Eat Here and Get Gas

Eat Here and Get Gas

By

J. A. Buxton

The old sign by the side of the road seemed to call out to people in their cars as they drove by. Most ignored the advertisement for the diner, which the sign stated was half a mile away down the road. Often someone would chuckle and make the obvious comment about the food causing gas. Others, intrigued by the wooden sign, would slow down and then notice the picture of the diner underneath the words. Even though the sign’s paint was peeling, the strange appeal of the diner was still apparent.

“John, let’s at least stop and grab a bite to eat.” This tired request came from Mary, the woman sitting beside the driver. “We’ve been driving for hours, and I need to stretch my legs.”

Billy complained, for about the umpteenth time within the last half hour, “Daddy, I need to use the toilet badly.” The 10-year-old boy, jiggling anxiously in the back seat, knew his bladder would burst if they didn’t stop soon. He realized, too late, he shouldn’t have had that third can of soda, even if the heat of the day made him so very thirsty.

The father, irritated by the whining of his son, turned off the road into the parking lot of the diner. He had earlier volunteered to stop the car so the kid could go behind a nearby bush, but Mary had quashed that suggestion.

“Our son is not an animal, and I’ll not have him using a bush for a bathroom.” Her high nasal voice when she made this obvious comment had John wanting to contradict her. However, he held back the caustic remark, knowing it would just start another argument. She had a blind spot about the boy and refused to admit Billy was a spoiled child who wouldn’t be scarred for life by getting closer to nature, even in this small way.

Parking the car in the nearly deserted lot, John got out and looked more closely at the building in front of him. Across the top of the dilapidated building again was the sign “Eat Here and Get Gas.” Two ancient gas pumps and a rusty ice machine did nothing to encourage drivers to stop and use them. When John’s wife and son joined him, the three of them walked with some trepidation into the diner.

Immediately, the scorching dry heat from the summer sun disappeared to be replaced by a different kind of heat, muggy like walking through warm soup. This came from the kitchen and carried the smells out into the dingy dining area of overdone hamburgers, grilled onions, and the sweaty odor of the shirtless cook.

An equally sweaty waitress, her dirty blue uniform sticking to her emaciated form, soon joined the three travelers. “What can I get you folks?” she asked, after showing them to a wooden booth near the fly-specked front window. “Roy’s specialty today is the chef’s surprise. Two dollars ninety-eight for all you can eat of it.”

“Sure, let’s have three of them. By the way, where’s the restroom?” John finally asked this question, noticing his son was jiggling even more frantically in the booth across the table from him. His wife also decided to go with the boy when the waitress pointed the way to a corridor at the back of the room.

Within a few minutes, the waitress, who had the name Doris stitched across the top of her uniform, returned carrying three dishes and laid them on the table. The piles of food sent steam up into the air, and John couldn’t identify what the plates contained, hard as he tried. Within minutes, Mary returned followed by a much relieved Billy, and the three of them settled down to their meals.

“Well,” commented John, as they walked back to their car half an hour later, “that wasn’t the worst meal I’ve ever eaten, but it ran a close second.” Upon opening the driver’s side door, the heat pouring out of the car almost knocked him off his feet. Since the car was old, there was no air conditioning in it, and the temperature inside was in the high 120s. When the three got hesitantly into the car, their bodies stuck painfully to the vinyl seats wherever their skin was exposed. The sun glared through the windows adding to their misery.

Slowly pulling away from the diner, John ordered his son, “Open the windows and let some air in. Maybe it will cool us off a bit.” It didn’t, but their problems didn’t end with the stifling overpowering heat.

Suddenly Mary wrinkled her nose and asked, “Which of you did that?” She swung around in her seat to glare at her son. “You could at least say ‘excuse me’.”

In response, the boy burped and then broke wind once again. “Sorry, Ma, I can’t help it.” He added another burp to the noisy and fragrant medley coming from the back seat.

When she heard similar sounds from her husband and noticed the smell wafting towards her, Mary turned around to look in astonishment at him. About to yell at him, she stopped with a shocked expression starting to come over her face. An overpowering feeling of pressure inside her warned her of what she soon would be doing, which was joining her husband and son in what that sign had warned them would happen.

Therefore, kind readers, I beseech you. If you see a sign in your travels that tells you of a place where you can eat and get gas,

BELIEVE THEM.

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Word count = 939

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