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.

We ordered a pizza from Pizza Shuttle, which was some sort of mobile pizza task force and, while not much better than a frozen pizza, it sufficiently eliminated the munchies. We settled in after finishing eating,and Randy nodded at me, "Can I bum a smoke from you, man?"

"Sure." I tossed him a Marlboro Light.

Randy lit the cigarette and took a deep drag, then slowly exhaled the smoke with his eyes closed. I wished I could enjoy a cigarette that much anymore.

"So what are you majoring in, man?"

"I dunno. Math and philosophy I think. I think I'm going to double-major."

"Wow. That's hardcore."

"Why's that hardcore?"

"Those are like on the opposite sides of the planet."

"Not really. They're kinda complimentary."

Randy shrugged.

Josh had already lit up another joint, "I think I want to be a weather man."

Everyone laughed. Tracy passed me the joint and I took a hit. Immediately, an image congealed in my head, "I could just see it. It starts out with Josh on camera, 'your local weather coming up after these commercial breaks...' then after the commercials, Josh is back on screen, red and coughing with his eyes watering, 'hang on, dude!'"

Randy's laughter melted away after a few moments and he became gravely serious, "I like burning stuff, man. I burned down a shed last weekend. It's better than sex."

I grinned. Randy looked harmless enough, kind of short and squat with curly brown hair. But Lawrence did seem to have some indescribable effect on people, "An arsonist eh? Where else but Lawrence? What is it with this town? I mean other than it being the 'next cultural Mecca'?"

Roy ignored my attempt to poke fun at his 'Mecca' comment, which had become legend around the gas station, "It's the thirteenth gateway to hell, man."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. The pope flies over it any time he's in the United States. That's a fact."

"Hmmm."

"I'm serious man. I went to the church on mushrooms once. There's some weird shit going on there."

"Mushrooms?" I pointed out, suspiciously, "Dude, you can see all kinds of shit anywhere in the universe on those."

Roy was adamant, "No man. This shit is real. I saw some weird lights in the sky too."

I couldn't believe it. Roy always seemed so rational. This was crazy. Even when I was doing so much LSD that it was a felony to be in possession of my own brain, I could figure out what was real and what wasn't.

Randy nodded, "Wait 'til we get that frog," He nudged Roy and they laughed at their shared secret.

Josh's interest was piqued, "Frog?"

"We have a frog coming in from South America. It's hallucinogenic."

"What the fuck?" Tracy laughed, shaking her head.

"It secretes a liquid that makes you trip," Roy explained, "It's supposed to be awesome."

Licking frog juice didn't sound too appealing, "I'll stick with LSD."

We talked for hours about our experiences with hallucinogenics. Everyone had some story about what they saw, or how they saw it. Tracy remained silent, listening intently. She seemed fascinated by the whole idea. She had never done anything like LSD or mushrooms. After several more hits off a few more joints, everyone slowly wound down. Roy and Randy went to their respective rooms, divided from the living room and each other with beaded "doors." Tracy and I huddled together at one end of the living room while Josh passed out at the other end.

"What is acid like?" Tracy whispered.

"I can't really describe it. I wish I could. It does make you see things in a different way, though."

"Do you think I should try it?"

Posted by DevilMonkey at 11:06 PM

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