My Mood Is a Gas Station at Night

cw: suicide, mental health, language

I decided to leave Long Island by train — not by getting on the train but rather by getting in front of it. 

Since the station was about a thirty-minute drive from my apartment, I planned to leave my car in the parking garage, where it would be easy enough for whoever was in charge of this sort of thing to recover. I felt guilty for inconveniencing people and also strangely guilty for abandoning the car I’d had for the last quarter of my life in a place as bleak as a parking garage. I guess some childlike part of me that still believed inanimate objects had feelings managed to survive after fifty-seven years of life.

Like me, my car was running on fumes, and I barely made it to a gas station before it gave out completely. At 1:05 am, I was the only one there, aside from the attendant, young and gawky. He looked up at me in my sun-faded car through the window, alarmed, and I wanted to say, don’t worry, man. I mean no harm. I’m only a danger to myself. 

No one would have been able to know. I made sure to underline that part in my note in the unlikely event that someone I knew blamed themselves for what I had done. I wanted them to know that this was completely my decision and that I’d want them to go on with their lives as if nothing had happened.

If there was anyone who might feel bad about it, I could see my ex-wife maybe being slightly troubled over it. I heard she remarried to a smooth talker and had two baby boys with their dad’s nose. I never became a father.

Then there was Brian, my twenty-five-year-old roommate who had little choice but to rent out his spare bedroom to me, a complete stranger more than twice his age, after maxing out his credit on a new car. Maybe he'd feel weird about it, or maybe he'd just worry about how he was going to make next month's rent.

As far as friendship went, there was none. We said hi and bye and at one brief point in the six months we’d lived together, I thought maybe he looked up to me as a sort of father figure. I knew a thing or two about cars and helped him fix a blown fuse on his own one time. I was older and he seemed impressed when I told him stories about my job in waste management. The crazy things people threw out, and how every now and then you found a really good chair, and how maybe I could find some cool stuff for the place. And then one night while I was sitting on my air mattress eating my nightly chili cheese dog from Interstate Franks, which Brian always called gnarly, I overheard him on the phone in the other room say to whichever friend he was talking to, if I ever end up like him, just kill me. 

I tried to keep the note I left for him on the kitchen table to the point, aside from the don’t-blame-yourself parts: Went to get gas. Maybe some food. I’d ask if you want anything, but I’m not coming back. Consider this my thirty-day notice. Again, it's not your fault. - Jon, 5/8/91

I’d attached the last month of rent to the note, but whatever amount I withdrew was apparently the last of my money. The pump rejected my card and told me in broken English to go see cashier, as if it knew I needed to talk to someone. 

I looked up at the attendant inside, but I wasn’t the type of guy to ask for help. I’d have to go in there and confess to him that I had no money. That I needed about five bucks, give or take, to get from one plane of existence to another. 

I stared down at a neon red puddle illuminated by the QuickMart sign. The more I looked at it, the more it looked like a pool of blood on the pavement. The white overhead lights made every scab, hair, and pore on my arms look surreal, like I was no longer human. It was like the autopsy had begun early, and my body was on full display in a lab with my spirit still trapped inside it. 

No one came to gas stations at this hour unless their life had somehow gone off course. You ended up here to get from one point to another, except at this hour, you didn’t necessarily know where that second point was. 

I felt more alone than I already was. The low electric hum of the white lights. It Must Have Been Love by Roxette echoing from inside the QuickMart. The sharp smell of gasoline mixed with fried chicken. A place you passed through but never stayed for long in. 

And somehow here I was, sitting on the curb as motionless as the night. The attendant watched me from behind the glass, hesitant to approach. “Do you need something?” he called out from the safety of the doorframe. 

“I’m waiting for someone,” I lied. 

I searched my car for lost change or forgotten bills. I checked the ash tray, the console, and under the seats, but came out with nothing. I sat on the curb and stared at the signs. Wine. Drinks. Cash back. A poster for buy-one-get-one-free fountain drinks, valid until 5/31/91, but I wouldn’t be around by then to use it and I couldn't think of anyone to give the extra drink to.

I sat on the curb and stared at the word Drinks in neon blue. The s fluttered like an irregular heartbeat, like the palpitations I’d been feeling in the dead of night in the months leading up to this decision. 

After another hour, the attendant asked me again if I was sure everything was alright, and I said it would be some time before my nonexistent friend showed up with the money I needed. I was so set on not asking for help that I sat in my car and closed my eyes until the birds chirped and, though the morning was still dark, the first few cars drove through, and I remembered that life would still go on without me.

I got in line and wrung my hands as I waited to admit to my predicament.  

“I’m sorry,” I said to the attendant finally. “I need about $5.”   

“For what?” he asked. “Gas?” 

I wasn’t going to give him the honest answer: to die. But there was no right way to tell a stranger you needed $5 to die.

“For gas,” I said. “And I need to leave soon.” 

“You don’t have anyone else you can call?” 

“They’re busy,” I lied. “I’ll pay you back. I promise.” 

Hesitant, he handed me five from his wallet, and I thanked him. If he really wanted it back, I told him, he could contact my roommate Brian at the number I’d written down, who could take it from my deposit anyway. 

I used two on the gas and kept the rest for my last meal. It was too early to eat a chili cheese dog, but time was no longer of importance when you only had an hour of it left. 

I sat in a booth alone with my food. It was almost five in the morning.

The same song from the gas station played at Interstate Franks, and I felt trapped in a loop I desperately wanted to escape.

Interstate Franks was the type of place where the booth cushions were duct taped, and Christmas decorations were still up in May. A battery-operated Santa waved at me from the window sill, and I just sat there, wondering what happens to food in your body after you die.

I watched the news on their muted TV. Maybe there'd be a news article on me. I wondered if it'd mention how the people who knew me personally were affected, or if my death would be purely logistical, where only the train schedule was affected.

I imagined Brian rolling out of bed and finding my note. I imagined my ex-wife, too, telling her new husband about how her old husband offed himself, and then her new husband saying in some smooth, eloquent way how blessed their little family was not to have a history of mental health problems, and that this would make him appreciate the little things more and hug my wife, his wife, and their two perfect emotionally regulated boys a little tighter tonight. 

I took my last bite and threw away the wrapper. I prepared to head out to the tracks.

What was strange was that, when I wanted it to be over the most, I just froze, and for a millisecond, asked myself what had I done. It was the same question I'd asked myself for the last quarter of my life, on the days I looked normal and familiar to the outside observer, and yet something impossible to pinpoint was disturbingly off about me, like a gas station in the dead of night.

The people who were here before me must have experienced that same millisecond of regret that no one lives to tell. As my gut dropped, I just stood there, warm chili-cheese sauce dripping like blood down my face, and watched the headlights barrel toward me in the dark morning sky. The horn blared, and the brakes slammed. And then I smiled, because, skidding in front of Interstate Franks in the car he couldn't afford, there he was: Brian running toward me in his boxers, cursing my name.