switchback
fueling speculation—5 (an oneiric read-along)
Foraging in this region means you drive in any direction & odds are you’ll easily run into a sausage biscuit. Within ten minutes, I leave my motel room & return with a to-go, but checkout mid-meal, antsy from chewing along to flat-screened AM cable pundits.
There was a dark period of 2.99s yesterday, but directly across the street this morning, a pylon LED $2.57/gal sunrise. The property is weathered. There's no movement past c-store windows. The pump even somehow promises a lower 2.56. I fill without seeing another pumper, then set off like I've gotten away with something, heading for the switchback towards an old haunt. The stereo has come back to life, but it’s not playing along with the mood right now. Instead, lowered windows let in an opaque score, more open to mulling & occasionally mumbling. The state line steals an hour that could’ve been well-wasted later in drive-thru hindsight, wandering old turf.
Just shy of The Big Peach, I exit for a thrift store stretch. On the way, a 2.54 fluke. I gas up & skip the thrift.
Streaks are suspicious — payback is inevitable. Back on the interstate, I close the windows — the air now has a thick non-scent & feel, like an industrial soft water breeze. Traffic slows, sometimes to a stop. On the bumper of a semi trailer ahead of me, I can see a reflection of only one headlight. The minivan passed an expensive inspection just last week. Payback has begun.
I deny it until I arrive at the chain budget with the truth of a burnout & three hours until the metro Friday sunset. The lobby entrance is locked with a handwritten arrow taped inside. I follow it to a small vending machine area with a plexiglass window. Decorative sweethearts on a relapse date, slip their loose change & pull snacks from the drop tray, smacking blurred ink & rivets. The plexi-clerk sees my ID, says there’s no reservation & to try the chain's other location across town. The couple argue over their choices. The clerk looks out & yells “Hey!” The snackers shhh & snicker. Our mixups are bittersweet.
Break-even comes with a full-tank detour edged in defeated 3.59s to a chilled Firestone adviser who reads my desperate eyes while listening to my manic fix & bumps me up in the repair line as a merciful sendoff to a reservation emended by dusk.
