Being a very quick learner I took only a few weeks to master my position as a service station attendant. The first hardship was finding the gas tanks, which are designed by hotshots to blend into the surface of the automobile.

Why?

I cannot answer that question. I can only speculate. Perhaps these hotshots would like to convince you that an automobile runs of its own accord, like an animal charging from place to place. You might look at, say, a dog running alongside the road and ask yourself why it runs. Rarely would you ask how the dog runs. You never think of the dog’s gas tank, a bowl of food and water set beside his cushion. These hotshots would like to confuse the natural and the mechanical world.

Can they fool the public at large?

Perhaps.

Can they fool me?

No.

Once I located the tanks I found it difficult to read the meter and administer gasoline at the same time.

“Give me seven bucks’ worth, unleaded,” a customer might say.

“What does that feel like?” I would ask myself. Seven dollars’ worth of unleaded gasoline passes quickly. It is a brief period of time compared to the seven dollars’ worth one might get from a movie or the time it might take to enjoy a meal at your favorite restaurant. Think about it!

Though my sight is poor I could clearly see that many of the station’s visitors were in need of more than gasoline. It was difficult to converse from my position at the rear of the car but where there’s a will there is a way. During the chilly weeks of April I found myself hoarse by noon, raising my voice over the sounds of traffic and of life itself. I would minister to all my customers and found the greatest challenge in certain young people who seemed to believe that Hell is nothing more than a hot day at the beach. I would have been more than happy to counsel these people, one on one. If it were to take me the rest of my life I would have accepted the challenge. Sadly, the majority of them refused my offer of guidance.

“F—k you,” they would say. “To Hell with your ways, mole.”

Without paying they would cut out of the station and squeal their tires onto the busy street, playing their radios so loudly that I could hear them off in the distance for blocks. I would shout after them. I happen to know that Hell is nothing like the beach. There is no sand in Hell, or water either. It is so hot in Hell that the sand has melted. Think about that!