Along the sidewalk parades a wiry black man with dredlocks. He holds up a blank sign. In the gas station lot there are six pumps with six cars waiting to receive gas. There are four other cars huffing and trembling, drivers behind the wheel impatiently waiting their turn. It is 5:30 p.m. Returning home fatigue and hunger is gnawing at everybody. At pump one is Nathan's black Beemer.

Nathan is very proud of his shiny black sedan which can do 120 m.p.h. while purring like a panther. He likes to weave in and out of commute traffic, pretending he is at Sears Point Raceway. If he leaves early enough and comes back late, he doesn't get stuck in an unmoving freeway lane parking lot with the rest of the worker bees.

Nathan is tired. He rehearses his speech in his head: I apologize for not being much fun tonight, Melissa. He can see her, standing there like an extension of the floor, growing up from it, a rooted thing. Scowling at him.

The money Nathan left on the counter still lays there, untouched.

"You will have to step to the side while I clear out these gas customers," Jackie says to Trish. "Then I will go and look for your cigarettes in the back. The cigarettes you see behind me are merely for display. If you come back here, I will press this button. The police will be here in seconds."

Jackie actually has no idea if they will show up at all.

"Just forget it," Trish says, and turns around, leaving her SoBe Energy drink and candy bar behind.

Out of the corner of her eye Jackie sees the computer geek at Pump one yelling and waving his arms. He sees her watching him and points animatedly at the gas pump. Jackie realizes that he is not able to pump gas because she has not activated the pump. He charges back in, shoving people aside. To his right a Mexican kid pops a donut into his mouth. The line of people is squeezed between cookies stacked against the window and shelves of chips. Around the shelves, against the other wall is a cooler full of Coke and Pepsi. The place is tiny. The back wall holds shelves of Penzoil and generic bottles of oil plus a softdrink and ice dispenser.

"JUST GIVE ME MY TWENTY BACK," Nathan yells.

The twenty dollar bill lay untouched on the counter. Heart attack waiting to happen in the land of the beautiful people, Jackie thinks, looking into the eyes of Nathan. The money you save on gas you waste on cigarettes and aggravation. Jackie reaches across the counter and crumbleds the twenty. She holds it up to look at at. It reminds her of a rose. Then she irons it out flat with the edge of her hand and presses toward Nathan with her eyes shiny bright upon his face and her lips curled upward in a grimace. "Better slow down and smell the flowers," she warns.

"You will never get my business again!" Nathan shouts into her face. His sable curls swing forward into the air between them.

"That's going to break us," Jackie says. Tension dissipates. Once again people relax and become friendly. They talk about Nathan, the villain who has just left.

The next person steps up to the counter and asks for cigarettes. He is holding a bottle of orange juice. He says, holding up the cigs, "Here you've got your cancer and," he holds up the o.j. with the other hand. "Here you got your cancer fighter!"

"Do you have a bathroom?" someone else cries.

"I'm sorry. There is no public restroom provided," Jackie repeats mechanically the statement she says at least six times each shift.

"I sue! I sue," replies the foreigner. He seems to be unable to find the English words needed to express his disgust about Ultra Gas.

"Apparently a vacationer from Europe," announces Jackie.

The next customer wants directions back to the freeway. While Jackie explains, a man slips in to the back of the store and starts filling up his cooler from the ice dispenser meant for cups. The cooler doesn't fit well in the space designed for cups, so ice spills onto the sticky black tile floor.

"Is the half naked brown guy outside an employee of Ultra Gas?" asks someone from the station lot, sticking his head in the door. "He's very tan for so early in the year. I was wondering if he was homeless."

"Doesn't work for us," says Jackie. "He's doing a good deed."

Driving home on a two lane road, Nathan feels something gripping his chest. It is a painful sensation, as if his tie has come alive and is closing around his throat. He slumps forward over the steering wheel. The car begins to slow as his foot spasms and loses pressure on the gas pedal. Behind him, cars begin honking.

"What's the hold-up?" someone yells, leaning out the window and driving around him.

Nathan's car drifts to the side of the road where it ploughs into the back of a road-side flower stand. He can't seem to suck any air into his body. A rose flies straight up into the air and lands in the middle of his hood. His horn blares on continuously as he lay slumped over the steering wheel, trickles of sweat gleaming on his phosphorescent skin.