This isn't a gas station. I stopped for cash, meat and milk to feed me and my workers, with money that never belonged to me.
And, I saw a girl in a sporty car, “Pretty in Pink” detailed on black, doing her eyelashes in the rearview. Lust passed her into the store front, and passed an old drunk man swimming in clothes slowly falling off, staggering as if under the sea. It was unclear whether he was going in or turning aside, or if he was simply carried by the tide, but I slid around him, hurried.
I paid the fee at the cash machine, taking extra cash due to the lowest available denomination and for general purposes. I grabbed my jug and sandwich, made quick chat, and stepped back out, almost tripping on the old drunk man who was now on all fours with his pants around his ankles.
In full stride, half the sandwich in my mouth already, opening the red and white gallon of milk and pulling out keys all at once, I heard through my ear buds a man with brown teeth. He'd pulled up in a pickup and called out through his rear window over red gas jugs, with a story about some place near, but not too near, that he called home but that he couldn't burn a line to with the gas he had.
With a glance to the sandwich in my hand, I reminded myself of the mountain of debt I was under and that I didn't even own the sandwich I ate, so I said, “Oh, Man, I don't have any money either.”
And, maybe this man substituted a cardboard sign for a story with red, plastic props. Maybe he drove around peddling his story out of his truck to feed a vice that cost his teeth and more. Or, maybe he staggered under a socioeconomic machine that fleeced his teeth. Or, maybe both and more. I don't know.
But, I knew the tooth I lost to the machine was in the back of my mouth, rather than the front. And, I knew that I had only dodged a petty lie by a technicality. And, I knew that I was an object of grace, and that here was my chance to be a subject of Grace. And, I knew that I could easily keep driving away and be just fine. And, I knew.
I stopped the truck and walked to the pump I'd thought the man with the brown teeth pulled up to. It wasn't his truck. I went inside. He wasn't there. Then, I spotted him pulling up to a far pump.
I walked to him, reaching into my pocket for a bill. He already knew. He feigned some resistance like I didn't need to put myself out, but I couldn't hear him at first because I hadn't removed my ear buds yet.
I said, “It never belonged to me anyway.”
He looked me in the eye and said, “God bless you.”
“You too.”
I turned back toward the truck and approached the girl, pretty in pink, still doing her makeup. Focusing on her, I almost tripped when I noticed the blood spattered on the sidewalk at my feet where the old drunk man had been down. He was nowhere to be seen now.
I continued, again in full stride to the truck, “This isn't a gas station; it's a tragedy station.”
