Page 74 - WTP Vol. X #7

GasCo (continued from preceding page)
“Yeah, she came up to me after service while you were talking to Dusty. She said she thought it was so wonderful how you were giving that young man a chance.”
“She said ‘young man’?”
“She did. I think that’s pretty good, for someone her age. Everybody keeps saying they know it’s you that gave him the job, not that company, and they’re all very impressed. You always hear people say that those people are beyond help—the homeless, I mean... you know what I mean. It takes a lot to give someone a second chance.”
“Well...” I trailed off.
“I just mean... people in small towns always like to think we’re nicer, that we take care of each other; and you’re the only one putting your money where your mouth is, putting yourself on the line for him. It takes courage.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It’s true, honey.” She patted my hand. “People are really proud of you.”
I couldn’t take credit for it. He was the one turning things around for himself. And anyways, I didn’t do it for him, I did it for me. I hated not being my own boss. I didn’t own the place before, but everyone in town knew I was in charge, and now I had to wear a shirt with my name on it to remind everyone whose bitch I was.
I couldn’t stand being under someone else’s rules. I’d done that at jobs since I was too young to drive,
and now I had to do it again? Like this guy Paul, this faceless corporate guy; like he has any idea what it’s like to live in this town. Like he has any idea what the people here want. All those guys know how
to do is put people out of business, undercut the prices wherever they go so they can take over, and then once they do, they can charge whatever they want because now they’re the only game in town. I wanted to show him what their little policies were good for. Maybe we’d already lost the war, and soon everything would be a GasCo or a Wal-Mart or some dumb chain, but I had to believe that you can’t run
a place with rules; you need a person in charge; you need someone like me.
That night in bed, I made Patty promise me she wouldn’t go bragging about how I was helping out
Tony unless somebody else brought it up. She agreed, though I’m not sure she understood why. I just couldn’t stand the thought that they’d think I really believed I was helping anything. I was starting to believe it. That was the part I didn’t like, being proud of myself. Or maybe I did like it, but looking back, I don’t like it now.
~
It rained one night, the first time in almost two months. It was really coming down. Tony was standing by the pumps, watching it, waiting to see
if it’d stop so he could head home. I was there late since Trevor had a track meet the next day, so I’d given him the night off. On the computer I had to credit it as a “personal day” and it told me he got two more of those this year, which meant if they went to State I’d have to figure out something else to call it.
“Why don’t you let me give you a ride?” I asked Tony. “I don’t want you getting wet.”
“No, thank you,” he said. “I don’t want to ride in anybody’s car.” That was true—he never let people drive him even when they offered, just walked back and forth every day. I think there was another rea- son he was sticking around: that underpass flooded when it rained; he’d probably get soaked trying to sleep there.
I didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just stand there all night, and I couldn’t let him get pneumonia somewhere; where was he supposed to go? They said he couldn’t sleep at the store, so I have to let him get wet under the highway or find some other place that’ll be just as freezing? The forecast said it might hail; when they say “golf-ball sized,” they’re usually wrong, but that’s easy for me to say when we can
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