Shell

I could have anything I wanted from the maws of the vending machines that stood watch over the waiting room of my stepfather’s Shell station. Larry or Chubbs would fish out keys with grimy fingers, swing open the face of the machine, reveal its innards stacked columns of soda or candy bars. Outside the constant ding of the bell as cars pulled in for gas, directions, air in the tires, a clean windshield, drivers impatient for destination, and Chubbs or Larry would dash, leave me to choose: Planter’s Peanut Bar or Nestle’s Crunch, Coke or orange or chocolate pop. Grit covered that tiny room, layered on maps in their laddered racks, dusting the globe of the gumball machine, sifted over neat rows of motor oil in silver cans, smudging the white pages of homework I filled with painstaking script. I breathed the stink of petroleum, kicked at the legs of a yellow plastic chair with my black and white school oxfords, waiting for my stepfather who was supposed to watch me till my mother got off work. Nine was too young, she thought, to stay at home alone. But every day he’d disappear, banged-up Chevy gone from the lot, the men in oil-streaked uniforms shrugging excuses. “Anything she wants,” he’d instructed them, and I watched the clock as the sky darkened and the bright shell glowed against night. My new bra was too tight; I hugged my three-ring binder to hide my roll of belly from Larry, from Chubbs, and sucked the dregs of chocolate pop or lemon-lime.