Collections - 12. Chapter 12 -- The Gas Biz

The Gas Biz

Actually, the worst thing about managing the gas station is I have to be up at five A.M., an hour best left to skittering rats. I wake to the sadistic ringing of my almost twin alarm clocks: the gentler electric one rests near my bed; the wind-up that sounds with the subtlety of Madame DeFarge lurks across the room. Out of bed, I stumble about, aiming for switches: on my clocks, the stove, the medieval razor which each morning randomly plucks a portion of my beard. I shower, pull on clothes, usually in that order. I down oatmeal, a bland breakfast, but easily swallowed without adding chewy minutes to my routine. I hunt for keys, wallet, sunglasses, watch while dancing the final stages of my Morning on Bald Mountain.

At first sight, my station---wet with dew, half-lit by security lights---sits peaceful, distanced in an almost ethereal mist, seemingly unprepared for the day to come. But the pumps are tempered steel, crusted with enamel, plated with resistant chrome. The booth---my six-by-ten foot headquarters---braced like a stumpy bunker on the Siegfried Line, firmly divides a row of a dozen pumps. Guard rails reinforce concrete curbs. Iron posts shield the guard rails. Designed to withstand wind, rain, and the gloom of little children, the station will survive long after Jesus has come---and gone---again. If He leaves by car, I know where He'll get gas.

My working day starts with counting: oil, antifreeze, cigarettes, window wash, gas dryer, transmission fluid, lighters, six types of gum, three kinds of candy, two brands of nuts, and ten-pound bags of ice. (No cigars? Wrong! Petite Mexicali Slims, tastefully boxed and mistaken by some of our unlettered clientele for a brand of cheap Latin prophylactics.) I 'stick' the gas tanks in a ritual almost as old as the Model T: the buried tank is uncapped, then violated with a pole half again as long as I am, calibrated in quarter inches, freshly tipped with a sticky brown chemical which turns crimson on contacting water. (Red goo at morning, drivers take warning.) I test the tanks not only for quality, but for quantity, careful inventory being a fixation in business (as with Midas, constantly recounting his gold, hoping it would somehow increase through binary fission). Next, I activate the small computer which monitors the pumps and illuminates enough outside neon to warm the heart of Thomas Edison (should it still be around). My first customer each day is a nurse in crisp dress whites who buys---not gas to speed her on merciful rounds---but a can of Mountain Dew. So much for the body as temple.

Some managers greet their customers with a winning, "Good Morning! How are you! Sleep well? Ain't it wonderful being alive!" I give me customers a simple dollar figure. They hand me cash. Groggily. Seeming grateful to be spared an unnatural peppiness on my part. In return, I try not to notice most of them look like they've crawled from the wreck of the Hindenburg.

While seeing to my early morning customers, I also count the previous day's take---somewhere from three to ten thousand dollars (this, from one small station, is obscene). Then I do my Daily Report, a primitive bookkeeping exercise of adding kumquats to cannoles and hoping they balance. When they don't, I'm reprimanded---long distance---by the home office bookkeeper assigned to my section of the state. "This is Lois Infindlay," she announces, though that's not her name---Findlay's where the office is located. "Your report didn't balance yesterday!" (Organ music under. Chords. Deep trouble.) "The Previous Day's Total, minus Adjustments, plus Receipts, minus Transfers, minus Today's Sales, didn't equal Today's Closing. That's yesterday's Today's Closing, of course." (Of course.) "This will imbalance today's Today's Closing." (Oh, no!) "You'll be sent an Adjustment Transfer Petition." (An Orwellian form.) "Your District Manager will be notified. (If they can locate his brain.) "He'll see you're taken care of." (The last time he made me drink an entire can of Mountain Dew.) Fortunately, I was a high school Math major, and rarely make mistakes. Besides, my seventh grade Algebra teacher, Miss Bono, was far more fierce than Lois Infindlay.

Once nine A.M. comes, my Morning Woman arrives---as opposed to my Afternoon Man or my Evening Cretin (the one who's managed to give away more in bad change than Alfred Nobel ever dreamed of circulating). After nine a.m., the day's easy. I go to the bank. I stop by the Post Office. I putter around the station: picking up pop can tops; spit polishing the pumps; mowing the grass in summer; seasoning the ice when it's cold. The job's like being on Welfare without any of the lacerating self-revelations. For the first time in ten years of working, there are no egos to parry. Either my Daily Report balances, or the employee responsible for the shortage is terminated, zapped, crammed in an oil drum and launched as a buoy in some bay. It's clean, simple---businesslike. After my training here, I'm being transferred to Chile, to head up the latest attempt at government.

All would go even more smoothly if my staff of six and I didn't have to deal with the customers, the public, the weirdest collection of people since Central Casting assembled the mob scenes for DAY OF THE LOCUST. Judging from how they treat us, you'd never guess we were in business to sell gas; our customers seem to think us more a combination of Fact-Line, Confessor, and Hock Shop. Old men tell me they're headed to Key West, "to recoup," after parting with pieces of their privates. Old ladies blithely pump more gas than they can afford then stick us with trinkets as compensation. The Indians got a better deal on Manhattan. And unlike me---when I travel I take a local map, a state map, an atlas, a compass, and a seeing-eye dog---other people just seem to hop in their cars, toss a six-pack beside them, and head on out. They don't seem even vaguely concerned where they are until they reach my station.

"Hey, good buddy," says a drunken stranger. "How you think I should get to Meridian, Mississippi?"

(I want to say, "In your condition, sir, by bus," but I don't. Instead, I dutifully get out my maps and give him directions that would impress an Eagle Scout. The customer is always right."

"Young man," says a badly preserved matron in hot pants and halter, "Please tell me how to reach Indiana."

(Seventy-five South to Seventy West, ma'am,"---and put something on!)

"We're headed to Lauderdale!" shout four frat. boys with little hope of finding their zippers let alone Florida.

("Seventy-five South all the way, guys,"---and don't forget your shots.)

"What's the best way to find Kansas?" asks a timid young woman.

("Click your heels together three times and say, "There's no place like home.")

This summer I spent at least ten minutes a day directing people to Cedar Point, a local amusement park (east on 6, north on 53, east on 20, north again on 6, east again on 2, then north on the Causeway to the lake. And stop---you've got to tell them to stop, or they'll try to hydrofoil it to Canada.) I also told people how to get to Sea World---a wet amusement park---and King's Island---a pretentious one. Plus: McKinley's home in Canton; Hayes' home in Fremont; Grant's house in Mt. Pleasant; Harding's shack in Marion; Garfield's hovel in Mentor; and the cave digs of William H. and Benjamin B. Harrison in North Bend. Seven U.S. presidents were born in Ohio, but it seems I'm the only person left with any idea where they once lived. (And perhaps the only one who questions the value of dragging to these spots just to play Frisbee.)

I've also wanted to have the following things printed on cards to distribute in response to frequent dumb questions:

"Yes, you have to pay the extra penny. ($8.01. 9.01.) No one forced you to pump it. No one held a gun to your head. It's registered on our computer, so spare us your guilt trip."

"I don't set the price of gas. I don't get a discount. I don't even work on commission. SO DON'T GODDAM YELL AT ME!"

"I have no idea what the gas situation is like in Toledo."

".....in Dayton."

".....in Columbus."

".....in New Mexico."

"If you're this far south, you've passed the Ohio Turnpike. Yes, you'll have to go back. It won't come to you."

"I'm sorry, but we don't sell Visine."

".....Hall's Mentho-lyptus."

".....Diapers."

".....Vaseline."

".....Rolling papers."

We've also had top do the best we could in the following exchanges---never forgetting that our station training manual says "we're here to match neither words nor wits with our customers:"

"I gotta drain my radiator," said the middle-aged farmer. (And he didn't mean the one on his pick-up.)

"Which way to the little boys' room?" asked the six-foot-six, three-hundred pound, tattooed truck driver with a four-day's growth of beard, a toothpick in his mouth, a sleeveless flannel shirt open to his waist, and hair matted on his chest with the density of wet fun fur. (Good thing he didn't ask for the "little girls' room.")

"How many people does the stadium hold?" asked the traveling salesman.

"I'm sorry, sir. I really don't know."

"Well, you ought to, Goddamnit. It's right across the street!"

"I keep seeing this bumper sticker," says the grandmotherly type. "I * N Y. Is that for the Heart Foundation? ! Heart 'N' You? (Yours, Mr. Koch.)

"Gotta take a leak," said an old guy who then yukked it up like it was the punchline to the greatest joke ever told. (Please, sir, spare us your personal ironies.)

"It's colder than Hell out here," says the shivering lad. (Yes, indeed, sir, that's true. No matter how you twist it.)

"Where's your kitty litter box?" giggles the flaky young lady. (And with not a pet in sight.)

"Well, you can turn this heat off now," says the sweltering cowboy. (But sir, we turned it on just for you.)

"You gonna be open tomorrow?" asks the mailman.

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, then. That's just great. I'm gonna save my tank just for you."

(Sir, you are too kind.)

"You got eyes?" drawls the Texas Gent.

(No, sir, I do this by touch. Oh. Ice.) " Yes, sir!"

"Do you have any ice?" asks the girl clearly, no trace of an accent.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you know how much it is?"

"No, ma'am, we just sell it.)

"Gimme your schedule for the Cincinnati Reds," says a loyal fan.

"Sir, we're four hours north of Cincinnati---almost two hundred miles."

"Yeah, but you know how you guys are always listening to the ball games."

(When we're not practicin' keepin' our voices deep, sir.)

"Do you have any water?" asks the sweet young thing.

"On the Service Island, ma'am."

"Will it be ice water?"

(No, just Perier, ma'am.)

"Know any good places to eat?"

(The Oyster Bar at the Plaza.)

"You got air, son?"

(No, sir, I'm just faking it.)

"I don't think I've ever run gas in my life didn't make me wanta hafta piss."

(Please, sir, stay away from our Car Vacuum.)

"Sorry, I'm a little off this morning," says the man who's just pumped two gallons of gas onto the ground. (I hope he's not in any delicate field---like munitions.)

In a wind so strong our thirty-foot highway sign was swaying a foot off its center: "You'd better batten down the hatches, boy. Looks like it's gonna blow some."

From a man who couldn't be more drenched if he dove, fully-dressed, into a septic tank: "Yep, I think we're gonna get a little rain."

An Ad. Exec. trying to be cute: "Give me fifty-four cents worth of Marlboros."

A college kid trying to be cute: "Four bucks on number three to win."

A man putting down a twenty for a ten buck sale: "You keep half and I'll keep half." (Quick, Watson, my shears.)

"What? No postcards?" exclaims a tourist. "Not at all? Not even one? You sell dumb cigars, and dumb candy bars, but no dumb postcards?"

(Actually, sir, we do have an aerial view of the station. And a color shot of the oil rack. The Men's room. Inside the pop machine.)

"You're gonna like me today," says one of my regulars. "I'm gonna give you some change." (As if we had none of our own, sir---had never heard of this thing called "banks.")

"This is really gonna make you happy," says another regular. "If you like change."

(Actually, sir, this week we're into rubber.)

"I kinda won at cards last night," says a kid dumping two handfuls of pennies on my counter. (A maxim: Beware of customers with clenched fists.)

Any number of people, putting down a nickel for a $10.05 sale:

"Well, there's the hard part."

Or: "Well, there's the big part."

Or: "Well, if you never get anything else, you've got that much."

Or: "Well, there's a down payment."

Or: "That's all, right?"

Or: "Meet me halfway?"

(Not halfway to Hell, sir.)

Then there's the college-aged guy I found sleeping in the men's room one morning, his head on the spare roll of toilet paper, a bed of paper towels spread beneath him like a modern straw pallet. Also, on the floor: a sign reading "Canada or bust."

(You're almost there, kid.)

The guy who pulled nineteen dripping dollar bills out of his soaking swim trunks: "You don't mind?" he said. "Do you?"

(Mind, sir? Me, sir? Why how could I, sir?)

The sign I placed in the graffiti-covered men's room: "The Surgeon General has determined that people who write on the walls of public rest rooms are irreparably lousy in bed."

(It didn't help. Someone just corrected my spelling.)

The song I wrote because people seemed incapable of reading and understanding the pumps' simple, clearly-worded, operating instructions:

"Keep the red lever up, up,

If you want to get gas.

When it's down there's no way in Hell,

You can pump a drop from our well.

If the red lever's up, up,

You can pump till we're dry.

Rationing or not,

You'll get what we've got,

If the red lever's up!"

Then there's my young, company-man boss who insists that shiny pumps sell more gas. His reason: his slightly older, somewhat fastidious boss who once took me to Howard Johnson's for a cup of coffee and started polishing the table in front of him.

My assistant whose main concern also seems to be cleanliness: "I can't wait to sweep," she told me one morning. "Feel that grittiness under your feet?"

The strange-looking bald man who flashed his card as Commissioner of Solid Wastes and asked to check out my facilities.

The kid who'd obviously "found it," and hoping I would, too, handed me a pamphlet called, "How To Get To Heaven From Ohio."

(Not by car, I'll bet.)

The fact that although the pumps are clearly numbered from one to twelve, people never seem to know which one they've used when it comes time to pay. I'm thinking of relabeling them all. To: "The One On The End." And "That One Over There." And "The One Next To The Red Camero." (Very popular.) Or naming them all after old Hollywood stars. (That's twelve bucks on Myrna Loy.)

The fact that I'm earning more now than I ever did teaching college. (If I went back to my last job, I'd have to take a two-thousand dollar cut.)

And, finally, the thought that my friends can go around saying things like, "Well, it looks like he's finally found his station in life."

But don't get me wrong---I'm having a wonderful time. And there are still free road maps at Speedway!