.
"FOR SALE: 1990 Ford Probe. Engine in great condition. Body badly damaged. All service records available. $300."
I couldn't believe it. Maybe there really was a God at work. I called the listed number and asked if the car had been sold yet. I told the owner I would be there to look at it that night after work.
Immediately after hanging up the phone, I grabbed a credit card slip and filled it out - Lee generously loaned me another three hundred dollars.
That night Toad drove me to examine the Probe. It was a light-colored car, but the same basic model as Tracy's old one. I started it up and it ran perfectly. It was even drivable, despite the entire passenger side being smashed in from what looked to have been a particularly horrific accident.
I gladly handed the owner the three hundred dollars, took the title and drove the car to my place with Toad following me.
Initially, I had planned on taking the engine and the old Probe to some shop and paying a real mechanic to install the new engine. Toad, in his pixified state, decided he would teach me how to do it myself. I was a bit nervous, with visions of the Family Truckster still fresh in my mind, but decided Lee's generosity had probably neared its limit.
Normally, I had nothing but complete disdain for anything pixie. But I found it easy to tolerate Toad's superhuman energy. We put profound amounts of work into meticulously dismantling the old engine from the Probe. Once it was out, I cleaned up all of the parts we would be reusing on the replacement engine. I also cleaned the new engine and repainted it.
We worked until 1, 2 and sometimes 3 in the morning every day for two weeks. Every night, I would come home completely black with grease. Sometimes, Tracy would call and I would give her a status report. Every night, I would sleep deeply from exhaustion.
It was about 1am when I got in the Probe and turned the key for the first time since replacing the engine. It took a couple of tries but it soon started... and ran... and continued to run. I hopped out and examined the engine - no horrible wheezing. I was so elated, it must have overloaded some neural pathways in my brain. I couldn't even experience the elation. I was probably in shock. Toad and I celebrated with a beer and I returned home in the Probe and took a long shower to wash away the sweat and car grease. I fell into my nest of blankets, exhausted. The phone rang.
I picked up the phone, knowing it was Tracy. I couldn't wait to tell her the good news - I had saved the Probe, thus preserving an artifact of her mother.
"Hey!"
I heard a slur of unintelligible speech. The only thing recognizable was the tone and pitch that always brought me so much warmth.
"What?"
"I fhuchking hhate yhou!"
"Jesus fucking Christ. You're drunk. Go to fucking bed."
I hung up the phone and it rang again a few seconds later. I unplugged it and went to the kitchen and unplugged the phone mounted on the wall.
Something inside me went cold. Not the kind of cold from something that's been in a refrigerator, nor the kind I'd felt outside on some winter evening. It was the cold of death - a little ball of death swelling up from an infinitesimally small point like a tumor somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I had to think. I had to be alone with nothing but the curvature of the Earth around me and infinite dark above. I got in the Probe and drove.
I've lived in the same general area all of my life, but I've progressively moved further south. I can get in a car and head north and it's like a three hour trip back in time. I headed into the past.
I passed a row of radio towers sitting out in the middle of some overgrown field, the red lights atop blinking rhythmically. They seemed evil, like that pulse was trying to become the beat of my heart to turn me into an emotionless machine - the armature man of which I had dreamt during an opiate mindbath.
I drove by the pixie pads - giant beehives of strange people I probably wouldn't want to know. People stacked atop one another like canned meat.
I drove by Willie's dilapidated house, with the floodlights coming on to alert the Pit Bulls of some hapless prey straying into their sites. If I'd had the window down, I could probably have heard them barking furiously in their mindless hatred.
I passed the spot where I'd been arrested on my way to Shafto's house. It was empty now - he'd moved after being convicted of molesting a little girl. Nobody had moved into it yet. It was as dark and empty as I was.
I went to my grandparents' old house. Where it had all started. The only place that could bring me comfort. A new family had long since occupied it. All the trees were gone - the giant cottonwood from which my grandmother always warned my cousins and me to stay away and the orchard in the back. The white fence had been torn down and the garden turned to lawn. The state had bought the pasture in the back, where we used to have cows and horses behind the orchard, and it was now overgrown with weeds.
And there it ended. My life in a three hour drive. I thought little about Tracy during the trip, focusing more on the memories preserved in each place like flies caught in amber. But my subconscious thought about it and it had reached a decision. I wasn't aware of it at a conscious level, but I felt at peace.
I returned home and put in Beethoven's ninth - it always inspired me. I realized things in the universe always repeat at vastly different scales. If one were able to think of scale in a different way - it wasn't just about size, it was also about ontology. Spirals appear in seashells and galaxies. Spheres show up in water droplets and stars. Matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another. And so it was with pain - it couldn't be created or destroyed, only transferred from one person to another or converted into something else. Tracy was numbing hers and transferring it to me, just as I had done with painkillers - transferring my anguish to those around me. But Tracy taught me to stop the transfer and take the other path. Mine had been converted into love.
Posted by DevilMonkey at 11:43 AM