I drove over the fat rope thing
that made the bells ding and
ling and then this grease monkey appeared
at my open window, wearing braided ponytail
with his Speed Racer eyes, brandishing
a tattered broach rag thing he whipped
about like … *what?* about twenty
watts of dirty lariat– surely
a dervish with a nascent
flourish.
"Fill her up?" he asked.
"Nah," I said "seven bucks of unleaded." …
"Seven bucks?"
"Yah."
This was a spot in Cougar, Washington where they still
did Full Service; in fact, if you tried to pump your own
a placard said they're just as like to call the law. Before
the days of video poker machines, or virtual speed balls,
a standing ad in the Thrifties maintained somebody
could come over (even, or especially, in the middle
of the night) to buy your car for scrap,
you sign over the title, oh, it never
seemed right.
"Check that oil?" said the kid.
"Sure," I said, as if late
for a picnic, Christ, needing a shave, and some
hitchhiker with brown Gandhi face and bomber
jacket, just to come shambling up the medium
island, change the direction
of my life.
Now the kid was going
great guns, Quixotic with squeegee
and copious ammonia bug juice in the middle
of my pane. Only 9 years prior,
Mt. St. Helens had blown
the cap off that whole face, and I knew
I should have been someplace, by then:
a feeling it, in my bones, yet you could get
plum discombobulated driving those winding
roads, up around Cougar. The sun
shining, like to break your freaking
heart; this kid had a tattoo of a miniature
anchor, inches away from his carotid
artery swinging like clapper
inside a bell. All of it, added
up just as well to a feeling
of being recounted
later: in a week, I'd lose
my ride to those cage crushers out of Gresham, fat
Sopranos with pompadors, that hideous running ad
inside a Thrifty. Little black snowflake smudgies
and a silver ball of steel, no bigger
than any picnic basket.
"Check that tire pressure?" said the kid, wiping
his forehead you haven't seen skinny until this
sweat, and then hiss, what I'd be telling you
about … "Nah," I said "listen how I get back
to Portland?"
He pointed south with left
hook, or claw I hadn't noticed
till now, sun glint on chrome, luminous moon
cuticle drilling down to the no thumb, no thumb,
no bone at all sir so piteous young and full of
jones. "Here," I said handing out my last
tenner, open window, scent of black tar
and choke cherries, fresh baked bread
infused by 3 in 1, I'd just turned thirty
two, up in Cougar sometimes smoking
rubber, and I hardly ever used
the rear view.
Dennis Mahagin is the author of the chapbook, "Fare,"
available from Redneck Press, and the print collection,
"Grand Mal," published by Rebel Satori Press
