by Barry Rachin
In December the weather turned sharply colder with temperatures dipping well below freezing in the early morning hours. Ava began dressing in layers. At the Emerald Square Mall just over the town line in North Attleboro, she bought a pair of fleece-lined snow boots, thermal underwear and a week’s worth of heavy-duty, woolen socks.
Snow came down the first week in December. From the relative warmth of the gas station office, Ava watched the fluffy whiteness envelope the blacktop. An hour later with the snow already several inches deep, a metallic blue dodge Caravan pulled up at the last row of pumps. Ava traipsed out to car. The driver didn’t even bother to roll down the window. Rather, he cracked it open, an infinitesimal sliver, and barked, “Fill it with regular. Check the oil.”
Thump! The hood of the minivan lurched upward as the driver pulled back on the latch release. Ava loosened the gas cap. She topped off the tank, raised the hood vertical and pounded on the driver’s side window with a gloved fist. “We need to be clear about something.”
Reluctantly, he lowered the window. The man’s pleated tuxedo shirt was outfitted with shiny black studs, a cummerbund encircling his waist. “Is there a problem?” The tone was shrill, petulant. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Problem is, you’re always in a hurry.” Ava leaned her elbows into the van depositing a clump of dry, powdery snow in the man’s lap, “As I recall, every time I fill your gas tank you ask me to check the oil but never purchase anything else. If I didn’t know any better …” She didn’t bother to finish the sentence.
The man shoved a credit card through the window. “Forget about the stupid oil.”
Ava processed the card and brought it back to the car. The fellow mumbled something angrily under his breath. “Excuse me?”
“Just close the hood so I can get back on the highway.”
Ava gazed out across the whiteness. The dry cold didn’t bother her. The new woolen socks and fleece-lined work boots kept her feet toasty warm. If anything, the crisp, early-season snow was invigorating. She bent down and stuck her nose up against the frosty glass. “Not this time.” She strolled back to the office, turning around in time to see the Caravan fishtailing crazily out of the gas station.
A steady flow of customers passed through the Texaco Gas Mart up until dusk, when the streets became completely deserted except for an occasional snow plow. In the cramped office, Ava flipped the space heater on high to take the chill out of the air. Around eight-thirty a foot of snow was already blanketing the ground. A lone pickup truck skidded around the corner and pulled into the station. Rufus, wearing a stocking cap and green plaid jacket, slogged through the packed snow toward the front of the building. “Any of that wallpaper fall down yet?” the tall man inquired with a sly smile. He had a face like a lopsided, weather-beaten pair of shoes, the heels worn away at a perverse angle.
“It’s still where you left it,” Ava grinned back at him.
“Hell of a night to be pumping gas.” Rufus arranged himself in a chair and extended his damp boots toward the heater.
“I might not be long for this job.” She told him about the musician floundering around in the snow.
Rufus made several vulgar references regarding the piano player’s parentage then cracked his knuckles. “That Danish philosopher you mentioned the last time I saw you...”
“That would be Soren Kierkegaard.”
“What would Mr. K say about the bonehead in the blue Caravan?”
Ava thought a moment. “‘Think of a hospital where the patients are dying like flies. Every method is tried to make things better but it’s no use. Where does the sickness come from? It comes from the building; the whole building is full of poison.”
“Society is morbidly sick, and the piano player is Typhoid Mary.”
“In a matter of speaking, yes.”
Rufus let loose a throaty chuckle, the steamy air floating toward the ceiling. “At least you turned the tables on the creep by refusing to do his bidding.”
“If he complains to the boss, I could lose my job.”
“Do you care?”
Ava grinned brazenly. “No, not at all.” A car pulled into the station and the girl went out to pump the gas. “Why did you come here in this awful weather?” she asked when the customer was gone.
“I like talking to you.”
“But you hate people. You’re a self-proclaimed misanthrope.”
“True enough,” Rufus returned, “but you’re the exception that makes the rule.”
“I’ll take that as a backhanded compliment.” Ava slid open the ‘Lost and Found’ drawer and pulled out the velvety, pea green pouch. “What do you make of this?” She emptied the contents on the table.
Rufus stared at a ratty-looking book, the cover of which had been completely torn away, and three brass coins. “Are these subway tokens from another planet?” The three coins were about the size of quarters but thicker with square holes in the center. The surface of each was inscribed with an exotic script.
“This,” Ava picked up the frayed manuscript, “is a copy of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Change, and the coins are used to predict the future.” She told him about the fellow with a penchant for lottery tickets and chewing tobacco who ran off in the rainstorm. “A week ago Tuesday, was the two-month anniversary so I decided to open the bag and take a peek.”
Rufus gazed out the window. The snow was leveling off now with no additional accumulation; like a Frost poem, the pristine whiteness exuded a certain picaresque serenity. “Do you understand how it works?”
Ava held one of the queer coins up to the light. “Assign the value ‘three’ to each head result, and ‘two’ to each tail, and then add the values. The total will be six, seven, eight or nine. A chart in the back of the book explains how to interpret the numbers and construct hexagrams from the bottom up.”
Rufus picked up the book and thumbed through the tattered pages at random. “Have you tried it yet?”
“No, but my brother got himself in a legal mess. My family has been going through a difficult time lately, so I thought I might give it a whirl.” Without further explanation, Ava reached for a switch on the wall and the huge, fluorescent display sign over the diesel pumps went dark, shrouding the entire front lot in silvery shadows. “My boss called just before you showed up. He said I could close early with the snow.” She threw a separate switch that killed power to the individual pumps then reached for the three coins. “What do you think, Rufus?”
The man smoothed his droopy moustache in a repetitive, soothing gesture. “Oh, why the hell not!”
Ava tossed the coins up in the air and watched them clatter onto the Formica surface of the counter. She added up the numbers, which came to six, took a piece of paper and drew a broken line.
____ ____
“Old yin.” Ava threw the coins four more times and each throw produced another broken line.
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
“Strange!” Rufus muttered. “How come everything keeps coming out the same?”
Ava shrugged. “I keep getting six or nine,” she explained, “which is a broken line.” On the final throw, the coins added up to seven.
__________
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
____ ____
Ava ran her finger down a glossary of all sixty-four symbols in the front of the book until she reached the twenty-third. “The Po hexagram indicates,” she read from the accompanying text, “that it will not be advantageous to make a movement in any direction whatsoever. The first six divided, shows one overturning the couch by injuring its legs. The insult will go on to the destruction of all firm correctness, and there will be evil.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Rufus growled.
Ignoring the questions, Ava returned to the text, but all the
remaining broken lines leading to the top held an ominous message. Finally, she pointed at the topmost solid line. “The undivided line becomes the prominent or principle one,” she was reading from a separate commentary printed in smaller script toward the lower portion of the page. “Decay or overthrow has begun at the bottom and crept up to the top. Small men have gradually replaced good men and great until only one remains; and the lesson for him is to wait. The power operating against him is too strong.”
Agitated, Rufus rose to his feet. “For God’s sakes, what question did you ask?”
Ava’s face was ashen, her lips compressed in a tight band. “Can’t say.” She slammed the book shut and returned it to the suede pouch along with the brass coins. Putting her hat and gloves on, she said, “I’m going home now.”
“Did you get the right answer?”
“Right answer, wrong answer... You don’t necessarily get what you’re looking for,” Ava replied evasively. “The I Ching doesn’t work that way.”
Rufus held the door open for her. “Would you mind if I stopped by again some time?”
“No, not at all,” she replied, pulling the door shut and checking to make sure it was properly locked, “though, like I said, it’s a contradiction in terms, for a misanthrope to want to spend time with anyone.”
Around two in the morning Ava called Rufus. “You got home safely in the snow?”
“It was a little icy, but other than that… How’d you get my telephone number?”
“It was on the wallpaper receipt. Would you like to go out with me?”
There was a short pause. “What did you have in mind?” he stammered.
There’s a Brazilian film playing all week over at the Avon Cinema on the east side of Providence. The movie is in subtitles.”
“Yeah, I’d like that..”
“I’m through messing around with the I Ching,” Ava blurted, almost stumbling over the words. “Finished. Caput. I’m returning the green pouch to the Lost and Found drawer.”
“Okay.” Rufus seemed mildly confused by her persistence. “Whatever you think is best.”
“I brought it home and, about an hour ago, flipped the coins one last time.”
“And how did that work out?”
“A hell of a lot better than the first time.”
“So you got an answer you liked?” It was the same question Rufus raised back at the gas station, just worded differently.
“I asked two completely different questions,” Ava qualified so it’s not a fair comparison. “Let’s just say I’m rather pleased with the way things turned out in both instances.”
There was a protracted silence. Ava had the distinct feeling that Rufus was mulling over what she had just told him. “More recently,” he pressed, “what question did you ask?”
“It’s a long story. Tell you about it when I see you.”