The Filling Station: Stories

[GICheeze]

Damn, that's like shooting Dirty Harry at the start of a Dirty Harry movie... 

You may want to consider a Pinned TOC with links for this...

Good work!

[TopBoost]

Kristin laid the baby down, stood by the crib, watched her daughter’s chest rise and fall.  She turned to the window, stared out at the overcast day.  Her breath fogged the window, the chill of the first frost of the season finding its way into the bedroom. Earth and sky met at the tree-line in the distance, bare branches standing out like charcoal streaks on canvas.

Top was dead, her world fallen to pieces.

But she didn’t cry.

Not at first.

No, first was the news.  The old man, McQueen, had answered the door the morning the police came.  He said she had stumbled, backpedaling from the officers blocking the doorway.  He said she stumbled and almost fell, but he caught her.  She would have said that she knew, right then, that he was dead.  If she was honest, she would have said that she knew the moment the doorbell rang.  The senior officer was an older man, not much younger than McQueen. 

He was the one that told her.

She remembered the glare of the morning light reflecting off his bald pate and his neatly trimmed white goatee.  She remembered his suit, in such contrast to the drab brown of the uniformed officer.  She remembered the quick flash of his badge, his introduction of the officer to his left.  But most of all she remembered his words.  Well, not his words exactly, but the shock that they carried, like she had fallen through the ice of a frozen pond.  Disbelief.  Numbness.  A symphony of static.

And then cold, clinical, calm.

“Are you sure” She asked.

The man in the suit nodded, solemn.

“Yes, ma’am.”

McQueen told her that she nodded.

“How do you kn-“

“We’re sure, ma’am.  We don’t think…”  The man in the suit paused. “He still had his wallet and ID on him, ma’am.”

She felt the tears on her cheek, but they felt like they belonged to someone else.  She felt like she was reading words on paper, lines scripted for another; an understudy.

The man in the suit rubbed his eyes.

“Maybe you should just come down to the station, ma’am.  We need you answer some questions about your husband.”

She remembered that McQueen spoke then, put his calloused hand on her shoulders and squeezed, enfolded her in the crook of his arm.  He smelled like cinnamon and pipe smoke.
“We’ll do that,” he said.  “We’ll do that.”

And so she did.

She didn’t cry at first.

And then she found that she couldn’t stop.

[Blooze]

Doin' good Top...

$

[TopBoost]

The stack of bank statements, bills of sale, and car titles sat untouched on the kitchen table.  An herb-garden sat wilting in the window sill.  A pile of baby bottles threatened to overrun the sink.  The house stank, but still Kristin found herself staring out the window, lost in the cold gray morning when there came a knock at the front door.

The baby huffed and rolled over in her crib.  Kris sighed and decided to go downstairs to see who was there before they decided to start ringing the doorbell.

To her surprise it was a scruffy looking man in grimy Dickies walking back towards a trailer attached to an ever scruffier looking Dodge Ram.  Sitting on the trailer was a dusty, primer gray sedan. Kris wasn’t fooled by the plain steel wheels.  The ridiculous hood scoop belied its nondescript appearance and she knew that under all that fiberglass was super-powered Hemi.  The man turned, saw her standing at the door.

“Driveway ok?” He called.

Kris nodded and the man ducked inside the sedan and fired up the engine.  The Hemi was deafening, its roar bouncing off the brick and siding of the neighborhood houses.

So this was the car Top bought.  An image of him flashed before her eyes, so real she could smell his Axe body spray.  She could see his too-long hair scooped behind his ear, his lop-sided goofy grin as he ran his hand over the fiberglass hood.  He really would have loved a car like this one.

An overwhelming sadness came over her then, an ache deep inside her chest, like a broken bone that just wouldn’t set. She sighed, willing back tears.  She flipped open her new cellphone and dialed the number down at the Filling Station.

[TopBoost]

Later, over Chinese take-out and diet coke, Kris confessed to McQueen.  The older man was patient, listening as she unloaded the weight of the world off her shoulders.

“The bank is going to take it all back, Mac.”  And it was true.  Top’s teaching job dried up with the school-merger.  Her cupcake shop was never more than a diversion, a way to spend her time with the baby while Top traveled the Forza Motorsport North American tour.  But his racing career was a smoking ruin after the catastrophe at the Proving Grounds and would’ve shut down all together if not for that ass-hat Mason filling in [and why oh why had Top chosen HIM of all people to drive their cars.  She’d offered to get Jake back from Tuscaloosa to drive but Top wouldn’t hear it. No, he’d gotten that redneck bastard Mason to drive.  She’d heard about some his antics already since he’d been driving under their banner.  At least Top had made him drive his own Charger instead of the Impala or the Z.].

And the Filling Station, her family business, never did more than break even. And lately it had been tough to keep the numbers in the black.  But somehow Top kept the money coming in.  Kris was smart enough to know that it wasn’t all from their winnings on the race circuit.  Mason was fast, no doubt, but he wasn’t THAT good [Her mind flashed to the Dodge parked out in the driveway for an instant.].  But what exactly he WAS doing, he’d never say.  When she pressed, he shied away.  When she pressed harder, he became defensive.  Not angry, but reluctant to come clean, as if he were ashamed of whatever it was that took him away all night. 

“But damnmit, Top,” she said one night not long before everything changed. “You have a baby.  You have responsibilities HERE.  I need your help with her.  You’re gone from dusk til dawn. What the hell do you DO? Fight crime? Pole dance? What?

At that, he’d frowned.  Just the slightest downturn to his mouth, but she caught it. 

“You caught me.”  He put his arms around her then, a crooked smile on his face.  “How’d you ever find out I was dancing again?” 

And just like that she was laughing and she jumped up, threw her legs around his waist and covered his mouth with her own and they struggled to be quiet and to not wake the baby but at the back of her mind she realized that he still hadn’t told her what was going on but as long as they could make the house payment and he was alright [and as long as they could keep Mason in tires and gasoline] all would be right with the world.

And then one night Top didn’t come home.  And then dawn broke, the sun waxed and waned, and there was still no word.  She made the drive in her Audi to Verizon and picked up a new cell.  She called everyone she could think to call and no one had seen or heard from her husband.  Then that night she caved in and called the police.  They suggested she call the local hospitals.

So she did.

And with a mixture of relief and growing anxiety she thanked each receptionist for the good news that “no one by that name has been admitted in the past forty-eight hours.”  And then another day passed.  She called the police again.  The male voice on the other end asked if there had been a fight at home or any strong words and did her husband have any medical conditions.  She waited and slept and waited.  The old man shut down the station and came over.

And then policemen were at her and her world came apart at the seams.

[TopBoost]

REBOOT in the works.

[TopBoost]

...ecaf eht ni poT tohs dna ,tekcaj sih edisni morf MM9 sih dellup ,dereens tiuS ehT

  .esluvnoc ot nageb eH .dias poT ”!huG“

.tekcos eye sih ,waj sih ,keehc sih gnihsurc ,ecaf s’poT otni ecrof lluf hcnerw eht gnuws ,kcab dehcaer ,hteet sih dettirg tiuS ehT

.bos delgnarts a tub gnihtoN .niaga maercs ot deirt poT

”?TCUDORP .YM .SI .LLEH .EHT .EREHW“

.ssecorp eht ni sdnah delgnam s’poT dna ,smra riahc eht gnipsalc ,deraor tiuS ehT ”!EM TA KOOL“

.lrig elttil sih dna efiw sih rof deyarp eH .neht ot nageb eH  .hcum suseJ ot deklat t’ndah poT

”.em ta kooL“ .dias tiuS ehT ”,poT“

.gnirepmihw ,kcab dehcnilf poT  .hcnerw eht fo daeh eht htiw nihc sih detfil tiuS ehT

 ”,poT ,no emoC“

.dloc erew yehT  .spit eht morf gnidurtorp enob fo spmuts ,riahc nedoow eht ot ereht deit ,das os dekool yehT  .sdnah gnideelb ,elprup roop siH  .sdnah sih tuoba deirrow saw eH .bos a no dekohc eH ?yhW ?mih eveileb eh t’ndluow yhW  .mih eveileb t’ndid tiuS eht tuB  .spord eht nar eh retfa tnew htem eht erehw wonk t’ndid eH  .wonk ot detnaw yeht tahw wonk t’ndid eH ?!?netsil yeht t’ndluow yhW  .delgrug poT

.roolf eht ot ti gnikcilf erofeb tnemom a rof ti deredisnoc ,hcnerw eht fo daeh eht morf lianregnif s’poT dekcip eH  .eetaog etihw sih ,tius etalucammi sih dettod doolb fo skcelf elttiL  .naelc yats ot gniyrt pu nevig dah tiuS ehT  ”?taht saw tahW“

  .sraet dna taews htiw dexim ,hteet dekcarc s’poT hguorht delbbub doolB

.pots meht ekam ot gnihtynA  .rebmemer dluoc eh gnihtyna ,semit dna setad deirc eH  .eman s’rethguad ybab sih demaercs eh ,lleH  .efiw sih ,sdneirf siH .wenk eh elpoeP  .seman demaercS  .hcum os demaercs d’eH  .taorht deniur sih ni gnikcarc eciov ,demaercs poT

  ”.eniF“

.dnah tfel s’poT no sregnif eht gnihsurc ,nwod hcnerw eht thguorb tius ehT

 ”?yllaeR  ?poT ,eb ot gniog s’ti woh s’taht oS“

[TopBoost]

The crowd was deafening.  Jacob was pressed from every side by a tidal
force of sweating bodies, lost in the dizzying flourish of banners,
pennants, stickers.  A symphony of chaos.  The scene whirled maddeningly
in his vision, flashed white, color slowly seeping back in.  His ears
were ringing.  He stumbled on a cobblestone, caught himself, winced as
the tear in his side opened wider. He cradled his torn stomach,
swallowed blood and mopped cold sweat from his brow with his free hand.


He had to find the girl.

Her blonde hair, the perfect shade of summer, unkempt, hanging in her
face, in his face as she straddled him.  The warmth of her breath on his
neck, whispers in the afternoon light.  

She was everywhere, nowhere.  Vendors hawked their wares, cries pealing
above the din of the plaza.  Tourists in expensive kit ogled the angels
in the architecture.  Rough shoulders and backwards glances.
Double-takes at the pale bleeding man.  Jacob staggered through the
throng, eyes darting wildly.    

The drop was planned perfectly.  Just execute.  Just make it work.  So
simple. A lark.  She had to be here.

The knife.  That was the problem.  A blade in belly will waylay the
best laid plans.  Had he not planned the same for her? Karma.  There was
something to it. He grinned through a mouthful of blood-stained teeth.  

So beautiful. You couldn’t think around a beautiful girl.  Jacob
shuffled to the corner, slouched against the ornate iron lamp standard.
He cast his eyes up, shallow breaths whistling in his chest.  The
delicate ironwork in sharp contrast to the august haze, loops, and
swirls.  Circles.  The gaslamp not yet lit.  Black stars fluttered in
the corner of his vision, cold fingers and a tingling in his gut likethe
first time got laid.  Like meeting her.