On the Edge of Gas Stations by Christopher Ananias

I should take the gun and throw it into the river. The cool morning raises a chill up my back and touches my ears. The ceiling fan spins silently, driving me into the bedroom for my favorite cardigan. I don’t turn off the fan because the little gold chain pulled off in my hand, so it runs and runs. Like it’s making fun of me for being such a loser. The cardigan is gray and fuzzy and once it’s on my shoulders I’m wrapped in a pleasant warmth. My feet are in slippers. A coffee cup steams from the round table by my chair. I cannot lose these comforts, but taped to the kitchen window, a white paper clearly states I can and will. Courtesy of the Sheriff and the BANK if such a thing could ever be called a courtesy.

The gun flashes through my mind. When I shot at the trees. It’s solid cold weight and the recoil. BOOM—puncture—echo! Repeat! The silent unknowable trees stare as stout as ever. The smell of gun smoke calls out my sin. I regret injuring them. What did a tree ever do to me, except help me breathe. 

I tell myself, do a gratitude list, before you fall into the gray glum of depression. Gratitude is an action word—the attitude of gratitude can change things. Five quick ones: I can walk, talk, see, hear, and taste. Easy ones. Especially sight, I could not live without seeing, or so I envision. I need five more: coffee, my fingers (some people have hooks), my cardigan, Goings (my ironic dog), and Cinnamon Life cereal (dry, no milk—that sucks). I would say shelter, but when the knock bangs on the door, we will be homeless. Number eleven: Shelter—for now. 

“Come here, Goings,” he wanders over in his ironic way, and has no idea that his dog bed and he will ride in the backseat of my old Dodge Neon, his new home. We will, no doubt, be parking on the edge of gas station parking lots living out of the bathroom. I wish I had a van and we could join the nomadic “Van Life.” And still park at the edge of gas station parking lots living out of the bathroom. I guess it will be “The old car life”.

“I love you little buddy.” Goings does a spin that Tonya Harding would appreciate. His black fur is soft and warm, he’s kinda fat. A cute white stripe goes down his nose. A white star on his fluffy chest. He is a border collie—the rocket scientist of dogs. Goings, Goings, Goings, almost gone from his home is my bestie, my family, and we’ll have to ride it out. Like Bon Scott of AC/DC, sang “Ride on.” I wish I believed in God—more. I packed my King James Bible, so I haven’t completely lost faith. Right under the 9 mm in the glove box.

A surprisingly reasonable knock taps on the door. Sort of persistent, though, like E.A. Poe’s “rap-tap-tap-tapping. on the chamber door.” The silver star. A big son of a gun. His desert colored shirt fills up the whole doorway. His arms have a forest of red hair. I hate arm hair.

“Hello sir, you must vacate the premises, by order of the Winningham State Bank.”

“OK, NP. We’ll go.” I already have the car packed and hand him the keys like he is the new proud owner. “Let’s go, Goings.” I’m trying to be reasonable and polite. The other, not so reasonable me, thought about gutting the house and going on a rampage.

I lead Goings past the hulking cop. Goings sniffs at the big man’s shiny black shoes. The red-haired cop gives Goings a hard stare, and his hand falls onto his pistol’s, butt. “Take it easy, he’s not going to hurt you.” He’s a dog shooter—one of those cops—with an itchy dog killing finger. I give him the same hard look he gave my dog. The look says hurt my dog and you’ll have to kill me, too. Just so we understand each other.

Goings is innocent of these things. He wags his tail like crazy and loves riding in the car. “Say goodbye to our home, Goings” The cop crosses his arms in a stance. That can only be read as NO TRESPASSING. I turn and say, “Asshole.” I don’t think he heard me or I’m sure he would have committed an act of violence on my person. Then he would have found himself on the other end of the gun. I remind myself—keep an attitude of gratitude. Anyway, I’m persona non grata here. My home is not mine anymore, so I’m leaving—just leave us alone.

We head over the bridge and the river looks like a fat glistening orange snake in the setting sun. We have no one and nowhere to go. I inspect the area below the bridge and on a wild impulse; I crank the wheel and we are bouncing on the dusty ruts with a stripe of weeds rushing under the carriage. River cat tails lop over in a breeze. There’s something dead. The sweet smell of it almost makes me leave. It smells bad, but we’re here. We only drove about a mile.

I dump a Fuji water bottle into Goings’ silver bowl, and feed him dog chow with a little wet food from a can on top in his special blue bowl with white dog paws. I sit in a lawn chair, crunching Life Cereal sipping the last of the water.

Thoughts of the cop run through my head. How he wanted to shoot Goings. Then reality hits me. I’m living outside. We live outside. I’m homeless. A desolate hollow feeling rises somewhere in my chest, like a single lonely sail has risen on a vast gray ocean. The bugs start in like they are laughing with their chattering buzz, and cars thump over the bridge. I look up and see a white face looking down, and then streams away. Already we have become a spectacle.

I should put my fishing rod on a forked stick. Make it look like I’m a fisherman or fisher person to be politically correct. Make it seem like I am very patiently fishing. It might take some time if they are not biting. It might take all night into next week. I am already learning to camouflage my homelessness. I wish I had brought a tarp or a net with weeds stuffed into it to cover my rusty red Dodge, eyesore. Hiding it like a Ukrainian artillery gun searching for Russian foot soldiers.

Goings walks around our camp by the river nearly under the bridge, which has flooded and killed vegetation then receded, dried, cracked and stinks. The river stink is fading. We are part of it now. I think he is searching for his dog bed. He likes to take a nap after he eats. We are both very spoiled. I wonder if Goings will turn into a savage after a while. Will he start killing things? I thought about how much money I was saving not paying for electricity. Not that I had any money. How I had been fighting the electric bill, fighting the mortgage, fighting the supervisor at the door factory who fired me, and fighting the depression. Maybe now I won’t have time for depression. Do animals feel depression and self pity? I doubt the vole has time for that with a Kestrel’s talons flying down on them, or the raccoon with hunger screaming in its belly, driving it to tear up bags of trash for pizza rolls and eggshells. 

This could be liberating. Someday when I become a famous writer or caricature artist or a seasoned knob polisher for my next meal. I can look back on this and say, “Inspiration!” Maybe it will be the title of a self-help book? Will I become a thief?

I put a cricket on the hook and cast its squirming legs out into the river. Hoping for a big carp. Something that might feed me for an entire week. I open the car door so Goings can get on his dog bed. I would lay it outside, but I don’t want it to get dirty. I think dirt is going to become a constant companion.

The night is on top of us. The mosquitoes whine in my ears like itchy sirens. Cars thump over the bridge. After midnight I wake to a loud squealing of tires above us. Then something huge hits the water and belly flops. I don’t want to know what that was. Goings snores on the back seat. He is not much of a watchdog. I reach from the passenger seat, that is kicked way back, and pet his soft fur. It’s a restless night for me and right when I get to sleep for a minute the awful sun comes up and it’s hot and merciless. Then I slip back slumbering under my problems again.

A persistent knock wakes me. The big cop is standing outside the car window. He evicts us for the second time.

I drive into Winningham and we stop at a grimy Speedway Gas station. I go straight to the bathroom. My tooth brush is in a shaving kit bag. I foam up and rinse. A big dumpy guy with acne scars wearing a Speedway cap barges in and stares at me instead of the mirror. I should have locked the door. He smells like onion rings and sweat. He runs the chicken roaster. I’ve seen him behind the counter before, dipping out potato wedges. He always gave me the smallest ones.

“Are you homeless?” How he knows this already baffles me. He must have an instinct for it.

“No, the whole world is my home.”

“I don’t want you loitering around the gas station. This bathroom is for paying customers.”

“Do you own this gas station?’

“No.” He had a dumb look in his eye, but very obstinate in his posture. He leans forward. Suddenly I smell the pink cakes in the urinal and I think I might puke. I really wanted to leave anyway, but I still had to use the bathroom.

“Are you the manager?”

“No.”

“Then don’t worry about it.” I’ve had enough of these people running me off. My hand wraps around a small pair of metal scissors, for trimming my mustache. The end pokes out of my fist. It is the only gleaming thing in the abysmal bathroom. Now I’m the one leaning forward. I think, is this how it’s going to be? Is this how you become a slasher?

The Chicken man goes chicken and pushes the door open, but says, “I’m calling the cops.”

After I get done with those important bathroom duties, using the amenities I took for granted: a mirror, water, toilet and TP—those things. I pull over past where you air up the tires on the farthest edge of the gas station. Maybe he will think I left. I should go, but I’m tired of being run off.

Traffic whirls by speeding ten or fifteen miles over the speed limit. Most of them are on their phones, distracted and barreling down the street. All these people out there, grabbing at the world. They want everything. They want to stop me from what I want too. I wouldn’t mind getting my gun out and opening fire on the traffic—paint some windshields red. I stop and try to be reasonable.

I do a little Gratitude mantra: I can walk, talk, see, hear, taste. The sun’s out, God loves me, I’m not in jail, Goings (my ironic dog), that’s nine or ten… I get into my glove-box and get the gun and stuff it down my pants and hang my sleep wrinkled shirt over it. The power of the gun brings a deep abiding serenity that is hard to understand. Number ten I’m grateful to have a fully loaded Taurus GX2 pistol.

I set Goings’ dog food dish on the oil stained cement by the passenger side away from the traffic and pour his dog food into his blue bowl. I put Goings on a leash and he gobbles up his dry dog food. I’m already out of the wet food I put on top.

Goings has his habits. He has to use the bathroom. I lead him over to a small patch of grass where a telephone pole grows out of it. He waters it and then he does a little circle and hunches up like a rabbit. I study the telephone pole reading a homemade flyer, giving Goings his privacy. Someone on 4th Street is having a yard sale today. TOOLS and BABY CLOTHES. The cop pulls in and he comes up to me.

“Get that fucking mutt off the grass.” He says.

He starts to say something else, but his eyes get so big I thought they might fall out of his skull. The recoil of the gun jumps in my hand and a brass shell ejects and tumbles like it might fly forever before hitting the pavement, while this act of slow motion was happening and the sun was glinting off the magic ejecting shell the cop died. His whole life and everything he had become, stopped. Everything he was and wanted—gone. His last foul words silenced by the loudest and last noise he will ever hear.

Then I went into the gas station and executed the chicken man. Unloaded the whole clip into him. The punctures are not like the silent trees I shot. These are soft and screaming! He was hard to kill, like trying to kill a sleeping bag, or THE BLOB, or skin filled with yellow fat and no organs, but he went down. Knocking Styrofoam cups and red straws everywhere. I rifled through the cash register, then knocked everything off the counter stealing rolls of lottery tickets. Like a cyclone blew through there. I put those in a Speedway plastic sack. I got us a big broasted Charlie’s Chicken breast and cleaned out the potato wedges, so I guess I will become a thief.

I tear off strips of the chicken breast for Goings, careful not to give him any bones. My ride and die little buddy, Goings, eats again while I cruise down Jefferson street and we pull into the bank parking lot. The sirens are whooping across town. I guess something has happened? I reload the clip with greasy chicken fingers. The bullets smell like chicken, and my thoughts smell like the river.

The mortgage is due on a certain bank manager’s life. Him and I made a pact. But he didn’t know it was a pledge of death.

Goings yawns and climbs onto his dog bed in the back seat. He makes his home where he can find it.

Christopher Ananias

Image: Gas station at night with lights shining on the pumps from Pixabay.com