The Feet of God
102 - TIME TO BEAT IT
I finally made my way back to
the table, grabbed my beer, and begun ponder’n my next best move. I figured I should get a move on before my
freebie brew could be claimed as fair-trade goods for a restroom boots-knocking
with the waitress. (I wasn’t looking for
any trouble, especially with an ex-husband hang’n around.)
A bare-chested hag danced her way out onstage when virtually all the gentlemen
in the club started making their way for the door. The neon pink clock over the bar showed 10:45 a.m., so
this must’a been early lunch at Pedro Wong’s.
It was time to go. I chugged my beer and
ditched my titty bar slob companion. Crouching
down between two old ass-biscuits in motorized wheelchairs, I exited The
Ba-Zoom-Zoom Room unnoticed if not unseen.
Damn if it didn’t work. The big-busted
waitress who’d made eyes at me (and never collected for my first beer) was too
busy sponging up quarter tips to notice I was leaving. Back outdoors, in the fresh air under a
bright blue sky, I instinctively raced straight for the highway and stuck out a
thumb.
Traffic whizzed by. A couple’a truckers
blasted their air-horns at me just for fun. I begun to sweat under the blaze’n sun, and
then, of course, I had to piss again.
You’d think with all the greenery around there’d be some place with
bushes high enough for a regular guy to piss behind. Nope.
It was all a lush groundcover of low weeds, and the occasional strip
mall.
I approached a mini-mart gas station.
Glass doors automatically opened and I felt a cool blast of
air-conditioning as I entered. A chick
behind the counter smiled at me. I
smiled at her. “Hi, there. Mind if I use your restroom?”
“Sure, but you gotta buy something first.”
“What’s the cheapest thing ya got?”
“Gum, three bucks.”
I looked over the selection but thought $3.00 was a little excessive for a pack
of gum. Hell, that’s about the cost of
rolling papers. “Um, I’m a little short,”
I confessed. “Couldn’t you find it in
your heart to allow me to use the bathroom?
I ain’t gonna mess it up or nothin’.”
She held out a key attached to a plunger.
“Here. But be quick about it
before a paying customer needs to use the crapper.”
I grabbed the key. “Thanks.”
The bathroom was actually bright and clean and pretty nice for a no-name gas
station. I peed and washed my face and
hit the pits with a little soap and water.
(Cleanliness is next to godliness, they say.) I guess I lost track of time because I was in
the midst of my toilette when there came a loud pounding on the door.
“Compadre, peeple gotta use el banyo. Por favor.”
When I opened the door, a Hispanical guy swiped the key on a plunger outta my hand and
rushed right past. “Gracias.” The door slammed.
The chick behind the counter glared at me.
“What did I say about being quick?
If you plugged up that toilet...!”
The glass doors slid apart as I quickstepped out the
mini-mart avoiding her harangue. I waved as I left, “It was amazing.”
I ambled my way past the gas pumps and saw a Latino dude pumping gas into one
of them giant, oversized pickup trucks, the ones with a backseat in the cab.
I thought, what the hell, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Might as well ask.
“Hola, senior. You headed south?”
The guy looked up from his pumping. “Si.”
“You think I could catch a ride with you?”
“Whar ju go’n to?” he asked real slow so’s I could better understand him.
“Just south.”
“Hokay,” he shrugged.