Tales From the Gas Station: Volume Four, page 35
part #4 of Tales From the Gas Station Series
“What?” I asked.
“If there’s any truth to my theory, you’ve got answers buried inside your bad memories. Trust me, I can sympathize with traumatic events involving family members. I know what it feels like to be betrayed and hurt by someone who’s supposed to protect you.”
Travis added, “The thing is, Miller’s like your kryptonite. You gotta stand up to him. I wouldn’t whistle you no Dixie on this.”
“But,” Rosa responded, “kryptonite kills Superman.”
“Hey, it’s not a perfect metaphor.” He leaned back and held something out to me. “Clearly, you’re in an emotionally vulnerable state right now. Here, take this gun.”
I ignored the proffered weapon until Travis got the hint and turned back around in his seat. I let another moment pass while I decided whether or not to ask this next question. Surely, I was making something out of nothing. But just to be certain, “What happened to your Uncle Aldo?”
Rosa flinched. “What?”
“How did he end up in that wheelchair?”
“It’s…” She looked away. “It’s hard to talk about.”
Holy shit! Was that dream real? I shook the absurd idea out of my head.
Travis opened his door and stepped out. “Time to move,” he said. “I see eyes moving in the trees. We stay put, we may as well kill ourselves and save them the trouble.”
“Rosa,” I said, trying to hurry along my point. “You don’t know Miller. He’s not a nice guy. Whatever you think is going to happen, forget it. The only decent thing he ever taught me was how to take a punch, and I’m pretty sure that was entirely accidental.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she assured me.
“How do you know that?”
“Because if he lays one finger on you, I’ll hulk out and rip his arms off.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.”
We pushed the car into a ditch and walked the rest of the way, Rosa carrying Gaston as he slept. The path was dark, but the stars and moon were brighter than average. Two more nights until the blood harvest moon. As we walked, Rosa went full investigative journalist. She wanted to know everything about Miller. “What did he do to make you hate him so much?”
“My earliest childhood memories are all about finding hiding places. On the days he came over to visit my mom, Miller would drink until he passed out. I’d say the booze brought out the monster, but that’s not true. If anything, the alcohol made it harder for him to find me. When I was seven, my mother handed me over to him for a weekend. I didn’t want to go, but seven-year-olds don’t get a say in these matters.
“He took me to a deer camp with his buddies. They drank like it was going out of style. Made me drink, too. Forced me to hold plates over my head while they shot them with pistols. That night, they went mud-hogging and brought me along. It took them ten minutes to realize I’d been thrown off the four-wheeler.
“When they came back around, I had a broken arm and a concussion. But Miller just laughed and told me to walk it off. When one of his friends pointed out how bad my injuries really were, Miller sat me down and told me he’d been drinking so he couldn’t bring me to a hospital. I was on my own.
“One of his friends felt sorry for me and dropped me off at the ER. Miller told me before I left that if the cops asked what happened, I had to tell them I ‘ran away from home,’ and got ‘attacked by a black guy.’ He said if I mentioned him at all, he’d kill my mom, and it would be all my fault.
“I never doubted that he might actually do it. My mother was really sick back then. He called her gross names. Said she was getting uglier every time he came to see her. A couple years passed, then my mom had to go away and get help. Around that same time, Miller packed up and joined the army as part of a deal to stay out of jail. And I went to my first foster family.
“To answer your question: I don’t hate him. I hate people. Miller’s more like a hurricane. I hate what he does. I hate the destruction he leaves in his wake. I’ve seen what he’s capable of up close, and so I take precautions to avoid him.”
Travis’s pace slowed a bit. I slowed to match him. “Shit, Jay,” he said. “I didn’t know all that.”
We came upon the driveway. Posted signs on either side warned, “Miller’s Guns - By Appointment Only” and “Trespassers will be shot.” I stopped and looked past the threats, at the end of the driveway, at the double-wide trailer. It was way smaller than I remembered.
Rosa knocked me out of my trance. “You haven’t seen your father since you were nine?”
If only that were true.
Things didn’t work out so great with the foster families. There were problems everywhere I went. I tried hard to make them like me, but one way or another, I kept ending up returned to sender. Then, at thirteen, I learned I’d found a forever home with a nice couple from out of state. They were rich, bored, and looking for someone who could pass as a biological child so they could parade him around at fundraisers. They promised a life of luxury, far away from here. But I knew I wouldn’t be happy. I knew I couldn’t leave this town. I couldn’t leave without Sabine.
And so, I called Miller. I asked him to adopt me. I promised I’d be good. I’d work for him. I’d do whatever he asked and never complain. But he told me he didn’t have the time to “take care of someone else’s kid.” So, I made another offer. I’d help him sue the state. Tell them he had no idea his boy was in state custody while he was off fighting for his country. With my deposition on record, Miller was able to take home a huge settlement check. The only hitch was that he also had to take me.
For two years, I lived in that trailer. I put up with daily abuses. A nightmare of quotidian horrors. I suffered it all because Miller’s place is only three miles from Goose Creek, and I could go and see Sabine whenever I wanted. When I turned fifteen, Miller shot a guy in a bar fight. He did a couple years upstate, I was taken in by Sid and Dianna, and the rest is pretty much history…
The only version of this I was able to come up with to answer Rosa’s question was a halfhearted, “Not exactly.”
She asked, “Is this jogging anything?”
“Nothing useful.”
Travis gave me a look that I took to mean he was finally starting to regret this plan. But then he turned away and started up the path. We followed behind. This place hadn’t changed much since the last time I was here. The giant Confederate flag hanging in the front lawn was a bit more tattered and faded. There were a few new bumper stickers on the already bumper stickerful tailgate of his truck. Miller was always a man of very loud opinions.
Travis climbed the wooden steps to the front porch and gave the door a special knock. Three fast, two slow, three fast. A second later, I heard movement inside. Travis turned to face the security camera in the tree behind us and put up three fingers.
I tried to prepare myself for seeing him again. He was always a big guy—a genetic trait that must have skipped a generation—but word around town was that he’d picked up a lot of mass in prison. I never came back here after his early release for “good behavior.” And he never came to see me at the gas station. I received the occasional drunk call or text once or twice a year. He’d act like we were always best friends, and he wondered when I was going to come by to do some hunting with him… I treated him the same way I’d treat any other stranger asking for my time. I was polite, but quick to get away. And now, after all these years, I didn’t know what to expect.
The door opened, and Miller pointed an automatic rifle at Travis.
“You boys need glasses? Or can’t you read the signs out front?”
Travis did the talking for us. “Hey, Miller. I know we ain’t supposed to drop in like this, but we got a real-life code red here. We’re putting together an army, and I figured-”
Miller stepped outside, shoved Travis out of the way, and looked at me. An unexpected grin spread across his face. “Hey there, baby-boy!”
I was too stunned to say anything. The rumors that he had put on “a lot of mass” in prison were not untrue, but they were a bit misleading. I still remembered him with his army physique, but the man in front of me had the shape and stature of a half-melted snowman. I took a look at the top of his head and wondered if that kind of baldness was hereditary.
“Miller.”
He let out a good-natured chuckle that smelled strongly of alcohol and said, “Obstinate little shit, ain’t he?”
“Hi,” Rosa said. “I’m Rosa. And this is Gaston.”
He eyed her distrustfully until Travis got his attention. “Miller, we need some weapons and a place to lay low from five-oh. You know I’m good for the money, but-”
“Who’s this?”
“Aw, this here is Rosa. She’s with me.”
The smile crept back onto his face. “I don’t know her daddy. But I know yours, Travis. You’re good people. If you say we can trust her, that’s on you.”
Miller stared at me… Time passed agonizingly … And then… “Come over here and give your daddy a hug.” The next thing I knew, he had me in his grip, an automatic rifle on my back, cheap alcohol fumes daring me to throw up all over him. “I missed you,” he whispered.
We had to leave Gaston tied up on the front porch. The three of us sat on the couch as Travis tried to explain the situation. I don’t know if he wasn’t paying attention or if the gunshot-related hearing loss had progressed, but Miller didn’t exactly register the urgency of our situation. He walked over to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and interrupted Travis’s story to ask if any of us wanted a beer. “It’s a dollar a can, or two dollars for a bottle. That’s cheaper than you’re gonna find at any bar around here.”
“Nah, we’re good,” Travis said before returning to more pressing topics.
Miller returned to the living room with two bottles. He handed one to Rosa and said with a wink, “Ladies drink free here.” Then, he fell into a recliner. “So, what brings y’all out here in the middle of the night? Y’all in some kind of trouble?”
Travis sounded flummoxed. “Are you serious right now?! That’s… that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time.”
“So is this your girlfriend?” Miller asked, pointing to Rosa and looking at me. “I’m just glad she’s a girl. We were worried for a while there. You coulda gone either way.”
“Wow,” I said. “You really are, like, the fucking worst.”
He sat forward. “What the fuck did you just say to me? You ain’t gonna come into my home and talk to me like that. You better show some respect before I teach you some respect.”
Rosa tried to put out the fire. “He didn’t mean it! He’s just tired. We’ve had a long day. People are trying to kill us, and it’s got us all on edge.”
Miller relaxed back into his seat. “No, he meant it alright. He’s had a stick up his ass ever since high school. He’s got a real attitude. Gets that from his psycho mom. You ever go visit her?”
“No. She asked that I stay away.”
He laughed. “Don’t take it personally.”
“I didn’t.”
He turned his attention back to Rosa. “You. How’d you meet little Miller Lite here?”
I’d completely forgotten how much I hated that nickname.
“We met at work.”
“Yeah, I bet you did,” he said doubtfully. I honestly had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it pissed me off anyway.
Travis tried once again to take control of the conversation. “We’re in a real situation here. We need to borrow the AA12, the .50 Cal, and the Saint Victor B5. We also need a place to crash until sunup.”
“Y’all can stay here,” he said. “You and Junior take the couches. But I wanna keep my eye on Ms. Señorita. I got some extra room in my bed.”
“She’s not interested,” I said.
“Why don’t you let her speak for herself?”
“Why don’t you ever take no for an answer?”
“Because I’m a got-damned winner, son!”
“Don’t call me that.”
He laughed and said in a teasing voice, “Oh, he’s still mad at me for what happened to his mama. But it ain’t my fault she was an addict. Did he tell y’all that? She couldn’t keep a job. Couldn’t take care of him. Couldn’t do nothin’ but beg me for money. Best thing that ever happened to Junior was when she got shipped away. I took good care of all my kids, raised ‘em right, but this one never wanted anything to do with me. He was always soft. Always a mama’s boy.”
Travis slapped his knees and stood up, saying, “Whelp. You know what, this is a bad time. We should just go, huh Jack?”
“Sit down,” Miller said, pointing the gun at Travis. He did as he was told, but Miller kept the weapon trained on him. “Y’all can stay here if you want to, but I gotta know I can trust you.”
“Okay?” I said, keeping one eye on the gun.
“Junior, why don’t you go get us a bottle and four shot glasses? You remember where the stuff is, right?”
I looked to Rosa. She was staring at the gun. “What’s your poison?” I asked.
“Let’s make it tequila in honor of our pretty little lady here. Little taste of home, eh muchacha?”
“You gotta stop it with that racist stuff,” I said.
He exploded, “Don’t you bring that social justice bullshit into my home! Explain to me how I’m racist when ninety-nine percent of the porn I watch is the Asian stuff!”
“You have a confederate flag in the front yard!”
“That’s your heritage, son! Show some respect.”
“You named your rottweiler the n-word.”
“And? How come they can say it but I can’t?”
“You’re literally a member of the KKK!”
“How is that racist?” He shook his head and repeated it for emphasis. “How is that racist?”
Rosa grabbed my hand and squeezed. Through gritted teeth, she said, “It’s okay, Jack. Why don’t you go get us something to drink?”
Miller lowered the gun and laughed. “See? Even the girl knows you’re being too sensitive. You always were eager to get your feelings hurt.”
“And yet, you seem to be the one getting upset.” I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop talking even if I wanted to.
He stopped laughing and took to his feet, leaving the gun beside the recliner. As he rolled up his sleeves, he said, “Alright, boy. You’ve been itching for a fight since you laid eyes on me.” He took a fighting stance that could have come straight from an arcade game, gave Rosa a wink, and explained, “He’s always been like this. Always wanted to impress me.” With that, his self-delighted laughter returned in full force.
As he stood there, waving his dukes in my direction, something changed inside of me. I looked at him and saw the whole picture. This man, if you want to call him that, was cracking jokes at my expense, but nobody else was enjoying his company. He was threatening his own biological son, but was it out of anger? Spite? Fear of losing my respect? The house felt cold and empty, just the same as it did when I was last here. The only difference now was that I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I’d seen too much to worry about what a sad old man might do to me. And when the words finally formed in my mind, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud myself.
I’m not afraid of this guy. I feel sorry for him.
He lowered his fists partway and asked, “What’re you laughing for?”
“Nothing,” I said. “But I don’t want to fight you.”
“You know I’d kick your ass.”
“That’s right. I know you’d kick my ass.”
He pointed at me and said to Travis, “You see this? This is what they do to us. This is the pussification of America right here. They knew real men would never let what’s happened to our country happen. That’s why they waged a war on masculinity.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Travis asked. The smile left Miller’s face, like he couldn’t believe he was being challenged by one of his own.
In his most serious voice, Miller said, “You know who.” Travis offered up a weak smile. Miller fell into his recliner and looked back at me. “Now, about that tequila.”
I brought out the four cleanest shot glasses I could find, along with a bottle of fluorescent-yellow “tequila.” I lined up and poured out the shots, then held mine up for a toast.
“To family,” I said, looking him dead in the eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I threw back the shot. At the same time, I snatched the one out of Rosa’s hand. While Miller coughed and beat at his chest, he failed to notice me tossing the contents of her glass onto the wall behind the couch where it would probably eat away at the wallpaper and never be noticed.
Travis doubled over, put one hand on top of his head, and gagged out the question. “Why is it so warm?”
There were tears in Miller’s eyes. “That’s just the way this stuff is. Es muy caliente. Sure to put hair on your balls. Traded it for my shoes off a gypsy in Reno.” He gave me a strange smirk, then said, “Well, I’m fucking off to bed. Junior knows where the clean sheets are. If you need anything before morning, figure it out on your own.”
Wait, that’s it? He’s going to bed? I couldn’t believe it. But then he turned around, picked up his rifle, walked into his room, and shut the door behind him. We all waited in collective silence to be sure this wasn’t some kind of trick. But he didn’t come back. That was, it would seem, the end of it. As far as traumatizing events go, this was hardly the worst I’d experienced at that man’s hands.
“Alright, Jackie-boy, I’m sorry,” Travis said. “I’m man enough to admit it when I’m wrong. Your pappy is the worst.”[33]
I gathered the old blankets and pillows from the hall closet and set up the couches for the night. Travis recommended we sleep in shifts so that someone could stand guard at all times. I volunteered to go first and promised I’d wake him up as soon as I felt tired. At least they’d get some rest, and I could use the time to work on my plan to stop the Omega-Karen from destroying the world. So far, all I had was step one: stay alive for a couple more days.
