Pit Stop

It was right outside the gas station that I hit the guy. 

At least, I thought I did. It is not necessarily my fault that my memory isn’t the best, and how was I supposed to know this gas station would have a casino attached? A casino with drinks? I was there, getting some beef jerky, you know, getting a Mountain Dew, refueling my Civic with the busted air conditioning, getting ready to get back on the road, basically. And I’m walking to the bathroom, getting ready to piss, and I see this dark door and I can just barely make out some flashing lights through the tinted glass.

And now I’m thinking oh shit, I’d better call my sponsor, because this is about to get bad. I haven’t had a cell phone in months. I need to use the payphone, but I don’t have any change, I just have a twenty. And I think to myself, you know, most of the time I can’t even remember the last two digits of the guy’s phone number. I can’t remember if it goes 85 or 58. And I’m also thinking that it’s 11:30 at night, that this guy’s got two kids, and that, honestly, I should be able to do this. I’ve been doing 12-step for like, two months now, I should be able to get a handle on these urges.

Hand to God, I tried. But the next thing you know I’m sitting down in a big leather chair in front of a keno machine, and this hefty woman with a sizable mole erupting from her left cheek is asking me if I could use a drink and I’m thinking yes, I’ve been driving a long time, it’s hot, even at night, I could probably use a drink. And I have another, and that doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of money to play Keno with, so I’m about to quit but then, on my last $0.50, I hit fucking big and make all my money back plus ten dollars. So I have two more quick drinks and, to be honest, I’m not sure why they would serve alcohol right next to a gas station, in the same building, really. 

I’m having a good time right up until the money runs out, and it might just be that I’m having too good of a time, because I have a little trouble getting out of my chair, which is admittedly pretty comfortable. I tell myself the lady with the mole doesn’t notice but she must, because she gives me a stare as I leave that I feel boring a hole in my back. 

I go back to the bathroom and splash my face with some water. I buy a coffee, a big one, with lots of pumps of Coffee Mate to mask my breath, and step into the parking lot.

The highway adjacent to the gas station is pitch dark, an inky, unmalleable blackness that makes me want to go back inside to the keno machines to gamble until sunrise. But I have somewhere to be and a long way to get there, so I ease into the car and start it.

I do not recall pulling onto the highway, but I do recall the sickening bump a few seconds later. I do recall feeling, somehow, through the floormats, the sickening, pulpy squelch of tires over flesh, the shattering of a frame, all punctuated by a THUNK as my head whacks the roof of my car and I spin around 180 degrees and crash into the big green Sinclair dinosaur. 

Where this gets tricky is there is nothing on the road. There is not any blood on, around, or under my car. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I hit something, that whatever it was had been organic, that I killed it. Even though there is no visual evidence, even though I pull my car next to a pump, crawl underneath and examine every single square inch for traces of organ meat, I find nothing.

I pull the Civic back into my original parking spot and, not knowing what else to do, I go inside. 

This time, there is still beef jerky. There is still coffee and lots of Coffee Mate. But the interior is completely different. There is a whole row of artisanal snacks that did not exist before, bags of dried snap peas and yogurt covered pretzels. I feel like I’m going to vomit, and head for the bathroom. At least, I head for where the bathroom was earlier; now, it’s a hallway leading to an adjacent Subway sandwich shop, which is closed. 

Dazed, still sort of plastered, I walk back to the snacks.

“Are you all right, sir?” asks the kid behind the counter, a completely different kid than before. 

“Didn’t there used to be a casino here?” I ask him. 

“No,” he says.

I bolt outside. I run straight for my car and find it completely dent-free. Not only that, but when I look up at the sign illuminating the pumps, I see that it is now a Shell station. No dinosaur in sight.

I scramble, checking every inch of my car, looking for blood, then for cashout receipts, empty beef jerky bags, anything to prove that I was at a Combination Sinclair Gas Station and Casino gambling away my last twenty dollars just an hour before. Anything to prove I was not going insane, because hitting a guy would be better than convincing yourself that not only did you hit a guy, but that you were at a completely different gas station.

I run toward the road and crouch down where I think I might have struck whatever it was I think I struck. I get down on all fours, pawing at the ground, feeling for human wetness. I smell my fingers and pray this is all in my head. I do not notice the headlights approaching and as I am crushed beneath a sedan of some kind, all I can muster up is surprise.