Stone Angels

by Michael Hartigan

  He rubbed his eyes and pushed past me, making his way behind the counter. I followed but took the customer’s customary place on the other side.

  “It’s Bob-O,” he said with a yawn.

  “Huh?”

  “My name. It’s not Bo-Bo, like a clown. It’s Bob then O.”

  “Oh. My bad. Sorry about that,” I feigned apology. “Well I just wanted to fill up. Probably take fifty.”

  I handed him the one hundred dollar bill from the envelope. His face screwed up in annoyance.

  “Not from around here, eh friend?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “We don’t get many of these around here,” he waved the hundred like it was on fire. “Actually we don’t get many people in here that I don’t know personally. So that tells ya something.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. But thank God you’re open. I coasted in here on fumes from the highway. If you were a few more minutes down the road you would’ve been coming to get me in that tow truck you got out there.”

  Bobbo huffed.

  “That’s if I answered the phone, friend. Pretty deep sleeper, I am.”

  He punched a few buttons on the relic cash register and started flipping through bills. After a minute it became obvious Bobbo was having trouble making change.

  “You wanted fifty, right? I don’t have a fifty to give back, friend.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll take whatever bills you got.”

  “That’s the problem, I don’t have enough in here to make fifty. I gotta go out back and open the safe. Be right back, friend.”

  “No problem, Bobbo,” I said, pronouncing it wrong again. He scowled and made his way into the small office behind the counter.

  I moved over a little and watched him dig through the desk. After finding a small black notebook, which I assumed held the safe combination, Bobbo got to finding me some change.

  I looked away, not wanting him to think I was a thief. I studied the wall behind the counter. It was covered with local advertisements, lost pet notices and a dispenser for rolls of lottery scratch-off cards. An old plastic cigarette pack holder was hung underneath a novelty singing fish. All were typical backcountry gas station paraphernalia.

  All except the frame hung right in the middle of the wall. There were no ads or lost cat papers crowding it, just a halo of off-white cinder block. The black plastic frame outlined its contents, a bright red piece of paper, demanding attention and a tinge of urgency. It must be important. Every regular customer waiting for change would notice it immediately if they just refocused their eyes over Bobbo’s shoulder. The paper would have peeked around him, flirting with locals and travelers like myself, daring them to ask the obvious. Since I took an indirect route to the cash register and had an indirect encounter with the slumbering Bobbo, I only just recognized the fiery notice. Without Bobbo, I was free to investigate the paper. It was the only object in proximity that didn’t immediately belong with the redneck motif.

  I checked on Bobbo still trying to open the safe then glanced back at the frame. In order to read the black letters on the red paper I leaned as far over the counter as I could. I propped myself up and stood on my tiptoes, braced by my hands on the countertop.

  Whoever designed the message clearly harbored strong sentiments and certainly wanted every human in search of gasoline to believe in their blazing credo. But he must have had incredibly good eyesight or terribly poor vision because what he had in flare, he lacked in basic color scheme and graphic design.

  I dangled precariously over the counter’s back edge and squinted to read the text.

  In the frame was a list of ten items with the list’s title in big bold letters that read: “The Paradoxical Commandments.”

  I started reading them out loud but softly under my breath.

  “One: People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered. Love them anyway. Two: If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway. Three: If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. Four: The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Five: Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.”

  I paused at five and read the line over again, this time in my head.

  Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

  I read five over once more. I couldn’t pull my eyes from that line. I think I hated it. But I totally agreed with it.

  Uneasiness and some other uncomfortable emotion began creeping down my brain stem, into the buzzing nest of nerves. I had to move on to number six. I never got the chance.

  “Hey friend, what the hell are you doing?”

  Startled, my hand slipped and I stumbled backwards off the counter. I caught my balance on a candy rack before I fell, Bit-O-Honeys scattered on the linoleum. As I pondered the fact someone, somewhere still enjoyed Bit-O-Honeys enough for them to continue being manufactured, I looked up to see Bobbo standing behind the counter. He held a wad of bills in one hand and the other was resting on the screwdriver next to the cash register. His fingers started curling around its handle in anticipation of trouble.

  “What? Oh shit, no. I’m sorry Bobbo,” pronouncing it correctly for the first time. I put my hands up in a gesture of innocence.

  “You trying to get into that register, friend? I wouldn’t try it.”

  “No, absolutely not Bobbo. I just want my change and to pump my gas.”

  “Then why was you climbing over the counter, friend?”

  “I wasn’t. I was just trying to read your commandments back there.”

  Bobbo looked confused. His knuckles whitened around the screwdriver.

  “What are you talkin’ bout.”

  I pointed to the black frame behind him. He hesitated but I shook my outstretched hand in assurance. He turned quickly and his stressed face calmed. His grip on the tool loosened. He gave me one last look up and down and concluded either I was no threat or that his lumbering frame could easily subdue my inferior one. Or at least he was confident in his ability to stab me with the screwdriver.

  Bobbo punched a few keys on the register and the drawer popped open.

  “Yeah, that there’s Mo’s idea of employee training,” he offered as he shuffled a few bills.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Mo. Mohammed, Ajay Mohammed. He’s the owner of this joint, my boss. This is his station,” he said and without looking up, pointed to the glass storefront.

  There on the window next to the door were white adhesive letters. From inside the store the words were backwards but still easily readable. I read out loud, “Ajay Mohammed—Owner.”

  “Yup, that’s him. Good ole’ Mo,” Bobbo said, his words laced with sarcasm. He handed me two twenties and a ten dollar bill. “He puts them things up in all his stores around here. Says we should all live by them rules like they’re a code or sumthin’. Says if we all did, we’d change the world.”

  His belly jiggled with a deep, cynical laugh. Bobbo clearly was only a believer as far as it earned him a paycheck.

  I put the money back into the white envelope and stuffed it into my back pocket. Then I asked a question just for the sake of conversation. I had to make sure Bobbo wasn’t planning on following me outside wielding a screwdriver. I mimicked his cynicism, hoping to keep his mind away from that possibility.

  “So this can’t be Mo’s only gas station. How many stores does he have? Probably need a lot if he wants to change the world with a piece of paper.”

  “About ten or twelve, I think. Has ‘em from here on up through Georgia. Mo’s got the dough. He’s a little wacko, comes in here once a week always pointing at that damn list and askin’ me if I’m livin’ by the code. Then goes out back to count his money.”

  “What do you tell him?”

  “I always just say yes, boss. It’s easier that way. But I don’t think I’ve ever

  read the whole list. I figure when you got all the dough li
ke Mo, it must be nice and easy to go around livin’ all good and honest and preach to other men. He don’t have to worry about two kids, an ex-wife or paying rent.”

  I was getting more information than I really wanted. It was time to bid Bobbo farewell.

  “Well Bobbo, thank you for being open. You saved my ass,” I said and turned to exit the store. I took one last look at the framed red paper list before I did.

  “No problem, friend,” Bobbo said. “Sorry ‘bout sleeping on ya. And for not having the change right away.”

  “No worries,” I said. “Have a good night. I’m sure you can head back to sleep now.”

  I pushed through the door next to Ajay Mohammed’s backwards name. As I did, Bobbo yelled out one last sarcasm.

  “Hey friend, don’t forget to live by the code!”

  The glass door closed behind me and I laughed. But it was an uneasy laugh, the kind that jolts your insides for a second like a tiny, unconscious punishment.

  I could feel the tremors of another headache. I thought of turning back to Bobbo and buying some Tylenol, or perhaps he knew where I could get something stronger. But I had enough Bobbo for one night. And for some reason, I really did not want to go back into the store. My body was instantly averse to standing in front of that red paper again.

  I walked back to the Explorer in a daze, my mind hopscotching around the image of the red list of commandments on the store wall.

  A few times it landed on number five. Be honest. Tell the truth regardless of the consequences.

  It was a novel concept I never lived by. In twenty-one years of life I had done some bad things. I had hurt some people. Revealing truths would certainly have consequences, life changing ones. Being honest would make me vulnerable. I wasn’t comfortable with vulnerable. But was I comfortable with the current state of things? Maybe I was warming to the idea of change.

  The rear passenger side door was open. Shoddy was staring unconvincingly at the retro gas pump, a credit card in his hand.

  “Hey Auggie,” he mumbled when I reached him. He was the only one that ever called me that and he did so infrequently. “You know this thing doesn’t take credit cards?”

  “Yeah, I already took care of it. Paid inside with Bobbo the attendant,” I responded, not looking at him. I was looking back into the car, checking to see if the girls were awake. Shoddy must’ve noticed the direction of my gaze.

  “She’s still asleep, don’t worry.”

  “Good,” I said, finally looking at his face.

  “You alright man? You look like shit, with those bags under your eyes. Like a raccoon coming down off a bender.”

  Where did he come up with those analogies? It didn’t matter. I barely registered this one anyway. The haze of headache surged.

  I stared at Lindsey’s face pressed up against the glass.

  “Hello, Augustine Shaw, wake up bro,” Shoddy said and waved his hand in front of my face.

  I blinked and looked back into his eyes. We stared at each for a few seconds.

  “You ain’t been right lately, bro. You’ve been off all week. I haven’t seen you this bad since, well, last Friday night outside Primal Bar,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” I got defensive.

  “Before we left for Florida, last week, we went out drinking? Something happened that really fucked you up.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but the words weren’t ready. Almost, but not quite.

  “Forget it,” he said. “I gotta take a piss. Did you see a bathroom inside this shithole?”

  “Um, I’m not sure. Go ask Bobbo in there. And don’t call him Bo-Bo.”

  “Bo-Bo, got it. I’ll be back. You want anything?”

  I just shook my head no. Shoddy shrugged and headed for the store.

  After he left the haze descended again.

  Taking the handle, fitting it into the gas tank, squeezing the handle. It was all done almost instinctively. I didn’t even look at the numbers swirling by on the old pump’s face.

  I instinctively went back to staring at Lindsey. Her breath had fogged the glass a little near her mouth and there was a tiny wet smudge from drool. She didn’t look comfortable. The seatbelt cut into her neck. There was a slight red mark around the strap where it gently compressed her skin. But she must’ve been sleeping well. With the door behind her open I could hear her muffled snores. They weren’t feminine but they weren’t Neanderthal either. More like heavy breathing. Her unconscious way of letting me know she was still there.

  Lindsey must have felt me staring at her because for a moment she woke up; or at least her eyes snapped open and locked on my own. They were a deep blue: almost unnaturally so, with a hypnotic way of grabbing the attention of the opposite sex. Her lips curled up at the corners in a sweet smile. The way her head was tilted, resting against the window, gave her a coquettish smirk. I had seen it that way before.

  The headache I anticipated exploded at that moment. A sharp pang sliced from ear to ear. It was a familiar pain but something I had never become accustomed to.

  About a year ago I started getting the headaches. I had migraines as a teenager, but these were different. They came strong and fast; they dissipated just as quickly. I assumed it was some onset of adult migraines. But I never went to a doctor, which in hindsight was probably a bad idea. Over the last week, since the morning we left for Florida, they came with more frequency and force. I never told anyone about them. I stuck with the migraine thing. I handled it as a young teen, wasn’t something I had to worry about now. Besides, I was always good at hiding my emotions, especially pain. I hid pain really well.

  What I had trouble with was guilt. It was what ultimately was going to get me. Not the headaches or speedy driving, but the mutinous guilt. Guilt over so many things that in so many ways hurt so many people, Lindsey included. It was corrosive. It chipped away the ramparts I erected to hide some things. The guilt was stronger than a sledge, more precise than a jackhammer and more determined than a late-1980s Berlin twenty-something. The pain was just a warning—a warning that the wall would soon come crumbling down.

  Yes, the guilt was going to get me. The wall had cracked. I had to get control before a flood spilled through unchecked. You want one thing but you get the opposite, the dichotomy of control. You want to be honest but it makes you vulnerable. It was time to stop seeing that as a bad thing.

  Chapter 3

  With a snap the gas handle kicked out, breaking my grip and catching the meat of my palm in its ancient metal trappings.

  At the same time Lindsey, her face pressed against the inside of the Explorer’s passenger window, snapped her eyes shut. She was back in dreamland. Was she actually awake or had I daydreamed it?

  I looked down at my right hand, a chunk of which was wedged in the pump handle. It hurt like hell, but I made no immediate attempt to remove it. The world outside the backwoods gas station was in slow motion. The pain in my hand was nothing compared to the searing headache ravaging my brain. And the newfound wound only served to draw my brain—albeit temporarily—away from its own battle.

  The synapses fired, sensors started tingling, my fingers numbed. Blood trickled out in a thin, leaky strip over the metal hinge of the pump handle. The blood was rusty looking under the orange fluorescent gas station lamps. The normally healthy scarlet color was off, tarnished and sick looking. It wasn’t bright red, like the framed list inside the gas station store behind the counter.

  That damned scrap paper. I couldn’t shake it. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

  I watched a blood droplet slip from my hand to the handle to the open air, freefall to the ground and make a tiny splatter in an oily puddle. A rainbow of red-orange hues shimmered in the greasy ripples.

  The pain I could deal with. Neither the fresh cut nor the headache hurt as much as the look Lindsey had just given me.

  Whether she was awake or not, real or imagined, her look made me realize how poorly I trea
ted her. I regretted taking advantage of her friendship. I felt guilty about making her the rebound after a girl she could never live up to.

  I did what I could about that situation. I said my apology. Lindsey accepted it. In an unspoken moment a few hours earlier, we had concluded our affair. But that didn’t mean there was nothing left to say.

  I still had the headache. The guilt was still hammering away at the wall in my head. I hadn’t told her everything. In truth, I hadn’t told anyone everything. Not Lindsey, not Emily, not even my best friend Shoddy.

  I watched another droplet fall into the grease puddle.

  Perhaps it was time to knock down the wall myself. The truth would flood out like blood from an open wound. I would be vulnerable, freefalling, destined to splash down and cause ripples. But I’d be in control. I would have caused it.

  A few blood droplets fell in tandem.

  It was time for the wall to go. It just needed a little push.

  “Hey man, you hit fifty exactly,” Shoddy’s voice floated into my ears. “How’d you manage that on this old piece of . . . holy shit! Dude, you’re bleeding!”

  He tossed a plastic bag he was carrying and hurried to me. He grabbed my wrist with one hand and with the other, pried my palm loose from the metal gas handle. The obstruction removed, the handle clicked into resting position. I let my hand fall to my side. Shoddy pulled the handle from the Explorer’s gas tank and replaced it back onto the old gas pump.

  “What the hell, Shaw?” he said.

  I just looked down at my hand, rolled it over palm side up, and examined the gash. The blood glistened orange-red in the fluorescent light. Honesty and frankness: what a novel concept.

  I looked up to Shoddy, back at my hand, then back up at Shoddy.

  “What the hell?” he asked again. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  His eyes widened with doubt and confusion. Shoddy bent down and picked up the plastic bag from the store that he had dropped. He pulled out a shiny silver can and stretched it in my direction. I didn’t take it. After a few seconds he shook it lazily to get my attention.