Then there was the gas station. 24hrs. Glowing in the tule fog, with an open mini-mart lit up like heaven. I’d made it on less than vapor, sometime after midnight, Fresno, California, one of the worst places on earth. You may imagine I’m exaggerating about that. Go ahead.

I pumped gas into my sad Cavalier, which was destined to throw a rod in 2012, but I could not have anticipated that from the fog-glow of a highway gas station in 2008. I felt there were worse things waiting for me than running out of gas somewhere outside Lemoore on the 41 north. But then, as now, I let the evil of the day be sufficient thereunto.

I was approached by a tall man in pajamas. He came out of the fog. He did not come from the mini-mart. If you know Fresno after midnight, if you know the tule fog or the old prostitute motels and truck stops that have dotted the highways since the intersection of itinerant labor and agribusiness, you know that a weeping man in pajamas coming towards you out of the tule fog is just another fish in the fish tank. Not even an exotic fish. A fish of the usual water.

He didn’t have a pajama top. Only bottoms. No shoes. He was fat. His belly was completely covered in tattoos, mostly writing in gothic script. I remember he had a big gold nipple ring. The memory of him is burned into my mind. He moaned to himself and wiped his eyes, like he’d seen through everything to the hideous truth that awaits us all. He asked me for $1.30. I often wonder why he asked for that specific amount and not just $5. I said I didn’t have any cash, which was the truth. He nodded. Yes.

Then he went into the mini-mart. Less than a minute later, I’d squeegeed tule condensation off my windows and was about to depart, when I saw him running out with a case of Miller High Life under his arm. He vanished into the fog. The cashier ran out a half-step later, a delta of blood over his mouth. He held a small wooden table leg, like from grandma’s settee.

He stopped at the edge of the gas station property and screamed “MotherFUCKER!” into the fog. Well, I thought, okay. Right. I got back in the Cavalier, rolled onto the road, and slowly, carefully resumed my way back up the 41. There were three stories here, but I only knew mine. And that was good.

My future was full of thrown rods and heartbreak. But I didn’t have to crouch in an irrigation ditch in my pajamas, guzzling Millers on the foggiest night of the year. I didn’t have to stand at the edge of the gas station asphalt in a blue vest, holding a table leg, screaming into the dark. The tank was full. The windshield was clean. The sun was four hours away.