60...

In a cracked and oil stained parking spot next to the gas station’s main building, where once sat a dirty and dented, navy blue Honda Civic, you could now find a black, late seventies model Cadillac. The car was empty. It had been quickly wiped down with windshield washing fluid, inside and out. It now sat like a dead thing, absorbing the sunlight that fell in its direction.
The mad whirring of insects in the dried and brown grass around the gas station had taken off again in earnest. The sound echoed slightly off of the odd corners of the building and the pumps; it played for nobody, it played for the tarmac that would burn bare flesh if someone were feeling inclined to put their tender skin there.
The cloudless sky around the station seemed washed out by the sun, a pale and weather-beaten imitation of the rich blues much gentler climates laid claim to. The heat bullied itself around the grasses, entered and made mad love to any exposed surfaces, danced in ephemeral shivers off of the ground.
The building of the gas station was dark in comparison to the blinding white of Central California summer sun. Within the shade, an air conditioner played its sad and monotonous music to nobody. It occasionally managed to ruffle the pages of the free newsprint publications near the register, managing to sound like ghosts quickly exiting an attic that had become too desperate, even for them.
The ancient radio behind the counter continued its soft production of misplaced music; music which seemed content in itself to be just music, audience or no. It played for the candy bars, for the chips and beef jerky, for the small but alarming blood stain on the tiled floor behind the register. Static jumped through the slow sound of the music as the fan in the cooler kicked on.
The stainless steel door to the cooler was barred closed with the roller chair that normally sat behind the register, it was wedged firmly under the door’s handle. Inside the cooler, Randy ‘E’ Lakin lay on the floor, eyes staring emptily at the metal housing in the ceiling that covered the cooler’s fan.
The cold hand that had been laid on his chest felt the effects of gravity and fell to the cooler floor. Randy let out a low, creaky grown. His eyes closed slowly, and even more slowly opened once again.
He was dizzy, he was cold. He reached slowly into the front pocket of his overalls and pulled out a slightly crushed cigarette. He slowly pulled a plastic cigarette lighter from the right, lower pocket of the overalls and lit the cigarette. He blew a contemplative cloud of smoke up towards the fan in the ceiling.
“Fuck,” was all he said.
Some miles away, heading steadily north on an interstate that cut through the fertile fields like an asphalt scar, a beautiful young woman blew smoke out the window of a navy blue Civic. She had picked up the lone cigarette from the counter of a gas station convenience store.
Alexis realized she would have to trade cars once again, more than likely long before she reached San Francisco.