July Welch had a thought once. Actually, July has had many thoughts in his twenty-seven years of breathing, eating, and sleeping, perhaps even up there in the few dozens. Still, only one of those thoughts came back to him now as he pushed his Honda Civic up to almost sixty miles per hour, the engine screaming for an oil change that’d be pushed off for a few thousand more miles still. The thought had been born back in his touring days with his band, the Mothers of Babylon. They’d piled into Stew’s old Astro Van and had taken a pit stop at some random gas station along the stretch of a highway for a leak and a spicy chicken sandwich when July made the astute observation that unless the workers had a bungalow outback then they actually were willing to make the drive out here every day to sling chicken sandwiches to road randos. He’d laughed at the thought back then. What kind of loser would choose to work in the middle of nowhere for barely more than minimum wage?
The thought still made him chuckle as he drove to his job in the middle of Nowhere where he was making barely more than minimum wage. The key difference between July and those other losers was that, unlike them, this loser hadn’t made a choice. His mom had. Besides, this was just a transition period . Today he’d be running a register, tomorrow he’d be registering for a spot in an art gallery. Ignoring how he’d also need to make art, he just needed to find a gallery. All the ones he had checked out so fair were commercialist bullshit fronted by wannabe hipsters that only signed on their friends. They were the kind of place to hang up posters of future Hallmark cards, not a place for his true art that was still only in his head.
A psychopath in a big rig driving seventy passed him with their horn blaring, although July didn’t notice it over the sound of a distorted guitar holding a sustain continued to rattle the life out of his speakers and his eardrums. So he was a bit of a slow driver, so what? He wasn’t late and bad driving had put an end to his aforementioned tour. It hadn’t been five hours before Stew had wrecked the van, effectively killing the tour that was going to last one more hour getting there, plus thirty minutes of playing, and then six hours back to their hometown. July may have left over creative differences, but the death of the van killed what momentum they had and made it so that leaving was the only smart option. Who knows where he would’ve been if the tour had gone off without a hitch. Perhaps he’d be playing right before the headliners instead of being the opening act.
The foreboding note ended and was immediately followed up by the exact same chord that was somehow darker sounding. It was the kind of note that evoked images of pagan sacrifice on the darkest nights of the coldest winters. July felt a chill run down his spine. This music right here was the exact kind the world would hear when the trumpets were blown to call forth armageddon. Pure, earth-shattering doom. What a jam! He had been dreading it earlier, but the tunes had absolutely energized him for the night shift. Between bites of burger and sips of a flat Coke he shrieked along with the guttural vocals in perfect disharmony.
The Gas-Way Express appeared on the horizon, the ever slight haze of leaked gas making it shift like a mirage. The gas station was a shining beacon in the cold darkness of the I-205, the last bastion for all things human, inhuman, and automobile to refuel. The sight of it made July’s face sour, or perhaps that was from the dirty bomb of odor that was released through his car when he tossed the burger wrapper into the mass grave of wrappers, for some reason saved as if they were the skins of an animal from a great hunt, in the backseat and had managed to knock free the one wrapper that was keeping the rot contained. July was thrown into a coughing fit as he turned into the Parking Lot, the ghosts of burgers past assaulting him for his food crimes.
He parked next to another car, cracked the windows, and killed the engine. The screaming drone of music died in the arms of the Civic as July stumbled out of the car while coughing into his hand and looking like a man possessed. July took a moment to catch his breath and then, upon realizing that he didn’t really enjoy having it, lit up a cigarette. There were still a few minutes before his shift according to the slow clock on his dashboard, so he wouldn’t have to bother himself with taking care of the tiny dolls in line he had spied through the windows just yet. He sucked in on the cigarette and then exhaled the cloud of smoke. He tapped his black fingernails against the filter, sending red embers that drifted through the Parking Lot like will-o’-the-wisps. July reckoned he was far enough away from the pumps to be safe from sparking a gas fire. If not, he was close enough to his car to save himself.
The cigarette was on its last legs and the line had only just begun to move, but July was unconcerned with the present. Like any man who found themselves in a dead-end job, he was looking for a way to give himself a brighter future. Namely, he was looking for a way to not have to drive home in a smelly car. The solution was a simple one. July opened the back doors of the Civic, drew in his breath, and gave the mountain of wrappers a massive shove. They surged forward like a tidal wave and poured onto the pavement like an avalanche. A few more shoves and the backseat was clear, and a couple of deft kicks shimmied a majority of the balled-up wrappers into the free parking spot next to July. His problem was now the Pump Attendant’s problem. It was the way life should be. He craned his neck to see if he had gotten away with his crime and smiled. He was truly a mastermind.
Except there was one small problem. July’s eyes widened in horror as he realized the one hitch in his perfect plan and looked through the cracked window of his car to the red Gas-Way vest that had been stewing inside of the biome for days now. It’d smell like old burgers for sure. A dead giveaway to the yokels who worked here, where playing
What’s That Smell? qualified as entertainment. He tugged at the collar on his black button up shirt.
Crap. July did some quick thinking and came up with a plan. He hurried to the front door, stopping only for just one more cigarette break as he reached the side of the building, and then rushed inside.
July almost bumped into the happiest looking trucker in the world who, upon seeing July’s post-modern vampire cosplay, instantly shifted his face towards disgust. It happened again as he dipped between a middle-aged woman waiting in line. She looked as if she had just been told the most wonderful and earnest of compliments in her life, but when July quietly apologized the look she gave him made him feel as if he had been the root cause of everything she hated about herself. As he ducked around a display of jerky he saw the woman’s gaze turn back to the front of the line and her face return to a state of serene bliss. July followed the look and saw that Rory was running the register. He smiled and forgot all about the dirty looks those squares had given him.
Wait, why was he standing around? Rory was too busy being amazing to even notice that July had slipped in like a shadow. July turned on his feet and entered the breakroom. His eyes scanned the coat hangers like an owl on the hunt for a field mouse and he charged forward like a bull at the sight of the red vest. He ripped the article of clothing off of the hanger, threw it on over his clothes, and took a quick look at the nametag still pinned to the chest. Jenn? He could live with being a Jenn. Jenn probably had a savings account. He ran his fingers through his hair and took a look at the note pinned to the corkboard. Refill the slushie machine before tomorrow? Tomorrow as in the tomorrow after today, or tomorrow as in the tomorrow after their shift? It was a confusing note. Unclear. He could probably use that as an excuse not to do it.
July punched the clock like a happy worker drone, cocking an eyebrow at the timestamp suggesting that it was already after ten. The clock must’ve been broken, because he was certain that he wasn’t late. July strolled out of the breakroom like a man marching to his own grave and shuffled behind the counter towards the register like a mummy. The employees only spot was his sarcophagus, the wall of cigarettes were the canopic jars full of his useless organs, and the take a penny, leave a penny was his faithful cat that his followers had seen fit to also kill for some religious reason instead of just taking it to an animal shelter.
Rory, Anubis, the one who could free him from what would be a night of suffering by sending him home early, was looking wistfully out the window. What was he looking for? Past the pumps was only the dark void of Nowhere. Before he could think to clear his throat to not startle the man, July’s face appeared in the reflection of the void looming over Rory’s shoulder like Nosfreatu about to bite down into the neck of a young, pretty actor. July halted at the sight of his own face which, when compared to Rory’s angelic features and handsome jawline, needed to have a bag thrown over it, ideally one without any holes and made of plastic. God, life was truly unfair. July felt terrible that Rory would even have to look at him.
“Oh, hey, sorry if I scared you, boss,” said July, his voice surprisingly soft and sweet for a tall man who heavily smoked cigarettes and used to regularly destroy his vocal cords through guttural screams. He smiled as the lie came through his lips so naturally that it felt like July was telling Rory how nice his hair looked today.
“Do you know who’s on lot duty tonight? Some customer dumped a bunch of trash in the Parking Lot and just the thought of all that litter ruining the environment makes my heart break. I would do it myself, but...” He gestured to the register and the empty line.
“Well, you know, gotta be here for any of our wonderful customers.”
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