Two Pauls - 2

By Warren Buckles

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The second Paul lived with his brothers and uncles above the Fina station near the Rodeo Road turnoff, just a couple of miles down the road from the Gulf station I was running back then. A biker shot him in the arm one night because he wouldn’t open the register.

"Just a little .25 pistol, man," Paul said, "not a hollow point, nothing serious." The bullet went between the bones of his right forearm, came out the other side and stopped in his leather jacket. He wore a sling for a while, still pumping gas. He stuffed the money, mostly dollar bills, in the sling. They didn’t take credit cards and most people just bought a dollar’s worth, three gallons, enough to get them to town and back. He grew a beard then, too, saying he couldn’t shave left handed.

One afternoon Paul’s brothers and uncles burned the biker’s camp in Apache Canyon. Nobody called the fire department or the sheriff.

Paul drank a lot. Vodka from a bottle kept under the counter and another in his truck. He liked to visit Phyllis after work. She lived near me, up in the hills behind the Gulf station. Phyllis sometimes worked at my place, pumping gas like Paul. In the summer she wore a tiny tee shirt and kept her pants low. The Winnebago drivers got a thrill when she bent over to put in the gas nozzle. Sometimes she got tips, an extra $5 under the credit card so the wife in the passenger seat wouldn’t see. Anybody could visit Phyllis but they usually left when Paul showed up. I did, anyway.

It snowed one afternoon, snowed all evening, snowed well into the night. At least a foot of light powdery snow that drifted easily. When the snow stopped the night sky cleared, the stars glittering cold against the black. The temperature dropped way below zero and the wind blew the howls of coyotes over the hills.

The next morning I saw Paul’s truck, a black Chevy pickup like the ’53 I once had. It was beside the road, both right wheels in the ditch. The windows were open and snow had filled the cab to the sills. A little spilled out and the crystals, worried by the wind, flashed in the sun.

I went to the gas station and opened up. The snow had closed things down and the place was quiet except for a few road service calls that I refused. I didn’t feel like rescuing out-of-state tourists without enough sense to stay off the road. Phyllis came in to pump gas but spent most of her time in the café drinking free coffee. The shop was too cold to work on anything so I decided to pull Paul’s truck out of the ditch before the police tagged it.

I stopped the wrecker ahead of the truck, hooked on and tried a pull. The wheels slipped on the snowy road and my wrecker slid toward the ditch as if to join Paul’s Chevy. I gave up after a few tries and went back to take a closer look. His front wheels were crabbed to the right, off the road, so I climbed on the running board, reached through the open window and tried to turn the wheel. It was half buried in snow and wouldn’t move.

The door was hard to open — an uphill pull and the latch was stiff. When it finally came loose a small avalanche poured out. I braced the heavy door against my back and scooped more snow off the seat and floor. When I had cleared part of the seat my glove hit something solid. It looked like black fur. I brushed more snow off and saw Paul’s face.

He was lying on the seat as if for a nap, his left hand on the wheel. His eyes were closed but his mouth was open a little, a ridge of snow between his lips. I brushed the snow off his mouth so he could breathe. That didn’t seem to help, so I took off my glove and scraped out the snow, running my finger between his lips to clear away the last layer. His front teeth were smooth and flat, the gap between them wide enough to catch my nail.

His lips closed around my finger as if to suck the heat from my body. I jerked my hand free and slid off the seat, falling to the road like a padded dummy. Loose, dry snow blew along the packed surface. A few crystals gathered around my bare fingers, forming a tiny drift as I watched. I looked along the road, following the smooth surface until it turned and dropped down another hill. There was a dead tree on the other side, the upper branches crooked and black against the blue sky. A car approached, slowed, then sped away, fishtailing until the driver regained control. I got to my knees and stood, using my elbows and the side of Paul’s truck, afraid to try my icy, fragile fingers.

The wrecker door was open and the heater was running. I stuck my fingers in the vent until they burned.

© Warren Buckles 2009

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