I don't know whether you could call what my father did flirting. True, he leaned against the counter, across from the cashier, and flashed his square, nicotine-stained teeth, clenched his jaw in a chuckle. But there was no sense of aggression in his performance, no desire to advance the stakes. I know that sounds like a lot to observe from the passenger side of my parked Mazda, the filling hose streaming gasoline into the small opening just above the rear tire. And yes, it is a lot, but I'd been watching my father smile and joke with the cashiers, whether they were pretty or not, since I was at least six years old. And that was nearly twenty years ago. I even knew that after he ran his credit card through the scanner, he would push through the glass doors, his hand shooting up to give a final wave goodbye. My father was a man of habits, and I was in the habit of watching them.
The last day he filled my car with gas, about a week ago, he and my mother had decreed that it would be best if he drove me to my afternoon job interview. The process that led to this journey was laughably convoluted. First, my father parked his pickup in the lot of my apartment complex, and then he retrieved me in my pearl-white pumps and paisley business skirt ensemble. We entered my vehicle, him on the driver's side as always, and headed for the bank for the interview, stopping for gas on the way. What I saw on my dashboard as my father maneuvered us back onto the service road relieved me. My father had filled my car's tank so full, that the small red needle landed a tick north of the F designation for full. I knew what this meant. It meant that this week my father loved me completely, perhaps out of optimism for the bank interview or perhaps because generosity sometimes descended upon him as suddenly as a summer cold. It hardly mattered. Seeing that needle jump to F when he turned the key in ignition, I relaxed, knowing I wouldn't have to connive or beg for more gasoline for likely two whole weeks.
"Did you go to the company's website online like your mother told you to, Jenny?" my father asked me, whipping down the visor to block out the afternoon sun's deep orange rays.
"It was a little hard to navigate."
"When did you try it?"
"Last night, Dad. I already told Mom when she called this morning."
"Baby, I didn't know."
"I don't think there was anything on there I needed to know today."
"Still, honey, it's better to be over-prepared than get caught with your knickers down."
"I'll do fine, Dad."
"I'm sure you will, honey."
When we pulled into the bank's small front lot, my side was blocked by a plumber's black van, so I had to squeeze through the passenger door. I worried about soiling my dress, how my mother would fume and stomp if I didn't arrive for dinner that night at their house looking less than impeccable.
As I crossed the lot, I took a last look over my shoulder to see my father leaning back in the driver's seat, a newspaper section held aloft in his hairy-knuckled hands. I knew what this escort was all about. My parents, but especially my mother, feared I would skip the interview if trusted to drive to the bank alone in my own car. And maybe I would have. I'd been on numerous interviews, all filled with sweetly delivered questions about my skills and disappointed looks when the time came to disclose my criminal record. I've been arrested for drunk driving twice, the last time about two years ago. I'd grown tired of hearing the same bad news, leaving each interview with the same resigned sigh. So, my parents made sure that I kept trying to land a job in earnest. Even when the full gas tank let me know my father loved me, I knew better than to believe that he could ever trust me.
I tried not to think about how long this arrangement had been going on. I found it better just to exist in the given week, or in the days between trips to the gas station. When I lost my last job as a cashier at a consignment shop, I knew finding another might prove impossible. My last arrest occurred while I was still working and of course, employers don't check your background when you're on the payroll. Over the months and months, I went on interviews, at first trying for respectable positions, but slowly and shamefully lowering my expectations. The bank interview was a fluke. Currently, I was far more likely to be trying sad, grimy convenience stores. When I lost my last job, I feared it meant I'd have to return to my parents' home. But my mother insisted that she had done her duty raising me and, as she and my father neared retirement age, they had dreams, plans, ambitions. And having me underfoot was simply unacceptable. So, I kept the apartment and the ritual of trips to the gas station and the supermarket began.
Who knows what my boyfriend Wally saw in me? Maybe he was just waiting to get me married and pregnant so I could fulfill some cleverly concealed role as model housewife. Eating greasy cheeseburgers and crunchy fries at a diner near my apartment, he asked me about the bank interview. His tone was neutral. I hadn't a clue what he thought might have happened, or if he thought anything about it at all.
"The same goddamn thing that always happens," I said.
"Jenn, maybe you should start thinking about..." I waited for him to finish his thought, my burger poised in mid-air. It was rare Wally had an opinion on anything I did. I was suddenly eager to hear it.
"Maybe you shouldn't be so up-front about your convictions."
"You mean I should lie."
"That's not the word I want," he said, running his hand through his dark brown spikes of hair in frustration. "All I'm saying is wait and find out how thorough their background checks really are. Maybe you'll find a job where your convictions don't show up."
"Dumbass, every company uses the same search engines."
"I'm just trying to give you ideas, Jenn."
"Well, give me better ones. That last one sucked."
After dinner, Wally and I cuddled together on the couch and watched a movie. I could tell by the way he stroked my arm, the pressure growing stronger with each caress, that he wanted to make love to me. I didn't mind being with Wally. I might have loved him. I usually didn't figure out things like that until the guy split. But sure, love was always possible.
In the dark of my bedroom, he wrapped his sinewy arms around me, nestled his face against my neck. I always found it difficult to fall asleep with his hot, stagnant breath puffing on my face, but I never asked him to change positions. I knew he was situated exactly in the spot that pleased him
Even though there was a full tank of gas in my car, my father arrived two days later because it was time for me to buy the week's groceries. Since I had no income, my parents only allowed me fifty dollars a week, with the understanding they would cover my food, bills and rent. My father and I puttered down the road to the Wal-Mart at the south side of the city. A soft country ballad filled the cab of his truck, a woman singing about how her husband had found a new love.
"Did you make a list?" he asked me.
I tapped my temple with a finger. "It's all up here."
"Jenny, you know you wind up buying things you don't need when you don't make a list."
"Dad, please don't worry about it."
"You know what your mother says..."
"I buy the same shit every damn week."
"Honey, then how come for the last four times, you've wound up spending more and more each week?"
"Maybe prices went up."
"Don't even try that, little miss."
We rolled through the large, congested lot, my father looking for a closer parking space. I dabbed a fresh coat of gloss on my lips, removed my compact from my purse and applied a quick coating of powder. No matter how broke I was, I refused to be one of those women who stalked the aisles of Wal-Mart with a haggard face and careless wardrobe. Besides, it felt good to get made up, regardless of where I was headed.
Inside the store, I promised to call my father with my cell phone after I was finished shopping. I supposed he could have accompanied me, trailing behind the shopping cart, but my father found shopping for anything an impossible chore. All the other shoppers blocking our progress, the confusing array of different brands competing for our attention. He slipped into the outdoors sports section, maybe fantasizing about a new fishing rod for spring.
I wasn't lying when I told my father I bought the same groceries every week. On the nights Wally didn't take me out, I prepared the same meals, most of them out of cans with labels that appeared far more appealing than the sloppy reality. I even had a day assigned for each entrée I stacked in my cart. But covertly, I had started to add a new CD or old favorite movie on DVD, burying them among the food containers. When I stood with my father at the checkout lane, he never paid attention to the items rolling past on the conveyor belt. He just gazed into space until it was time to write the check. After I finished picking up the food, I decided to forgo any special treat this week. My father had asked too many questions, meaning my mother might start inspecting the receipt, which my father always kept.
When the cashier finished scanning my items, she announced a total lower than last week's bill. My father didn't seem to notice. He filled out the check and handed it to the cashier. He joked about our local baseball team's losing record, and the cashier laughed without opening her hot pink lips. As I angled the cart toward the exit, my father shuffled behind me, lifted his hand to give the cashier one final wave. She had already turned to face the next customer.
I didn't drive much unless it was to pick up supplies or run brief errands. Even after a whole week, I still had over half a tank of gasoline left. It's funny how so little can make you feel protected. The half-tank meant I wouldn't have to call home, stiffly ask my father to ask my mother if I could please get the tank filled. My mother never came on the line to let me know the answer, which, always after an extended pause, was a curt yes. She relayed the message to my father who then announced the decision, often with an enthusiasm that I sincerely hoped was a show for my benefit, not a real emotion. Yes, all that was still several days in my future. I called Wally, knowing he'd likely just come home from his job operating a dump truck for the city development office, and I asked if he wanted to see a movie. In a theatre, for once. He didn't know what was playing, and I never kept a newspaper in my apartment. I told him we'd decide once we arrived at the theatre. I was unaccountably eager to leave my home.
"What's got you stoked to hit the town?" he asked.
"Do I need a reason?"
"I was just wondering."
"Wally, aren't you tired of sitting on the same couch, watching the same TV set every night we're together?"
"Money's tight for both of us. We're just being sensible."
"Fuck being sensible."
"It's not as easy as just telling the world to fuck it."
"Sure, it is. Wait for me to come get you. Forget about your wallet."
I paid for both our tickets, splurged on popcorn and soda. In less than five minutes, I was left with only ten dollars for the rest of the week. But I didn't care. To behave like people with disposable cash for just one night was worth the poverty I'd face for the next few days. I could get by on one pack of cigarettes, if I tried hard to conserve.
After the movie, Wally walked me out of the theatre, and instead of walking to my car, we ambled down the sidewalk that ran past a fitness gym, then a steakhouse, and finally a row of anonymous office fronts.
"I'm kinda glad you asked me out," Wally muttered, his head turned away from me.
"Sure you are. Look at all the money you saved."
"No, it's not that."
"What then?"
He stopped on the pavement, didn't let go of my hand that he'd been holding since we started our walk. "I think it's time we consolidate our resources," he said in a formal tone.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"I have enough room in my apartment. I can score a bigger bed from my brother's house, and—"
"You mean shack up? Sweetie, how can two people live on what you make?"
"It's not right your parents making you live on nothing."
"It's not forever."
"Finding a job isn't going to be easy for you," he said.
"I never said it would be."
"Live with me and maybe you don't have to look quite so hard."
I gazed directly into his eyes. His eyebrows were arched in anticipation. He licked his lips and ground his teeth together. I knew in that moment the answer I gave could offer me a freedom from the pleading phone calls and weekly trips to the grocery store where I had to stand like a goddamn parasite while my father cut a check and flashed the cashier a smile. I wasn't sure I loved him, though, and living together almost always led to a proposal sometime down the line. But finally, I thought of the needle on my gas gauge hovering just below the halfway mark.
"I'll tell my parents about it in the morning," I said simply. He smiled wide and pulled me toward him for a brief, happy kiss. We walked back to my car, arms around each other's shoulders, our feet once or twice knocking against one another.
As were all conversations ostensibly meant to involve both my parents, it was only my father's voice that I heard when I called the next morning. I heard in the background my mother fire off all the questions I'd expected. Could Wally afford this? When would I actually move in? Did I intend to be just a live-in girlfriend or keep looking for work?
They arranged for a moving van to haul my meager possessions away from my apartment that Saturday morning, leaving me with just a few odds and ends to pack in the back of my car. I started the engine to drive out to Wally's place and was stunned to notice that my gauge was almost pointing directly at E. In the rush of the week's arrangements, I'd forgotten to alert my father that I would need gas. For this last time.
I killed the engine and rushed back into my apartment. The phone rang four, five times before my father answered. He sounded breathless when he spoke.
"Is that you, Jenny?"
"Dad, I forgot to tell you. I'm almost out of gas."
"Can you make it through till tomorrow? I wasn't planning to leave the house again today."
"It's almost on empty. I don't want to run out somewhere on the highway."
"Well, I'll have to ask your mother."
"I'll wait." I heard the tap of the receiver being laid on a countertop, followed a few moments later by the alternating voices of my mother and father. Finally, my father returned to the line.
"I'll be there in an hour."
"Please hurry. I have to catch the moving van before they unload everything at Wally's."
"You just sit tight, little miss."
I tried to watch a talk show with some expensively tailored guest who starred on some reality show, but I couldn't focus. My parents knew that Wally would gas up my car from now on. Today would be my last trip to the station with my father. No more suspense about how loved I should feel on a given week. Of course, it could be argued that now I would have no proof that he loved me at all, but that was negative thinking and I refused to give myself over to it. As the TV program rolled its end credits, I heard the rumble of my father's engine as he parked in the lot. We met outside and zipped off in my car. The nearest station was three blocks away.
"You let it get mighty low this time, honey," he said.
"Things have been crazy getting moved in. Sorry."
"You might have landed yourself in a jam."
"I caught it in time."
"I hope Wally keeps better tabs on his gas than you did."
"Daddy, pull in at the other pump. We won't have to wait on that one."
After my father went inside to pay the cashier, I gazed out the passenger window at the passing traffic. Soon, I would be like all those people zooming past me, ignorant of my delicate financial arrangement that was now concluding. I would be able to go as often and however far I pleased, and I knew the man who paid my way loved me no matter how much gas was in the tank.
My father waved goodbye to the cashier and emerged from the glass doors. He lifted the hose from the pump and fit the nozzle into the hole above the rear tire. I'd witnessed this maneuver so many times, I'd come to anticipate the exact moment the gas would cut off, the tank full. But this time, I heard the mechanical click far too early. I looked through the side window and saw my father returning the hose to the pump. Then, he slid behind the steering while and turned the key in the ignition. All the dashboard signals jumped to life. Not wanting to but feeling compelled as if by enchantment, I watched the gas gauge needle rise past the E. It climbed and climbed. And then, it stopped. Only halfway up the gauge. My father pulled out of the station without a word.
I shouldn't have worried about it. Wally would fill my tank the moment I needed it, and that was really what mattered. And he loved me. Not like my father and his just displayed half-love. As my father drove me home, I sat silent in the seat, felt the vibrations of the vehicle as the tires lumbered over patches of fresh asphalt padded on the road.