John Brandon - A Million Heavens

THE GAS STATION OWNER

He turned off the radio, which always went to static this time of day. He had the disassembled parts of an old pricing gun on the counter, and he finally gave up on the thing and scraped the parts into a cardboard box with his forearm. From his stool behind the register he saw a slick sedan with California plates roll up to the nearside pump. It was that gal who was renting out Terrence’s place. She had on a cream-colored coat with a city look to it that she buttoned up as she stood by and watched a kid about young enough to be her son select low-octane and get the pump chugging. It wasn’t her son. The gas station owner already knew it wasn’t her son but after the kid got the nozzle set up the gal leaned him against the car and planted one on him. The gas station owner had seen the gal around but had never laid eyes on the kid. If he had his own car, he got gas for it elsewhere. The pair of them were still smooching, so the gas station owner averted his eyes. He idly tapped the keys of his adding machine, thumping out a nonsense sum. The truth was, it was nice to have a new couple in Lofte. The town didn’t get new couples. It didn’t get new anything. When the gas station owner had moved here, all those decades ago, it had been as lively and hopeful as any place. The turquoise trade had still been humming. Families couldn’t wait to take car trips across the desert in their station wagons. The gas station owner had thought he was making a bold change, making his own way in life, moving from predictable, peopled Albuquerque to this spirited basin outpost. The spirit was gone now. The money was gone. If the gas station owner tried to sell his house now he’d get about enough for a steak dinner and a beer. And he hadn’t even escaped anything. He was in the same old desert, living by the desert’s rules — still, in his heart, afraid of the desert. He’d never challenged it. He’d only taken an elk or two from the desert when an elk was offered.

When the Audi was full up, the couple came into the store. The gal asked for the restrooms and the gas station owner pointed the way. He got a jolt of pride about once a week when a lady asked to use his restroom because he kept it spotless. The gal disappeared into the back hall and the kid stepped to the counter with cash wadded in his hand. He stood there without saying anything, squinting against the light of the big window behind the gas station owner.

“What brings you all from California?”

The kid glanced out toward the car. “She’s the one from California,” he said.

“Oh,” said the gas station owner. “What about you then? What lucky burg has the pleasure of claiming you?”

“I’m from all over,” the kid said. “I guess I was born in Ohio or something.”

“Ohio. Never been. Is it nice?”

“Every place is the same,” the kid said. He wasn’t squinting anymore. “Some places it rains a lot and some places it doesn’t rain at all. Other than that, every place is exactly the same.”

“How are they the same?”

“Bunch of people acting like they know what they’re doing when really they don’t know shit.”

“I never heard it put like that before.” The gas station owner stood up off the stool. His knees weren’t what they used to be. He wanted to ask the kid more questions because the kid obviously didn’t want to answer them. “Did you all move out here for work?”

“I work at that observatory,” the kid said.

The kid counted out the money owed for the gas and put coins with it. He set it on the counter and the gas station owner left it sitting there.

“That place where they listen to the stars?” he asked the kid.

The kid nodded.

“Aliens were trying to get hold of me, I don’t believe I’d take that call.”

“I want this too.” The kid picked up a bulky chocolate bar off a rack and put another dollar with the money.

“I’m Mr. Fair,” the gas station owner said. He offered his hand and the kid set his jaw and reluctantly shook.

The kid didn’t give a name, so the gas station owner asked him for it.

“Why do you want my name? What’s the point?”

“I’m a curious old codger. I’m a curious old codger and you’re a respectful young man. When we run into each other on the street, we’ll know what to say.”

“I could give you a fake name,” the kid said. “Give me a minute to think.”

“Everybody’s got a name and everybody’s from somewhere. And I don’t believe you’re from Ohio.”

The kid started unwrapping the chocolate. Without looking up, he said, “If I had a cozy spot in the world like this I’d never leave it, either. I’d stay nested in all day and wait for people with things to do to stop by so I could talk their ears off.”

The gas station owner chuckled. “Nobody gave me this station, you know. It wasn’t a gift.”

“I’m just saying, you’re really good at sitting inside it.”

“Thank you.”

“You got a talent.”

“And how about you? What’s your talent?”

“I’m a people person,” the kid said.

“Yeah, I was picking up on that.”

“Everyone’s got to make a cozy place, don’t they? Whatever way they can. You got your ways, I got mine.”

The gas station owner was impressed. The kid was like a plucky raccoon poking back at an old bear. The gas station owner tried to think of something else to say, something to confuse the kid, but then the gal came back out from the restroom, a placid look on her face. The kid broke the chocolate bar and gave the gal half, and she nuzzled his cheek. She said goodbye to the gas station owner and then the kid held the door open for her. The gas station owner watched the pair all the way to their car, leaning into each other and gnawing on their candy, but neither looked back at him. He lowered himself back down onto his stool and then sat still, his back straight, nothing moving inside the station except settling dust.

He sat in the basement of the motel he ran, the Javelina, watching a movie about a mayor who slaughtered all the new people who moved to his town. The psychotic mayor looked like Colonel Sanders, and this was making Mayor Cabrera hungry for fried chicken. Fried chicken wasn’t something he cooked himself, and Lofte’s lone restaurant didn’t offer it.

The motel had two guests, two single men, and they were probably settling in for the night. They wouldn’t bother Mayor Cabrera. He wanted fried chicken but his nose was full of the scent of elk stew. He was sick of elk stew. The mayor on TV was holding a big cookout in the town square. Whenever he spoke loudly, addressing the crowd, his accent got Southern. The whole premise of the movie, to Mayor Cabrera, rang false. As mayor of a small town, you needed every new citizen you could get. You would never murder your own tax base, your own economy. If there dwelled within you homicidal urges that could not be suppressed, you would drive a couple towns over to do your killing.

Mayor Cabrera’s town, Lofte, was in trouble. Two guests? The business at the Javelina told volumes about the health of the town, and two guests in a night was not enough to break even. Mayor Cabrera didn’t want to be mayor anymore. Being the mayor of a healthy town was one thing, but being in charge of a doomed town, going down with the ship and barely being compensated for it, was another. Usually being mayor didn’t mean much more than sitting at the head of the table during town council meetings. The other members kept the budget, brought items up for votes. Soon enough, though, Mayor Cabrera would be called upon to lead. He would be looked to.

Mayor Cabrera stood and stirred the elk stew. He took his shirt off and sat back down in his undershirt. Mayor Cabrera wore button-front shirts adorned with Western scenes because out-of-towners seemed to like it. For town meetings or when the occasional Turquoise Trail bus tour came through, he even donned a cowboy hat. No one could pin down Mayor Cabrera’s ethnic background, not even him. He had some United States Indian in him and some Mexican Indian and some regular Mexican and probably some regular American. Lofte, which was mostly poor white, had elected him, he believed, because they considered his murky blend of heritage to be perfectly New Mexican.