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The Divined Comedy

  by

  Barry Rachin

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  Published by:

  The Divined Comedy

  Copyright © 2010 by Barry Rachin

  This short story represents a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Monday afternoon a relentless, soaking rain whipped the vacant streets and, once the sun dropped below the horizon, business at the Texaco Gas Mart died away to nothing. In the office Ava Frick pulled a Kierkegaard reader from her handbag and flipped to a page flagged with a scrap of torn paper.

  What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action...

  A metallic blue, Dodge Caravan pulled up to the full-service pump. “Oh, crap!” Ava groaned. “Not this asshole again!” Throwing a windbreaker over her shoulders, she trudged out in the sleeting rain. Ava worked second shift at the Gas Mart two blocks up from the Brandenberg Public Library. When the three-bay repair shop closed down around five p.m., the pumps stayed open until midnight. Since leaving high school, Ava drifted through a series of odd jobs before settling in at the gas station. It wasn’t that she particularly liked pumping gas and cleaning fly shit off of windshields; the work was simply less offensive than the other jobs she was fired from or quit on short notice.

  The driver rolled down the window. “Fill it with regular.” The middle-aged man was dressed in a black tuxedo. Through the open window, she could see an electric piano and pair of Xantech speaker columns stacked on the floor of the minivan.” He quickly rolled the window shut.

  With the rain slashing her face, Ava held her ground until the tank was full. “Could you also check the oil?” His eyes grazed her sternum never quite reaching the face. The glacial smile hinted at what was to come.

  Ava lifted the hood. Pulling the dipstick from the crankcase, she wiped it clean and returned the narrow finger of metal back into the engine. “You’re down a quart.”

  “Yeah, well... I’m in a bit of a hurry,” he responded with an ingratiating smile, “so why don’t we take care of it next time?”

  The rain, which had momentarily abated, suddenly picked up again. Ava rested her elbow on the window, dripping rivulets of water into the car. “You wouldn’t want to blow a piston over a silly quart of motor oil.”

  “No, that’s okay.” He thrust an American Express Platinum credit card at her and leaned away from the wetness. “I’ll just take a rain check, no pun intended.”

  Was he being intentionally sadistic? “That’s what you said last time.” Ava pulled her soggy arms free of the car.

  The musician screwed up his face and jutted his chin indignantly. “What was that?” She went off to process the payment.

  Back in the station, Ava rubbed her stringy hair dry with a wad of paper hand towels. This was the fifth time the pianist had pulled the check-my-oil-but-don’t-add-a-single-drop ploy. Never once had he purchased a quart. Ava was certain that the stingy louse had a case of Valvoline 5w30 neatly stacked in his garage. In the morning, after a cup of mocha latte cappuccino with a hint of cinnamon and a flaky, buttered croissant, the limp-wrist bastard would sashay over to the garage and, without even bothering to inspect the level, add a quart of motor oil.

  What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ...

  Ava wrestled with the Kierkegaard reader but lost interest after only a few, meager paragraphs. Her cell phone twittered. “Do you need anything?” Ava’s father sputtered in a gravelly monotone.

  “Like what?”

  “Weather’s pretty crappy. Maybe I could swing by with a spare raincoat and dry shoes.”

  “Actually I’m in pretty good shape,” Ava lied, “but thanks just the same.” Click. Mr. Frick hung up. The man never said I love you or resorted to mushy sentiment. That wasn’t his style. Rather, he would drive cross town in a driving rainstorm with a plastic bag full of dry socks and rain gear, throw them down on the counter, grunt some unintelligible farewell and hurry off.

  Around eleven, the rain picked up again. A young man with hair down to his shoulders and a wispy beard that petered out over his freckled cheeks filled his gas tank, bought a half dozen, instant-win lottery tickets and a can of Skoal chewing tobacco. “That stuff causes cancer,” Ava noted shoving the round, metal container across the counter.

  “Got to die of something.” The man scraped the tickets with the edge of a nickel. A minute passed. No luck! He crumpled the stiff papers in a ball, tossed them into the trash and made a run through the pelting rain toward a rusty Subaru docked at the farthest pump. When he was gone, Ava noticed suede, pea-green pouch sitting next to the cash register. The bearded man set it on the counter while scratching his lottery tickets. She lifted the pouch, which was about the size of a small book and shook it. A metallic tinkling sound filled the room. Ava shook it a second time and the musical clatter repeated. “Strange!” She tossed the sack into a bottom drawer labeled ‘Lost and Found’ just as a Ford pickup truck pulled into the station.