Page 94 - Demo

%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK82 Jack FritscherAhead, I saw a store called %u201cFred & Alice%u2019s%u201d with a single red gas pump. I drove in kicking up our own cloud of dust. Rip and Kenny walked into the store as a really old Fred sitting on the porch looked toward me.%u201cFill up?%u201d he shouted.I waved at him to keep sitting. I had learned how to pump gas filling up all those tanks at the Mason%u2019s filling station where hardly anyone who knew me even recognized me. A gas jockey is such an opposite of a seminarian. People don%u2019t notice the one and fall all over the other. Except for one time, a girl, when I was leaning over the hood washing her windshield, she spread her knees way apart and held her two dollars in her fingers between her thighs and neither one of us pretended to notice what she was doing.%u201cHey, kid, like you want any?%u201d Kenny yelled from the porch of the store. All over the rustic wood front of the station, Fred had nailed metal signs for Coca-Cola and Lucky Strike. Kenny stood next to a three-foot thermometer shaped like a Drewry%u2019s beer bottle. The temperature was 94 degrees.%u201cAny what?%u201d I yelled.%u201cLike beer, man.%u201d%u201cI%u2019m driving.%u201d I walked closer to the porch.%u201cDon%u2019t be a dick,%u201d Kenny said. %u201cI figured because you were underage, you were afraid to come in.%u201d He disappeared back into the general store. Fred thanked me for a buck-fifty for the seven gallons. I was happy. A guy I didn%u2019t even know called me names. I was passing. I was one of the boys.%u201cYippee!%u201d %u201cPut the beer in the back seat,%u201d Rip said. He and Kenny each carried two six-packs. %u201cI wanna chug.%u201d%u201cPut it in the trunk,%u201d I said. %u201cI don%u2019t want any trouble with the Wisconsin Highway Patrol.%u201d%u201cYou boys be careful now, hear?%u201d Alice came out to the front porch wiping her hands on her store apron.%u201cHey, lady,%u201d I yelled. %u201cYou%u2019re a witness. I%u2019m being kidnapped.%u201d%u201cTo the Point, man!%u201d Kenny yelled.%u201cI%u2019ll drive you, but I got to be going.%u201dAll the way back Kenny yelled %u201cLullaby of Birdland%u201d and Rip would yell, %u201cDa da dee%u201d and they%u2019d laugh like some Morse Code to a punch line of an in-joke. For the third time in twenty minutes I passed the two kids pushing the bicycle. This time they stared as the red Volkswagen roared by.