Safe inside the store—so bright, so blissfully cool after even just a few moments of the muggy summer air—and he feels better. Sometimes capitalism knows how to hold you just right.
Abe starts wandering up and down the aisles, idly scanning snacks, keeping his head down so as to not make eye contact with whatever psycho owns that van outside. Soon enough, he’s lost in his snack options and his thoughts.
Maybe it’s because she’s dying, but Abe’s been thinking of his grandmother a lot lately. Thinking as his grandmother. Her accented, sneery voice randomly buzzsaws into his brain, offering all sorts of unwelcome, unhelpful commentary. As he starts grabbing brightly colored treats off of the well-stocked shelves, here she comes again.
No wonder this country is so fat and lazy. Look at all the poison they stuff into their faces. Disgusting.
Abe shakes his head, not just at the sentiment (fuck you, Grannie, this food is dope), but at the implication. Because whenever she said something disparaging about “this country,” it carried the implication that Abe was among the fat and lazy too. That, in fact, Abe was an avatar of horrid Americanness. That’s me. Abraham Yehuda Neer, right up there with baseball and apple pie.
He supposes he gets it. To an extent. Meydl always looked at Abe and, to a lesser extent, his brother, as not just creatures from another planet but as betrayers of their true faith and culture. After everything she and her family went through, it makes sense she’d be a little sensitive about stuff like that. But it’s called assimilation, Grandma. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Hell, their ancestors might’ve done well to do a little bit more of that over the millennia—maybe then they wouldn’t have been such a frequent target.
And it’s not like Abe doesn’t want to be Jewish. There’s a lot he digs about the religion, the history. Contrary to what he joked to his brother earlier, he’s not necessarily against the idea of the existence of God, either—or at least a God-like Energy out there. It’s the arbitrary rituals he doesn’t care about. Being Jewish is cool and all, but who in their right mind ever volunteers for extra homework? Who doesn’t love the occasional pork chop or cheeseburger?
Sometimes he wonders if maybe Bobbe’s unpleasantness isn’t actually more generational than religious. He has another friend, a metal bassist named Win, who’s half-Korean and has a similar relationship with his grandmother. Win’s halmoni lived through her own horrors during the war, courtesy of the Japanese, and Win thought the things she witnessed were a big reason why she’d never been, let’s say, interested in social niceties. “But, I mean, that entire generation’s gotta be so messed up, right?” Win said over post-show beers once. “That’s the thing about a world war. Everyone that age, no matter where they’re from, went through things we can’t imagine. Things we’ll never go through. At least, I hope not.”
Abe supposes that might be true. On the other hand, hadn’t he met plenty of nice old people with faint numbers tattooed on their forearms when he was a kid? People who radiated a love of life? Why should Bobbe’s travails give her license to be such a shit all the time? Why should anybody’s? We’re all in this mess together. Things like religion, like nationalities, are just trivia. We’re all just bugs against the windshield of time, right?
As if looking for an amen, he finally glances up at the other customers in the store and his thoughts cut off abruptly, like somebody screamed in his ear.
No one screamed.
Quite the opposite. Except for the crinkle of the bag of Corn Nuts in his hand, this place is silent as a tomb.
Because there are no other customers.
The store is completely empty. Abe’s been so wrapped up in his thoughts, it hadn’t registered until just this moment.
“The hell?” he mutters.
The Icee machines whir. The refrigerators hum. And yet. . . not a soul around to operate or browse through any of it. Not even someone at the counter.
Weird. Especially considering the three cars in the lot. Where could everyone be?
“Uhhh. . .” He gives a stupid, disbelieving laugh.
He goes to the front door. Looks out into the night. The cars are still there. That van—
(create hate)
—is practically leering at him.
For the first time in his life, he actively wills the voice of his grandmother to come back into his head. Keep him company. Chide him for being silly.
She’s totally silent too. Of course she is. When has she ever done anything helpful?
He turns back to face the store. Scan it from this angle. Still no signs of anybody. Next to him, the newspaper stands blare headlines and photos about, what else, the election. Both candidates, frozen in mid-roar. Here in this gas station, even they’re rendered mute.
“Okayyyyy. . .” He tries to shake off the unease, get back to his supply-gathering. Any second now, a clerk will emerge from the backroom and make things feel normal again.
As he reaches the beverage section, something catches his attention. Something on the floor.
He bends down to get a better look.
It’s a small, plastic googly eye. The kind a kid might glue onto a craft project and then shake it so the pupil rolls around.
Huh.
Much like the smeared guts of the insect against his windshield, for some reason this little plastic circle fills him with a heavy, unspeakable dread.
I think I wanna get the fuck outta here.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Good idea.”
Except, he really should pee. He has hours and hours left of his drive and, if this stop is spooking him so badly, he should maybe avoid stopping at any other middle-of-nowhere gas stations before the sun comes up. Don’t look a gift toilet in the mouth now.
Fine. Peeing will be his final attempt at buying time. If he comes out of the bathroom and the place is still empty, he’ll grab his snacks, leave a ten-dollar bill on the counter, and make tracks. And if he just so happens to grab more than ten dollars’ worth? Well, you shoulda been better at your job, Check Out Guy.
He crosses over to what’s clearly the bathroom: a plain white door on the opposite wall, in between a beverage case and a display of shirts and hats and a couple ice scrapers.
There’s a sheet of printer paper taped to the door:
No Key.
If It’s Locked, It’s OCCUPADO
Under which someone had handwritten:
That means "someone’s pooping" in French
Great. Buncha comedians run this joint.
He puts his hand on the knob, then stops. What if everyone’s hiding in there right now? What if he walks in on an orgy-in-progress, three cars’ worth of naked weirdos, holding their breaths and their naughty bits, waiting for Abe to leave so they can resume their midnight game of Fill ’er Up? What if the Create Hate guy is their fuck maestro and this is how he goes about cr8ing?
What if they ask him to join?
Best excuse I’d have yet to keep Bobbe waiting, I guess.
He turns the knob and pushes the door open.
A completely empty and unremarkable bathroom stands before him. Just a single toilet sorta deal; not even a stall to hide behind. Not occupado. No one pooping in French.
Abe sighs, maybe in relief, maybe in disappointment, and steps inside.