The Thought Instigator
I recall my first time encountering a self-service gas station. I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I had been propositioned by a hooker at the hotel the night before. A not attractive hooker. A significantly overweight, not attractive hooker who apparently was working the hotel dining room targeting guys dining by their lonely lonesome. Well, I was alone, though not lonely. I liked my own company.
That evening, however, being inexperienced in such worldly ways, I felt trapped, back to the wall, cornered, and doubtful of my ability to flee past this foreboding figure I thought would have made a fine addition to the interior of the defensive line of a semi-pro football team. Happily for me – as I mumbleingly declined her offer of company, she was already looking about for her next target and moving on. Playing the odds, I thought – hit on a hundred to score one? Like telemarketing? I wondered which field had a better success rate.
I resumed my meal, shoveling my chow while trying to tell myself to slow down and be cool, nevertheless avoiding all eye contact. And chuckling that I had actually just been propositioned for my first time. The further away she waddled, the braver I became.
But then the reality of the situation jumped in front of my down-cast eyes and swayed side to side before me. This person was freely, casually, roaming the room. What self-respecting hotel would allow that? I gazed about and decided I saw a wait staffer with a keen build and dark, imposing mustache nonchalantly following her movements as he fiddled with his hands in a stack of dishes, making little if any progress.
Aha! I decided that the fellow must be running the room, and her. No one else garbed in hotel gear stopped, looked, or listened – or, apparently, cared. This gringo was a random mark. As were the other solos scattered about the vinyl-clad seats. No, the rest of the staff lumbered about their business ignorant of, bored with, or disinterested in the goings on that had teetered inches from my face.
Time finally came to settle my bill and I caught myself as I was about to jot the room number on the check. Um, uh uh. I could hear the southern belle’s knock at my door from her casual glance at the bill I’d have just left behind. I rifled about in my wallet, knowing that neither did I want to run a credit card transaction that could have my name on it, and breathed more slowly on learning I had enough cash to include a reasonable tip. For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom but somehow made sense, I felt the need to reward someone for my successful escape from who knew what end.
Or would I! I deftly slalomed though the tables feeling increasingly vulnerable as I aimed, determined, for the elevators, up which I’d flee to the safety and anonymity of my room. But as I stood before them waiting for the painfully slow elevator to arrive, I thought I felt the whisper of a sleeve against my arm and my new friend’s presence at my side. Did she intend to ride up with me? Was I cornered, again? Would I have to flee?
I turned on my peripheral vision and slowly scanned, motionless, for her presence – and found none of her imposing self nearby. Either my imagination or a swinging kitchen door from across the room created a breath of air that rustled my sleeve. I looked back at the elevator and saw the floor counter perched above the doors – and as I casually gazed back toward the dining room caught a glance from an otherwise innocuous, skinny bus boy. The image of that dark, imposing mustache loomed over me. “This guy must be running the room,” I’d thought. Therefore, the skinny bus boy had to be a lieutenant, if that’s the correct terminology. Or perhaps a soldier. That had to be it; he was too young to be a lieutenant.
I entered the empty elevator and quickly punched at the “Close” button a dozen times until the door closed with no one joining me. I just knew the lad would wander over to watch for the room number to display when I reached my floor, so I immediately flailed at the buttons and pushed each one two floors below mine and four above, as well as my own. I disembarked at the first floor we stopped at, the elevator and I, and ran out and searched for the stairs. I was not disappointed. I flew up the two flights as the elevator stopped at each floor, opening its doors at mine as I finished fumbling for my key several doors down the hall. It continued on its way as I quietly flipped the latch and left the lights off. I sat staring out the window in the dark for a while, eventually laughing at my idiocy. Or was it vast vigilance?
So, I recall my first time encountering a self-service gas station. I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, as noted, and I was caught off guard by the “Pay, then pump” sign on the machine. I got out and looked around, and no one came to see me. “Pay, then pump.” Huh, that’s so not homelike, I thought. That’s so – southern? Or was I a gringo, a mere gringo, a stranger in another land, isolated from the real world, a world of not attractive, overweight hookers and self-serve gas stations? A world of imposing mustaches and unknowing ways?
I went inside and didn’t know what to give the guy. How much to fill it? I had no idea. What was the protocol? If I paid too much would I have to go back in for change? Would I even get change?
I handed the guy a 20, went back and pumped 20 dollars of gas, slowly at the end, careful to not go over, not knowing it would stop at 20. I thought I’d have to go back in to pay the extra 23 cents if I over pumped. What did I know? What did I really know about anything? I got on the highway in my three-quarters full rental car, the nondescript, bland, safe highway. Black top and white stripes, like anywhere else. I kept thinking I’d have to pull off eventually, and what would that world be like? I drove in silence wondering where I was and what the hell I was doing there. I felt like I was supposed to want to go home – yet I was too jazzed, too jacked to do anything other than reflect that there were actually worlds beyond my own.
