Texaco on Biscayne
Lynne Barrett
After a group of us met for a girls’ night out to see a movie, we were tempted over to the nearby not very good place for a drink and fried food and a table outside on a mild Miami January night. We split up in the parking lot. It was near midnight, and the place was hopping, with lots of people standing outside by their cars, smoking and talking in the soft, humid air. My friend Jill had come with me, but two of the others lived closer to her, so she went home with them. Had I driven her, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Or it would have but we’d have been together and so everything would have been different.
I was heading home by myself, down Biscayne, when I felt the left rear tire go wrong and at the same time saw a guy driving along next to me gesturing at me to pull over. Had I hit something on the road, or did someone—this guy?—gash my tire at the restaurant? Was he predator or friend?
I was in a dark stretch of Biscayne, with residential neighborhoods off to each side and office buildings and banks along the road. I could feel the tire deflating slowly, the car moving more and more unevenly, but I didn’t want to stop here, in the dark, even if I was going to stay locked in and phone someone. I remembered that another few minutes south there was a Texaco with a 24-hour FoodMart, so I lolloped along, heading there.
The guy beside me honked and waved, but I ignored him. He got behind me, and when I signaled to go left he did, too—but as I turned into the well-lit Texaco, he pulled away. For all I know, he was a Samaritan. I rolled to a stop at the side of the station, near the closed service bay, and ostentatiously pulled out my cell phone. And then wondered who to call. I had broken up with my boyfriend six weeks ago.
I had a vague idea where the spare was in this car, which I am sorry to confess was an SUV. (I used to move furniture a lot, what can I say?) It sat suspended somewhere below the car itself, to be wound down with a gizmo you assembled from rods stowed underneath the front seat somewhere. It was a pain. I could theoretically do this myself, but it was late at night, I was in nice clothes and stupid shoes, and I have never felt I could tighten the lug nuts well enough.
Or I could leave the car here and have them deal with it in the morning, and call a cab. This seemed more sensible. The car would be safe enough here, wouldn’t it? It wasn’t going anywhere. But I should ask permission. I gathered up my purse, clamped it firmly under my arm, and got out to go into the FoodMart.
A man came out of nowhere in the dark and said, “You need a vacuum?”
I said, “No thank you.”
He said, “Vacuum real good.”
He was gap-toothed, genus crazy-homeless. I shook my head no and headed past him. He followed, praising the vacuum. I was unable to tell whether he wanted to sell me a vacuum or to use something at the station to vacuum my car.
He followed me into the FoodMart. Behind thick plastic, the cashier sat, a man of about 40, looking tired.
“Hello,” I said, “I have a flat tire and I’d like to—“
“I do not speak English,” he said, enunciating clearly.
Vacuum Man stirred behind me. I glanced at him—then at the cashier, who sat motionless.
“Tengo problema con mi carro. Un flat tire. Quiero permission dejar mi carro aqui,” I said. What were the words for flat and tire?
In Spanish he said, “You speak Spanish?”
“A little,” I said. “In high school I it studied. And here, in Miami, I have opportunity to speak it much times.” I smiled.
Vacuum Man had gone outside. I saw him hovering near the door. Waiting for me.
The cashier gazed at me sadly and said, “From Argentina I came here. You can leave your car if you wish. Mine is proximate.”
A man burst into the shop, hollering in Spanish far too rapid for me to gather much besides the word police. He kept pointing outside and I saw that a cab was now parked at the nearer pump. He had a fare that was some kind of problem. I couldn’t grasp all the facts here; the person wasn’t paying or was drunk or obnoxious or sick, I wasn’t sure, probably all of these—the cab driver had tried to eject him, he wouldn’t go, and now the driver had called the police. I looked out but couldn’t see the passenger. The interior of the cab was dark. It was a saggy-looking vehicle, with the numbers of the company on the side.
I sidled over near the window and snuck my hand into my purse, seeking my cell phone.
The cab driver went back out to his cab and could be heard hollering in English at the customer that the police would be here soon and he should get the fuck out of the cab now.
The passenger replied, screaming defiant obscenities. The cabbie stood by the pump, the passenger stayed inside.
Vacuum Man scuttled back inside the shop. “Beautiful vacuum,” he said, and I contemplated the beautiful vacuum I’d like to be in.
I hunched my shoulder to block him, opened my cell phone, and called Steve. Yes, we had broken up, but it wasn’t nasty, and when you have been together for almost a year and break up, wasn’t there some clause, good for a call in case of emergency, for six months or until either of you is officially established with someone else? Of course there was. He was asleep, but when I told him where I was and why, he said he was on his way.