Gas and Go

In the summer of 2010, gas prices got as high as $32.50 a gallon, but cars kept lining up outside Jack Greene’s Gas and Go. They did until the day in August when the pumps ran dry. At first, Jack was annoyed when the tanker didn’t show up with the regular delivery. His customers were downright pissed. When Tuesday rolled around before the 18-wheel delivery, Jack knew the gas wasn’t coming.

One by one, he covered nozzles with plastic bags, and taped cardboard “No Gas” signs to the pumps. A big guy in an F-150 asked when they’d have fuel again and Jack answered as honestly as he could.

“Don’t know. Maybe never.”

Back in the shop, Olivia was hunched over the black-and-white TV behind the counter, coughing blood into a clump of tissues. Jack found her oxygen tank in the back room.

“You gotta keep using this, hon.”

She slipped the breathing tubes into her nostrils as Jack pulled back her hair, the color of sheet metal where once it had been a soft red. A few more coughs and she pointed at the set. Rioting. Just a few miles away in southwest Detroit.

They closed early that night but didn’t go home. At 9:15, Jack put Liv to bed on a cot in the back room. She had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and they were nervous, even though they both knew what Dr. Bakshi would say.

She should have quit smoking years ago, that was easy to see now. There’d been plenty of warning signs. Even after the doctor found the dark spot on her lung, she’d kept smoking her menthols for another year. Only the blood in her cough quieted her aching cries for a smoke, but by then it was too late. They’d find out for sure in the morning, but it seemed too late for a lot of things.

He popped a can of Coke and lit a Marlboro Light, a 12-gauge Mossberg on his lap.

In the morning, Dr. Bakshi waited at the reception desk himself. He apologized through a thick accent – Indian or Pakistani or something – explaining that his nurse and receptionist hadn’t shown up. In the exam room, he listened to Liv’s lungs. It was a formality.

“The biopsy results were not good, Mrs. Greene.” He spoke with a sing-songy voice and sad eyes. Even though he was speaking to Liv, he looked directly at Jack. “The mass is malignant. It is spreading.”

Liv asked the question. “How long?”

“This is hard to say,” Dr. Bakshi said. “It could be weeks, perhaps months. Probably weeks.”
Jack put his arm around her. “Is there anything we can do?”

“I’m going to prescribe some pain medication. Very strong. I’ll give you samples to start.”

The doctor left the room and Jack took Liv in his arms. Neither of them cried until Liv choked out the words, “I’m going to miss you, Jackie.”

When the doctor returned, he pulled Jack aside and pressed the pills into his hand. “Give her one every 12 hours. It will help with the pain.”

“Thanks, doc.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be back in the office next week.” The doctor shrugged. “I live in Canton – a long way with no gas.”

“I know.”

“I’ll give you my pager number, but if she needs help, go to a hospital, OK?”

Jack nodded, but the doctor wasn’t finished. “I can give you the number of a good hospice, but with the gas situation, I don’t know if they are taking new patients.”

“It’s OK,” Jack said. “I’ll take care of her.”

The doctor motioned to the pills in Jack’s hand. “One every 12 hours. You can give her more if she needs it, but no more than five at a time.” He paused to make sure Jack understood. “Five or more would be lethal.”

Jack nodded. He understood.

It didn’t seem right for his wife to spend her last days on a cot in the back of a Gas and Go, but they’d run the place together for most of their lives. Why not die there too? Besides, she wouldn’t go home.

“I might be dying,” she’d said, “but you still gotta make a living.”

He hadn’t told her how close they were to losing it all, but the reality of their situation became clear when they pulled into the station. Neighborhood kids streamed out the front door with cartons of cigarettes, cases of beer and Faygo. Jack threw the wrecker into park and hopped out, pulling the old 9mm from under the seat.

“My store! Get outta my store!”

They weren’t all kids – some of them were guys from the neighborhood Jack recognized. He shot a round into the air and screamed until they were gone. Then he and Liv went inside and found Martinez on the floor, his Gas and Go smock soaked in blood. Jack called 9-1-1 while Liv tended to him, but the phone just rang and rang. It didn’t matter; the kid was long dead.

By nightfall, the governor had declared a State of Emergency. So did the governors of 21 other states. Jack watched it all on the black-and-white. According to the newsmen, the State of Emergency would enable the governors to call up the National Guard for peacekeeping, but it wouldn’t do much good; most of the National Guard had already been deployed to the wars in Saudi and Iraq. Every now and then a military jeep passed by on Michigan Avenue. The drivers looked old and scared.

By midnight, a crowd had gathered around the station. Jack turned out the overhead lights, but it didn’t do any good. They lit a bonfire in the street and lobbed beer bottles at the windows. Jack called 9-1-1 again, but no one answered.

At 1:07 a.m., Jack went to the back room with Liv’s pain medication and a bottle of water, the raspberry flavored kind she liked.

“Why are they doing this to us?” she asked, her voice weak and her breath shallow.

“We sell gas,” he said, “or we used to.” He stroked her hair and popped six pills out of the sample package. “Don’t worry. No one’s getting in here tonight. I promise.”

Then he gave her the pills and told her he loved her. And he did. He’d never loved her more.

When she was asleep, he went back up front and smoked four cigarettes before the first guy followed a brick through the window. Jack put a 9mm slug in his chest, watched him fall onto a stack of newspapers, three days old. No one came for his body, but at least two dozen others watched from across the street. They’d be along soon enough.

On television, rioters in Denver were burning a gas station to the ground. Jack sank to the floor and popped the magazine out of the Glock – only five rounds left and dozens of those bastards outside. He ran the ammo back into the gun and lit another cigarette. When he’d smoked it down to the filter, he stubbed it out on the floor and got ready to make four shots count. He’d save the last round for himself.

Written by Thomas Frey II

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