The Gas Can

Here is a short story from my archives, i hope you enjoy! Oh, i would appreciate comments and feedback too.


It was raining and almost 6:30 in the morning. Jason pushed the check book away from his seat, picked up his coffee cup and moved slowly into the kitchen for another cup. All he wanted was sleep.

He hadn’t slept well the night before, neither had his wife.
Their young son had woken up again and again. His wife, then he, up to see what was wrong and each time it was something unexplainable – just the disrupted sleep of a toddler. Dreams he couldn’t name, loneliness, or cold. The wind that picked up in the middle of the night. Growing up in a world of toil and danger.

They had no idea. But now he was asleep, dreaming or not, warm and comfortable. The walls of his crib, so like bars of a jail, kept him safe. They weren’t bars to keep him in so much as to keep harm away. He had thought when the crib was first assembled that it was so like a cage.
But the crying, the sleeplessness, the anxiety of getting up and leaving for work had taken its toll and he and his wife had limped to bed one last time to sleep.
Another hour would make a big difference…

Standing at the kitchen window in his second floor apartment he watched the rain. It looked like it had slackened but it had simply changed -- from a deep downpour to a steady mist that coats the world like an oil spill. Water seeping across every surface and into every penetrable orifice. The mist would coat his cloths—jacket, hat, pants, and boots—and by noon or one or eleven, but probably earlier, probably immediately, he would be soaked to the bone with a mind numbing chill.

He poured a cup of coffee and went back to the table. Steam rose from the mug and the smell of the hot black liquid wafted across his nose. He wasn’t sure if it kept him awake or lulled him to sleep not but it was comforting to sip and he liked the warmth that spread through his body as he sat in the morning chill preparing for the day.
He thought of his wife now asleep in their king size bed. A bed that was alternately a fortress of intimacy and contact—pleasure, fun, and safety—or an island of loneliness and frustration. Often he thought how easy it would be to find the neutral ground and live life in between, close enough for one but not for the other. But his spirit, and hers, had never settled for status quo and they were all in, for better or worse, sickness and health, richer or poorer.
He buried his hands in his head and rubbed his eyes till he could see stars. With his vision blurred and eyes burning from pressure he too a sip of coffee and pushed his pen at his journal and his check book.

“At least,” he said very quietly to his mug (and watched as the journal and checkbook leaned their ears to hear), “at least there is this and this can always be status quo.”

“Fucking Saturdays,” he said quietly. “Fucking work,” and sipped his coffee. “Fucking lunch,” and got up to build a lunch box collage.

His small cooler filled with the random assortment of food unique to carpenters and laborers. A half bag of triscuits, a sandwich sans all but meat and cheese, handful of cookies, apple, and banana. As an after thought he added an ice pack and a can of peaches, he would open the can with a pair of tin snips. In the evenings, after dinner, while they cleaned the kitchen, his wife would often comment on the eclectic assortment of wrappers and cans and wonder to herself how such indifference could enter into a lunch.

He tried to be quiet in the kitchen, but try as he would, there was still noise. It seemed that every other day he woke up his son because of making his lunch or breakfast, or just being human. His wife would roll over and go back to sleep but if the boy was up, already, that was her lonely call back into reality.

He hoped Tony was still planning on coming to work, they had arranged the last two, or three, Saturdays to work and Tony had backed out, on Saturday, on each of them. Fucking tony, he thought, I hope he’s there. Or maybe not. Fuck em.
He needed the cash but he hated working on Saturdays.

Quickly he finished making his lunch and thought about breakfast but didn’t know what to make. Sipping coffee he leaned against the kitchen island and watched the world turn through the big window over the sink. From there he watched the neighbors drive out of the small parking lot. Gene took his standard poodle, Stanley, on a walk. It continued to rain and a small man in a ragged coat, ball cap, and white sneakers walked down the street, stopped at the deadened barrier and looked around.

The man stood in place and slowly did two circles, looking intently at each dwelling with each circle.

“What the hell is he doing?” he whispered to the window which answered back with the steam from his breath fogging it over. And shrugged. “Nut job,” he said and the window seemed to agree. It wasn’t odd for transients to cruise down their street, through the civic field parking lot and into the green zone. On evidence of the foot traffic down his street there was, he thought, a veritable metropolis for homeless bums, miscreants, and transients of all types and walks of life. He put the man out of his mind and went back to the table with his coffee.

It would be time to leave for work soon, the in-between time. A sort of space-time-linear purgatory that he hated. There was never enough time to get really comfortable. He would just leave, be early, but he hated being that guy, so, generally, he paced with frustration and anxiety, watching the clock slow down and the world become dizzy with his need for movement.

When he heard some one coming up the stairs he froze and searched his brain for an identifier, nada. A slow, continuous pressure on the stairs carried into the apartment. The noise builds, just slightly, as the walker climbs. But there is never a crescendo of music and light. At the landing the footsteps stop and the letdown continues.

The knock was long time in coming and then it was a bang! He jumped up and tipped toed quickly across the room to answer the door. Standing in the rain was the man from road. He opened the door and they looked at each other. The man wanted him to close the door and invite him in. He didn’t and broke the silence.

“Can I help you?” Jason asked the man.

Silence.

“What do you need?” he asked again, “what do you want?”

“I ran out of gas.”

“I’m sorry, there is a gas station down the street.”

He took the man in quickly, baggy pants, work coat. Asian of descent and his hands looked as though they seen a few pots and pans and maybe a hammer or two. He stared into him and through him, seeing the hall way, the painting on the wall and the smell of coffee. He was thick with it.

“I ran out of gas,” the man repeated and looked into his eyes with empty pleading. His eyes had no desire or life, they matched his tone and expression on his face.
“What do you want?” Jason asked.

“Some money.” The man moved a step closer. Jason shifted to put his weight on his left foot and held the door handle tightly with his right hand.

“I don’t have anything I can give you. I don’t have any money.”

"But I ran out of gas,” the man reasoned.

"There is a gas station down the street.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Neither do I.”

“I ran out of gas.”

“Sorry.”

“I need money,” he said.

“I’ve no money to give you,” Jason paused and looked down. He scratched his head and yawned and rubbed his eyes and thought for a moment of telling him to leave and calling the
police. “I do have a gas can you can borrow.”

The man’s shoulders sank and he drew the skin of his face into a twisted look of anger and disbelief.

“I need some gas. I need money!”

“Sorry man, a gas can is the best I can do. Wait down there, please.” Jason slipped on his shoes and led the man to his truck in the parking lot. The gas can was bone dry. “Sorry its empty, but you can fill it, put some in your car, and then return the gas can.”

The man looked at him with silence and frustration and plure contempt and he reached out and took the gas can.

“Just put it on the bottom step when you are done.” The man didn’t reply but took the gas can and walked away. He shuffled up the street, the gas can swinging lightly at his side, each step looked heavy and forced. He watched him for a while—he seemed like an ant, grinding away at what he had a mind to grind away at. There was no thought in his movements, no passion in his eyes. Life, for him, was toil, and standing in the rain in the parking lot, letting pity take his heart, he saw himself a small leap from the Asian’s position.

As the small man walked away, he followed him into the street, expecting to see his car. But there was nothing. Just the man with the gas can, swinging lightly at his side. He looked to the sky, and tried to find God in the clouds and from his heart came the shape of a prayer but no words to frame it. The rain chocked it back. The clouds opened a bit.
Before he went up stairs Jason checked his wallet and saw a five folded into it, he had known it was there, but it wasn’t a bill for charity. He saw it as a ticket to some beer and that lifted his spirits considerably.

On his way to work, Jason saw the man sitting at the nearest gas station, watching the traffic go by. The gas can was next to him and his expression was blank. There were no parked cars in sight. The man never returned the gas can.

Two years later, he drove past a man on a street corner holding a gas can in one hand and a sign in the other – he needed gas. As he drove by he thought about the Asian and his lost gas can.

“When in Rome,” he said, “watch the empire fall.”

And quickly he was out of sight of the man on the corner and off to work. Tony wouldn’t be there, ever again.