Nowhere Read Free

overhead speakers throughout the station quietly sang an old Buffalo Springfield song.
    “Cause nowadays Clancy can’t even sing….” The speaker called out at a low volume.
                  The fluorescent bulbs above hummed in the humid post rain air and bugs buzzed in thick clouds around their lights, still hiding out under the shelter of the gas station.
    It was a slow old pump. The kind that chimed every time it rolled over a dollar. He was going to be here for a bit.
                  He started to hear a noise, something that at first failed to alarm him. It was a low hum coming from the road. As his brain began processing what this newly discovered sound could be, his eyes suddenly completed the puzzle when a bright set of headlights rolled over the hill.
                  “Keep going…Please keep going…” Richard whispered to himself, the pump still chiming every so often behind him. The humming intensified as the the semi came into sight, but then downshifted and became an even lower pitch. Richard heard the airbrakes of the truck hiss as it began turning into the station.
                  “Crap.”
                  Richard quickly pulled the nozzle of the pump from his car and hung it back up. His hands shook as he feverishly screwed the gas cap on and then darted toward the interior of the gas station.
                  He got inside just as the semi pulled up to one of the green diesel pumps on the other end of the station. He watched from the safety of the store, trying to hide his face a little behind the first aisle. He peered from between a box of little bags of Corn Nuts and a shelf of Teriyaki flavored beef jerky.
                  He quickly realized there would be no sanctuary from the driver of the semi, as the man leapt down from the big rig and began advancing toward the store. He was a large burly bearded man with charcoal grey hair. He wore a tattered plaid blue flannel shirt, blue jeans and a faded camouflage trucker hat. Most of all, he had a pissed off look on his face and he was headed Richard’s direction.
                  “Where are your restrooms?” Richard asked in a frantic, panicky tone toward the scruffy pothead of a clerk behind the counter.
                  “Uhh, back by the big red sign that says restrooms…” the clerk answered.
                  Richard took off toward the back of the store almost knocking over a wire rack full of powdered donuts. He jetted down the small hallway by the red sign. He was back by the store room and the back of the refrigerator units of the store. There was a small white door that led to the only bathroom.
                  Richard went inside, flipped on the light, and shut and locked the door behind him. He stood there for a moment listening to see if he would hear the trucker enter the store.
                  He heard nothing for a moment, then suddenly there came loud footsteps down the hallway.
                  Someone began pounding ferociously at the door, and Richard knew that it had to be the trucker.
                  “You’re gonna kill somebody driving like that! You almost ran me off the road you maniac! Get out here and face me like a man you coward, if I have to break down this door, I’ll pound your face in.”
                  He thrashed and pounded on the tiny white door. Richard was afraid that the tiny brass colored bar latch might give way at any moment and the trucker would barrel in after him fists first. He was panicked, and felt like he was suffocating in the small, poorly ventilated white bathroom. He began crying.
                  “I’m sorry Sir….!” he yelled and the trucker momentarily stopped his banging, perhaps surprised that Richard would even say anything. “I’m sorry for almost running you off the road. I really am, but