Escape to the gas station

Hung up the phone, stamped my feet and screamed a quiet scream and fuck you (mustn’t wake the children) and went out and threw my cup of tea out into the front yard. Didn’t hit anything, so it wasn’t very satisfying…. It just silently vanished somewhere out in the dark in the landscape. Now I would have to remember to go pick it up in the morning before 10. All before 10, everything before 10. When he would arrive to get the kids. 10.

Called Kathy…. But even that was too much for me to bear….. I just didn’t feel like I could even speak…. Like those nightmares that I used to have where I would open my mouth to scream and nothing would come out… the words were all constipated….. what came out of my mouth was a pinched little screamy, grunty sound announcing that my call to Sophie didn’t go well and then I immediately told her I had to go. Hung up, grabbed my money and my keys and drove quickly and nervously to the gas station to get a pack of Marlboro Lights. The two block drive seemed to take too long, I kept thinking of my kids at home, alone, sleeping. Corinne, you are just going farther and farther down, sweetie. Stop. I didn’t even buckle my seatbelt- seemed like it would take too much time, and I had to get there and back QUICKLY. I felt like a junkie. When I went into the gas station, the OPEN sign was lit, and I was grateful, because I know they usually close early….but they looked surprised to see me and were clearly closing up the shop. Maybe they had forgotten to turn off the OPEN sign. There was a young guy that I had never seen before, sweeping between the cereal and candy isles, and the Indian owner-wife with the little nose ring, who looked at him and gave a wordless nod his way, then walked behind the cash register to help me. I’m not sure why we always play the same routine…. I come in there about once a week, or as my local crisis schedule dictates.. And this has been my regular home base for a long time. And I always get a pack of Marlboro Lights. Just one. Never two. And it’s always late at night, and I always look like shit with crying eyes. Yet she always asks me what I want as if she doesn’t already know. It occurred to me that she might possibly think I’m a drug addict or something, the way that I always look so strung out when I go there. The time I desperately need cigarettes so close to home is usually when I’m in some sort of crisis mode, and my face and demeanor clearly reflect that. She might not be that far off the mark. ‘What can I get you, dear?’ she asked. ‘A pack of Marlboro Lights, please’ I replied, keenly aware that my eyes were all bloodshot and red around the edges from rubbing them so hard and crying, and that I may have even been trembling a little. Maybe I had smeared eyeliner under there, but between the crying and the furious eye-rubbing I was pretty sure there wasn’t any left to see. My cheeks were red, as they get when I’m overly emotional, and my hair was standing on end, all bristly. In silent protest of being attached to the head of this crazy person. Is it possible that my hair actually changes texture, from soft and shiny to wiry and dull as my emotions get twisted and turmoiled ? It seems to. She looked at me…. As if she was a little concerned, in a detached sort of way- the way she always did…. Then she turned around and grabbed the pack off the shelf and put it on the counter. $3.85, she said with her Indian accent. I handed her my debit card, which I prayed would not be rejected and expose me as official nutcase that I appeared on the outside, and that I was feeling like on the inside. I mumbled something about a bad day, but she may not have heard me. Or maybe she heard me but pretended she didn’t. She handed me the bankcard code machine, and I punched in my 4 digit code, grateful for a task that I knew I could complete correctly. Finally, a game whose rules I understood. I know how to do this right. Get those numbers right, earn a little gold star, and have the nice receipt worm its way out of the little black machine. She gave a little half smile. Then said ‘How are you tonight?’ and began to continue on about it being cold, but we both opened our mouths to speak at the exact same time, so I didn’t really hear what she was saying as I replied ‘Not so great. But hopefully tomorrow will be better’. She looked a little surprised at my response, and I left.

I got back in the car and drove home as quickly as I could, looking constantly in the rearview mirror for any police, weighed down by my own guilty conscience. What a nightmare if I would get pulled over. I didn’t. I got home, probably not even five minutes from when I had left, and the kids were exactly where I’d left them. Asleep peacefully in their beds, with the orange nightlight casting a soft glow in their room.