Diesel

My car stalled out in the middle of an intersection a couple of weeks before I was to move to Madison and start my first job. The offer came very suddenly, a Welcome! title appearing in my inbox among the mounting rejections. It was a software engineering position, one I hadn’t even applied for. But the interviewer for the position I did apply to must have been very impressed, and knew I had a computer science background, though not an extensive one. A couple classes from the first two years of undergrad. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why they wanted me.

The drivers behind me honked and stuck their middle fingers out the side windows. After turning the car off and on again, I got out into the road. A handful of policemen arrived and they directed me to steer as they pushed the car off the main road and onto a side lane. As I watched them push in the rearview mirror, my hands on the wheel, I thought about how I had recently gotten my first speeding ticket. I wondered whether there was some innate property to the world that once you had your first police run-in they just started happening. Like breaking a seal.

One elderly cop asked me my name for the police report.

“Know of anything that could have caused your car to cut out?” he asked me. I did. At the gas station, the attendant had filled my tank up with diesel. Diesel, right? he asked me and I said yeah because I had no idea what that meant. When the hose didn’t fit he poured it in from above and I looked on, confused, wondering if some gunk was caught in the opening to my fuel tank.

I told the officer, and he had the decency not to say anything or look at me like I was stupid. I wished there was some book that listed all the things you needed to know as an adult. I wondered how everyone else my age had learned about diesel fuel. When the officer left, I called my mom to come pick me up. I thought about how there would be no moms to call to pick me up in Madison.

The next morning I walked into town. I was supposed to visit my girlfriend, but she lived an hour away and since neither of us had access to a car any longer, that plan fell apart. Things were in a weird sort-of-over state between us since I was about to relocate for good, or at least for the conceivable future.

The town was quiet, and rather empty. Anyone with a car went to the next town over where they had a dozen restaurants and a movie theater and a library. We only had a dusty little one-room bookstore that stayed open simply by virtue of the fact that the retired couple that ran it lived on the second floor. I went in and wandered about a bit, just skimming my eyes over the book spines. The Wizard of Oz was open on the counter, beside a stack of J.M. Barrie plays and a metal flask like you might use to sneak alcohol into a theater.

“Anything you’re looking for?” asked the lady, and I shook my head. I wondered if computer scientists had much time to read books.

There was one of those plastic halloween skeletons hanging by the window and it reminded me of a dream I had had. A strangely vivid fever dream when I had covid a couple months ago – the skeleton had done an introductory song and dance, moving his limbs around so he grew and shrank in the way that dream-things do. He introduced me to some of the nightmares he lived with: an anteater-like thing that sucked up skin, a trio of non-denominational witches, Old Age, standing in the corner. It was interesting enough that I told a couple of friends about it. I wondered if it was ever acceptable to tell coworkers your dreams.

I headed out of the bookstore and went to the park. That, too, was empty as I ducked under low-hanging trees and passed between a bronze statue of a girl reading and a statue of two little boys playing with a frog. I sat down on a bench and looked around at nature. A squirrel ran around a tree trunk and looked at me. It had a nut in its hands.

“I’m not an adult,” I told the squirrel. It ran off.

I looked around again and noticed there was another of those metal flask things by the bench, like the one in the bookstore. I glanced in both directions. Then I picked it up, unscrewed the lid, and sniffed.

I recognised what it was, although I had never smelled that ruddy, pungent smell before. It was a flask full of diesel fuel.

I put the flask down. I looked around again. Then I got up and crossed the street, out of the park. There was a small cafe with a couple of morning customers. I went in and ordered some eggs. I sat by the window with its view of the road and the park. I knew the waitress there – her name was Sandy and she had been the year above me back in high school. My first girlfriend had been friends with her.

I stared out the window at the park and its little cluster of bronze statues. I thought about my car at the auto-repair shop. My dad told me the engine would be damaged; it would be expensive to fix. And my insurance had gone up after the speeding ticket. And I would likely have to buy a new car in Madison. I wished there was some book that listed out all the things in life you would have to pay for.

Sandy came by and put my drink on the table. I was still looking onto the road at the few cars that scuttled by. I wondered if any of them used diesel fuel. I wondered if any of them had ever accidentally put in gas.

When I looked back at the table I realized it must not have been Sandy that came by. Because instead of a glass of water a metal flask of diesel was sitting in front of me. The flask was open, because I could smell that faint diesel smell. The metal was shiny. New. I glanced around. I looked back. Nobody had left it behind by accident, I knew. It was there for me. I picked up and the metal was cold in my fingers. I shook it slightly, wondering how much fuel was in there. I pictured rust growing over my skin, freezing me in place. Stuttering to a stop, like my car at the intersection.

I lifted the flask to my lips. I’m not sure why. Because someone or something had placed it there. Because, I thought, if I only had a bit more time I could learn all about diesel fuel and paying tickets by mail and how to buy insurance and everything else it said in that book that didn’t exist.

“If you’re gonna do that in here you could at least be discreet about it,” said Sandy. She placed a plate of steaming, scrambled eggs on the table. I lowered the flask sheepishly. She smiled to let me know she didn’t mean it.

“Congrats, by the way,” she said. “I saw your mom’s Facebook post.”

“Thanks. I’m not really sure how I got it,” I said. Sandy shrugged.

“It’s far,” I added. “Really far.”

“I’m kind of jealous,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like I never grew up.”

She headed away from my table, leaving me to screw on the cap of the diesel flask. I placed it on the table. Then, slowly, I ate my eggs and watched the cars out the window. I thought about all the things we knew and all the things we never would learn.