Charlie Parker at the Gas Station

Oregon law says I don’t have to pump my own gas.

Oregon law says I can’t be charged more if I refuse.

I always pull into Full Serve,

exit the car to greet the men and women who pump my gas

in a locale where it can rain 70 inches a year.

They see Elmer standing in the back seat and here come the dog stories.

One Chevron attendant in Empire

plays DJ with his phone,

music channeled through speakers.

One morning, “Your Love” by the Outfield played.

I made a remark about the song.

It was once the absurd love song for me and Michelle.

He said one afternoon he awakened in a field

of a county fair in Central Oregon,

still drunk, stoned.

The Outfield were on stage playing the song.

The other day he had Charlie Parker going,

in a gas station in Coos Bay for chrissakes!

In all my years of not pumping my own gas in Oregon,

I had never heard jazz playing at a gas station.

I asked him about the selection.

He said a choir teacher in middle school turned him onto to bebop.

I guess teachers can make a difference.

Or the female attendant at the same station,

who had to kick serious ass across the street

after homeless miscreants burned down a boarded-up camping trailer

rotting on an abandoned lot, then kept on squatting on the property.

“So you were kind of like a Sheriff cleaning up Dodge City,” I said.

“Fucking A!” she said.

Better directions than satellite maps,

savvier than fools on Yelp

tricks to avoiding Charleston speed traps,

best Chinese joints,

hot lines about the molten MAGAs

bitching about high fuel prices but too stupid to admit their stupidity.

And when the surprise window washing occurs,

I tip big,

bigger at Christmas.