It was near eight in the morning by the time I got back to the station. Just in time for the trucks to start piling off Highway 55. Regular as the sun, these fellers. All through the night, they ride the mountains, living on tobacco and coffee and maybe chasing it with a little whiskey. Then they crowd in a few hours past dawn. Eyes sagging, faces mashed in. Legs dragging after. The only dream they got left is to make Pittsburgh or Philly or Baltimore before the light goes. So you give ’em a little coffee, and they flop in one of the Adirondack chairs under the general-store awning, doze for a bit. Then they spring up, good as new.
But even as they tear east, they remember those ten minutes they spent at Brenda’s Oasis. All those whiskery men with their big sunburned arms—I couldn’t tell ’em apart at first, but then I started remembering things about them. Dutch was the one singed off his eyebrows when his rig caught fire near Altoona. Elmer lost half his ear in a bar fight in Kansas City. Glenmont had the anaconda tattoo on his neck. Joe Bob was the feller with the moon face who set in his truck and sobbed on the steering wheel. (His wife left him for an encyclopedia salesman from Wheeling.)
Then there was the fearsomest one of all. Six foot four, three hundred pounds. Big ol’ white scar down the left side of his face. Arms the size of my body, feet like manhole covers, black hair running from his neck to the tips of his fingers. A mouthful of rotten teeth. He came barreling down the hill one morning—all the way from Oak Ridge without a rest—and, before he even stopped his rig, he leaned out the window and roared (at nobody to speak of), “Fix the goddamn rattle!”
Then he staggered off to grab a coffee and take a piss, and when he came back, I was slamming down the hood.
“The choke in your carburetor is stuck,” I said.
“So unstick it.”
“I did.”
He glared at me. Then he jumped in the cab, turned on the engine, and set there, listening.
“What’s your name?”
“Melia.”
“Where’d you learn about engines?”
“My mama. She’s in the back if you want me to—”
“I don’t wanna. You’re the one who works on this truck from here on in. Got it?”
As he was pulling away, he leaned out his window one more time and said, “Name’s Warner.”
Now, I’d never call Warner my angel, but when some trucker’s telling me to run get my daddy, Warner’s been known to grab the guy by the nap of his shirt—one hand is all it takes—and hoist him straight to the sky. And when that poor sap is seven feet off the ground, Warner says, in the sweetest voice he’s got, “You let this little lady do what she needs to do, all right?”
Mama used to worry I didn’t have me enough friends, but I always told her I had the morning shift.
And they were there that morning in late March, when I most needed them. Merle. Trevor. Joe Bob. Oh, they knew Mama hadn’t been round for a coon’s age, but they never asked me what was going on. They just asked me to fill their tank or check their oil or figure out where that trail of black smoke was coming from.
The hours rolled by, and then it was cold, hard noon. Everyone gone. A good three or four hours before the late-afternoon shift would start pouring in from the east. I used to welcome the peace, but today, Mama was swirling round in my brain. Her duck boots. The little mole just under her lip. That smell of hers, like blackberries.
If you’d have held a gun to my head, I’d have said what I missed most was Mama’s laugh. Which was crazy ’cause it was the most embarrassing laugh a mother could have. It was a whole crazy parade—snorts, grunts, screeches. It could go on for minutes, and every soul from a mile round would be staring, wondering how a body could make such sounds.
I set behind the counter, chewing on beef jerky, sipping ginger beer, flipping through Photoplays. Somewhere toward three in the afternoon, I heard a squeal. A truck was rolling past me—a flatbed, loaded with coal—making that hard right on Totten. Its rear tires slipped a little on the gravel, the truck give a shudder, the back gate popped open, and a man come rolling out.
He landed hard, in a puff of dust, and started rolling toward me, but me, I was running the other way—chasing that truck down the hill.
“Hey, wait!” I called. “Hey, mister! You left something!”
But the truck kept going. And such was my state of mind that, by the time I give up the chase, I plumb forgot about the feller who’d fallen out. It wasn’t till I got back to the station that I found a heap of mud and hair, a cotton shirt, and a pair of torn-up trousers planted squarely in the path to pump number two.
With a growl of frustration, I jogged over to him. Somewhere in the tangle, I found a mouth. I put my ear to it and waited till a little tickle of air straggled out.
Alive. Which didn’t make him any less of a pain in my ass. Or any easier to drag. Every pound of his was pulling against every one of mine. I stood up to catch my breath. Just as I was reaching down again, another pair of hands come out of nowhere.
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“Just trying to help, Melia.”
“I got it.”
To speak true, I was glad for the help. But once we’d curled the fella round the pump, I looked up and saw a Dudley I never seen before. Some kinda bullshit aviator’s hat on his head. Shiny leather shoes. More leather on his shins. Fancy balloon pants—I don’t know what you call ’em—the kind rich people ride horses in. And a jacket, military-like, cut to the waist.
“Holy God,” I said.
A creek of red was washing out his cheeks as another voice come bellowing after us.
“Don’t he look smart!”
I turned my head real slow. Harley Blevins lay due west of me. Leaning against his butternut Chevrolet Eagle. Tipping his straw boater.
“What you’re looking at, Miss Melia? Why, that there’s the future.”
“He looks like the top of a cake.”
“You ain’t seeing it. Dudley there, he’s an aeroplane pilot or Buck Rogers or something. It’s how I got all my attendants gussied up.”
“They pump gas in that?”
“Sure they do! You know, Melia, public servants like us, we can’t just expect to totter out no more in big ol’ greasy overalls. Nasty rag hangin’ out our pockets. Standard Oil wants its employees to take their work serious. Ain’t that right, Dudley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Aw, but listen to me. I ain’t come to lecture you, girl. I only stopped ’cause my little chariot here is famished. Gimme a buck’s worth, will you?”
I swear I could hear Mama whispering in my ear. Smile, honey. Smile them all the way to hell.
So I did. And when I cleaned the windshield, I did it extra hard, and the only thing that ruined it was Dudley hanging back a few feet.
“You ain’t much of a spy,” I muttered.
“I ain’t spying.”
“Your uncle is.”
“Melia!” called Harley Blevins. “Get me a Coke, too, will you?”
I walked back into the store and pulled a bottle from the icebox, uncapped it, and brought it out. Harley Blevins made a big show of taking out his money, peeling each bill from its neighbor.
“Word to the wise, Melia. Next big wind, that sign of yours gonna come right down.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Funny old thing. Looks like a tombstone.”
In fact, it was. Mama got it cheap off a Harpers Ferry stonemason, painted it herself.
“I can order you a new one,” said Harley Blevins.
“We’ll get by.”
“Makes an old feller sad, thinking how many challenges you and your mama got on your horizon. Now, don’t mistake me, independent operators has got their place, but here’s what I’ve always said, Melia. When a person’s driving down the road for a spell, he wants to see a station looks just like what he left. Makes him feel like he ain’t gone so far after all. Like he’s still in the same by-God country. Yes, sir, you drive down State Fifty-Five, you see one brand, one sign, one uniform every step of the way. Till you get here.” His eyes give a little swell. “Say, you got a match, Melia?”
“Sure.”
“I been meaning to ask how your mama’s doing.”
“Still a little poorly.”
“That’s too bad.”
“She’ll come round.”
“’Course she will. Only I gotta tell you, Melia, seeing as nobody’s laid eyes on her since I don’t know when, everybody’s fearing the worst. Hoping the best, of course.”
Smile them all to hell.
“She’s okay, Mr. Blevins. I’ll tell her you asked, though.”
“But seeing you struggle like this. Goddamn if it don’t make an old feller’s heart crack a little.”
“We’re A-okay, Mr. Blevins.”
“Well, you tell your mama anytime she wants to come and talk business with ol’ Harley, she just has to say the word, you hear?”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Say now, Dudley, what do you say we—hang on a minute! I near forgot what I come here to tell you. We’re cutting prices again.”
This time, I couldn’t even smile.
“Times being how they are. So many of our fellow Americans out of work. Nine cents a gallon, that’s the least we can do, huh?”
He tipped his hat.
“Now listen, Melia, you gotta promise me you’ll take care of that sign. Being an old man, I worry.”
He give me one last wave as the Chevrolet Eagle pulled away, but I weren’t even seeing him no more. No, sir, I was running the figures. Brenda’s Oasis was already running five dollars behind every week, and that was with me pumping the gas and running the store and doing near everything there was to do. We wasn’t just in debt to Standard Oil, we was in debt to the egg man and the milkman and the iceman. Most Mondays, there weren’t nothing on the dinner table but what was left on the store shelves. If we was to drop our gas price another cent a gallon—and what the hell choice did we have—we’d lose forty more dollars every week.
Which would mean an end to living. And Harley Blevins knew that as well as he knew his own name.
Here’s something else you’ll learn about me. I don’t cry, mostly. Instead, I rolled myself a cigarette, and I went and stood on the edge of the road, watching the cars go by. I took a harder drag, then a harder.
From behind me I heard a moan. I looked back and saw that old bum, curled up against pump number two.
I went to the well. Filled a bucket and carried it over. I had an idea of drenching him in one fast pour, but there was a meanness in me just then, so I did it bit by bit. A squirt in the eye, a squirt in the nose. When I was done pouring, I dropped the pail in his middle. He jerked straight up.
“Sleep well?” I said.
He give his head a mongrel shake. Run his tongue round his lips. Then he dropped his head between his legs and threw up.