her for six years. But if I stepped out that door -‘
‘It’s just starting,’ the counterman said. His eyes were hooded and obsidian. ‘It must be bad if that
radio’s gone. It’s just starting.’
The girl had drained as pale as milk. ‘Never mind that,’ I said to the counterman. ‘Not yet.’
‘What would do it?’ The trucker was worrying. ‘Electrical storms in the atmosphere? Nuclear testing?
What?’
‘Maybe they’re mad,’ I said.
Around seven o’clock I walked over to the counterman. ‘How are we fixed here? I mean, if we have to
stay a while?’
His brow wrinkled. ‘Not so bad. Yest’y was delivery day. We got two-three hunnert hamburg patties,
canned fruit and vegetables, dry cereal, aigs . . . no more milk than what’s in the cooler, but the water’s
from the well. If we had to, the five of us cud get on for a month or more.’
The trucker came over and blinked at us. ‘I’m dead out of cigarettes. Now that cigarette machine .
‘It ain’t my machine,’ the counterman said. ‘No sir.’
The trucker had a steel pinch bar he’d got in the supply room out back. He went to work on the machine.
The kid went down to where the jukebox glittered and flashed and plugged in a quarter. John Fogarty
began to sing about being born on the bayou.
I sat down and looked out the window. I saw something I didn’t like right away. A Chevy light pickup
had joined the patrol, like a Shetland pony amid Percherons. I watched it until it rolled impartially over
the body of the girl from the Caddy and then I looked away.
‘We made them!’ the girl cried out with sudden w’retchedness. ‘They can’t!’
Her boy friend told her to hush. The trucker got the cigarette machine open and helped himself to six or
eight packs of Viceroys. He put them in different pockets and then ripped one pack open. From the
intent expression on his face, I wasn’t sure if he was going to smoke them or eat them up.
Another record came on the juke. It was eight o’clock.
At eight-thirty the power went off.
When the lights went, the girl screamed, a cry that stopped suddenly, as if her boy friend had put his
hand over her mouth. The jukebox dies with a deepening, unwinding sound.
‘What the Christ!’ the trucker said.
‘Counterman!’ I called. ‘You got any candles?’
‘I think so. Wait. . yeah. Here’s a few.’
I got up and took them. We lit them and started placing them around. ‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘If we burn the
place down there’s the devil to pay.’
He chuckled morosely. ‘You know it.’
When we were done placing the candles, the kid and his girl were huddled together and the trucker was
by the back door, watching six more heavy trucks weaving in and out between the concrete fuel islands.
‘This changes things, doesn’t it?’ I said.
‘Damn right, if the power’s gone for good.’
‘How bad?’
‘Hamburg’ll go over in three days. Rest of the meat and aigs’ll go by about as quick. The cans will be
okay, an’ the dry stuff. But that ain’t the worst. We ain’t gonna have no water without the pump.’
‘How long?’
‘Without no water? A week.’
‘Fill every empty jug you’ve got. Fill them till you can’t draw anything but air. Where are the toilets?
There’s good water in the tanks.’
‘Employees’ res’room is in the back. But you have to go outside to get to the lady’s and gent’s.’
‘Across to the service building?’ I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
‘No. Out the side door an’ up a ways.’
‘Give me a couple of buckets.’
He found two galvanized pails. The kid strolled up.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We have to have water. All we can get.’
‘Give me a bucket then.’
I handed him one.
‘Jerry!’ the girl cried. ‘You -‘
He looked at her and she didn’t say anything else, but she picked up a napkin and began to tear at the corners. The trucker was smoking another cigarette and grinning at the floor. He didn’t speak up.