“Wooohooo!” Michael St.Clair screamed as loud as he could.
During his jubilation, he barely avoided a car that was parked on the edge of the breakdown lane. “Damn! I forgot how much I hated that!” Mike laughed.
Suddenly feeling paranoid, he rolled up his window and ceased his hollering. He looked over both shoulders while he managed to gain control of his vehicle. Breathing an exasperated sigh, he switched lanes.
“Just like riding a bike,” he said with a smile. This was the first time he drove a car in over 5 years although it seems like yesterday.
As he continued to drive, he started to play with the radio. While he navigated the car in and out of the ample lanes available to him, he remembered how much he missed driving. His former feelings of road rage began to stir deep within, an annoyance that he hadn’t had to deal with for the past five years he was in jail.
He was having so much fun reminiscing that he almost forgot the most important thing. Shaking his head in disbelief that he would forget something like this, he looked down at the gas gauge. The needle was heading to the left, almost to where it couldn’t move any further.
“Damn! Good thing I remembered!” Mike said out loud. Keeping one eye on the road in front of him, he reached into his pocket and carefully pulled out the envelope that was given to him before he made his escape.
He let out a sigh of relief when he happened to notice one of the biggest Mobil signs he had ever seen. “Didn’t know they were making these signs so big now!” He muttered in disbelief.
Riding the brake like a novice driver, Mike was heckled by the motorist behind him. He glanced at the rearview mirror and tensed up, his body preparing to deliver an emotionally charged response. Mike was just about to open his mouth and roll down the window, when he suddenly stopped.
“Wow! Rehabilitated and I still had some time left to go! I guess I am doing the right thing!” Mike told himself.
Mike pulled his car alongside the closest pump and turned off the ignition. Deciding to have one last look at his disguise, he stared in the rearview mirror. Satisfied with his appearance after a few minutes of examining his face, he headed inside.
“Relax, no big deal. All I have to do is fill up the tank and head to the drop off point. Piece of cake,” Mike confidently reassured himself as he stepped out from the car and headed towards the gas station entrance.
The closer he got to the door, the more his confidence started to evaporate. He had a funny feeling but immediately dismissed it, not wanting his head to be invaded by any negative thoughts.
Unfortunately, the scene that lay before the escaped convict did nothing to erase any negativity. Shaking his head, he surveyed the growing line that spilled into one of the aisles. He surveyed the line and made his way to the end.
The trip to the end of the line did nothing to restore the nervous escapee’s confidence. Just a passing glance at the clientele waiting only fueled more skepticism about whether anyone in the store met the basic IQ requirements of a house plant. Mike chuckled to himself as this thought passed through his mind. He arrived at the end of the line and yawned. He stretched his arms to the side without checking before doing so. This resulted in him knocking over several packages of Ramen noodles, sending them scattered throughout the narrow aisle.
“Shit! Sorry!” Mike mumbled barely loud enough for those around him to hear. He muttered an indifferent apology to the customers affected by his incompetence before bending down and gathering all the fallen noodles.
“No sweat man,” the man said who happened to be standing in front of Mike.
Mike nodded towards the man as he replaced the last package that fell. The minute he was done, he stood up straight and looked straight ahead. The last thing he wanted to do was attract any negative attention and he was currently off to a poor start in that department.
“God, just get me through this line quickly without any bullshit!” Mike muttered under his breath.
“Ok, hold on a second! You can’t rush me! Last time I was here, and you rushed me, and I would have won if you were just a little more patient with me! I was going to tell your manager, but I didn’t want to see you get fired and they bring in some idiot redneck that can’t do Math above a second-grade level,” the grossly overweight woman that looked like she could have very well eaten all the other bag ladies with a mile of the gas station announced.
“Thank you very much for not reporting me,” the clerk graciously said.
“Well, you’re welcome. Let’s just say you have a chance to redeem yourself. Hold on, let me put this bag down for a second, it weighs a ton!” the large woman complained.
“Just like she does,” the well-dressed man in front of Mike mumbled out of the corner of his mouth as he looked back. Mike just chuckled and kept his eyes focused on the line. His smile evaporated ten times faster than a fart in the wind when he realized exactly what was going on at the register.
“Ok, I’ll tell you one more time which ones I want. I have to say your effort, or should I say lack of it, is making me want to call your manager more and more!” the bloated bag lady proclaimed. She leaned across the counter and squinted at the name tag on the clerk’s apron.
“David is it?” the old woman asked as she mouthed the name David several times as she glanced inside her purse. “Do you have a pen? I want to write your name down before I forget it,” the heavyset woman explained. As she searched through her purse, the line grew.
“Of course,” David replied as he reached inside the pocket of his Mobil apron.
While David handed her the pen, she stared at him while she rested one of her breasts on the counter. The man in front of David groaned loudly, his face turning redder with anger with each passing second. His sentiment was shared by everyone that was crammed in the middle of the ridiculously narrow aisles.
“I will say it louder then! I want three of the Lucky Ladies, two of the Aces High, no not that one! The green one! The green one! Says St. Patrick’s Day in bright green letters on the bottom! Yes! That’s it! Wait! What are you doing? I’m not done yet!” the woman bellowed. In her frustration, she moved suddenly with no apparent regards for the logistics surrounding her rogue breast.
“Now, go lower! No! Not that low! Right above it! No! Yes! That’s it! You’re on your way to redemption!” the overweight woman exclaimed.
“And you’re on your way to the curb if you don’t get your fucking lottery tickets and get the fuck out of here so some of us can go to work! Yeah! Work! You need me to get a dictionary for you, you old bat!” A voice echoed from the back of the line.
Everyone in line turned around and flashed the man a smile. Everyone except the bag lady. “Excuse me! What did you say? Who said that?” She asked as she carefully moved her ample gut along with the breast from the other side that for some reason dwarfed the other one. Mike caught a glimpse of this and temporarily forgot his situation and laughed.
The woman wanted to investigate further to determine who the culprit was, but time was quickly running out for the portly bag lady. The groans were starting to be heard from the others in line as their wait began to get even longer.
While the annoying bag lady was tediously forcing the poor clerk to scan every row of lottery tickets, a new obstacle was emerging. Mike just stood there and watched; his anxiety intensified. Just the slightest chance that he might be late to the drop-off point was enough to cause him to unravel. He closed his eyes and continued to find the energy to muster all the patience possible.
The new obstacle was unfolding in front of Mike and the other annoyed customers in dramatic fashion. Two twin boys, who were by first glance totally undistinguishable from each other, were in the early stages of what looked like to be an intense fight. Their faces were already stained with tears leaving them no other choice but to take things to the next level. While this conflict was quickly percolating, Mike happened to glance around to check on the whereabouts of their mother.
Then, as if on cue, a high pitched heavily accented voice rang through the air. Mike finally saw what the mother was doing. She was in the finishing process of putting the finishing touches of her carefully curated gourmet coffee courteously of Mobil. The woman finished preparing her coffee quickly without properly securing the lid.
“Ivan! Igor!” the woman cried. In her haste to reel in her two unruly children, she inadvertently knocked her coffee to the ground. The splash sent coffee and cream flying everywhere. This accident was met with widespread disapproval and outright anger by those who were still waiting to fill up their cars with gas.
The woman was extremely embarrassed for a few reasons. Her kids were wreaking havoc, leaving the mother with little or no time to pay for the spilled coffee and for the other things that she wanted to purchase. All these plans were lost as she desperately chased her two sons around the crowded gas station.
To everyone’s surprise, the woman managed to reel both while carrying an oversized pocketbook as well as another bag that was overstuffed as well. She ushered them out of the store, their exodus was fueled by a series of random strikes to their buttocks and whichever body part was closest to her when she started swinging at them. The crying intensified to a fever pitch at the very moment when she finally took them out of the store.
A few people started to applaud but it ended quickly when it became apparent that David was the only working at the store and had to mop up the spilled coffee. The customers affected by this mishap were staring at David, waiting to see what he was going to do to clean the floor.
Mike checked the time and made a futile attempt to utilize his mental math skills to figure out how much time he was working with. He winced as he felt the sweat starting to slide down the nape of his neck down his back.
The next person in line was a mild-mannered man who looked as if he might complete his transaction before the sun went down. Mike watched diligently, feeling helpless as ever, nothing he could do to make this whole process go much faster than it had been.
Hopes of things moving along quickly looked as if it could be a realistic possibility. Mike shifted back and forth uncomfortably as he did his best to wait until it was his turn. The despair that was so ubiquitous among the frustrated customers seemed to be a distant memory. It looked as if, upon a closer look examination from Mike, that he was searching for his money. Mike saw that he had a substantial number of coins but not enough to complete the transaction. Mike felt that despair that had been shared by all the customers previously emerged once again from the shadows.
“I have to run out to the car!” the man announced as he headed for the door. David was standing behind the register with two boxes of Newport’s in his hands. Looking slightly overwhelmed and a touch confused, David gently placed the cigarettes on the counter alongside the register.
“Fuck him! Just take the next customer!” Someone yelled from the back of the ever-increasing line.
“Yeah! No shit! How much longer do I have to wait! By this rate I might make it there in time for lunch!” Another angry customer shouted.
“At least he’s not buying any lottery tickets!” Another person shouted from the back of the line.
“You should have been here for the four-hundred-pound bag lady!” Another customer shouted,
Mike was sweating more and more with each passing second. He thought about checking the time again but didn’t want to get himself any more upset than he already was. Clearing his throat, he casually looked around to get the sense if somebody might recognize him or hear about the prison escape.
The next customer walked up to the counter and dropped all the items that he had been carrying almost the whole time that Mike had been there. After what seemed like an eternity, the man finally placed the last Red Bull on the counter.
“Excuse me!” The man who had to go to his car said as he arrived back in the line only to have his place in line taken by the next customer in line.
“Hold on, it will just be a minute,” the man in the sharp business suit exclaimed.
“I have to pay for all this,” the man behind him said as he jingled all the change he had in his pocket. The man in the suit leaned back and surveyed the items that the man was planning to buy.
“You know what? I’m late as hell so I’ll pay for all your shit,” the man said as he flashed a hasty smile.
“Really?” the man graciously asked.
“Yeah, no sweat,” the businessman replied as he searched through his wallet. Mike was smiling and silently thanking the lord profusely. Hope was still alive.
The man handed the debit card to David and leaned against the counter. Sweat rolled down the side of David’s face as he hurriedly attempted to process the transaction. Collective groans and sighs from the weary and impatient customers filled the air. Mike felt their frustration as he waited. He couldn’t believe that he was next.
Suddenly, the sounds of sirens blared outside. The color drained from Mike’s face, leaving him looking like a frozen ghost. Everyone groaned, not viewing their arrival as a safety measure but an additional inconvenience. Mike was trembling as sweat was pouting down his back and the side of his face as well.
“Dude are you ok?” the young man behind him asked. Mike wiped his forehead with his sleeve and chuckled nervously.
“Absolutely,” Mike replied.
“Sir, your card has been declined. I tried it three times,” David nervously explained to the businessman.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!’ he cried.
“Uh, no. It has been declined each time I ran it through,” David said.
Mike was starting to shake as the cops burst through the door of the gas station. Many people were startled. Mike was terrified, as he didn’t expect they would be on to him so soon.
Looking over both shoulders, he panicked. The aisles were too narrow, and he was essentially trapped. The police addressed him specifically, announcing to all those inside for him to put his hands behind his head. One of the officers placed handcuffs on his wrists. Mike kept his eyes focused on the ground as the police escorted him outside.
The flashing lights seemed to be everywhere, forcing Mike to wince as they led him to the cruiser. Right before the policeman put him in the car, he stared directly into his eyes. Mike noticed this and stared back. A smile emerged on the policeman’s face.
“You know, it’s too bad,” he paused.
“Too bad about what?” Mike asked.
“Too bad that you were in line so long, somebody recognized you and called it in,” the policeman chuckled. He was joined in by a few other officers who happened to be in the vicinity.