The Texaco Star - Part 1

After Romans latest stunt lands him at the police station, Mora doesn't know what to do with him any more. Roman ends up spending some time doing heavy labor at the family farm and is introduced to the new world of "pulpwoodin"... as things start looking up for young Roman he takes on some additional responsibilities at the Texaco gas station in town where he meets Benny, his new best friend. 

Transcript

ROMAN and the Texaco Star

     Mora was at her wits end with Roman… as she was leaving the police station with Roman in tow she rummaged through her purse for her pills…

Thank god. Buried at the bottom was her salvation.

What was she supposed to do with him she kept asking herself. Glancing back she stared at her son… roman had the hang dog look of a convicted horse thief… and rightly so… for heavens sake… stealing a motorcycle, or dirt bike whatever… and then riding it through the hallway at his school?

Who does that?? Lord knows she has her hands full just trying to keep her job as a nurse… she knew she was drinking too much… no big revelation there… but goddamnit… she had to have her pills… she didn’t know what she’d do without them. Her job at the hospital provided her that easy access she had to have… and now this.

As roman shut the car door and stared at his shoes… Mora said, “And just what were you trying to accomplish with a stunt like that young man?”

I dunno.

Do you have any idea how close you came to being charged back there? And then what?

I dunno.

I swear Roman… you’re on my last nerve.

Roman just sat there… staring at the floorboard… mentally trying to teleport himself like capt kirk or spock did… beam me up scotty! Any place but here.

So what… you have nothing to say? Do you think that I’m going to let you stay home… alone… while I’m at work? After you’ve been suspended… expelled… who knows what….

I can’t deal with you …. Right now.

After several days of the parental units arguing what’s best for Roman… Rob and Mora had decided to put him on a greyhound bus headed to Florida… to spend some quality time with his aunt and uncle, his cousins… on the family farm. 

Maybe some hard manual labor under the scorching summer sun picking tobacco and watermelons would be just what the doctor ordered to straighten the kid out.

Roman was sitting in an aisle seat about halfway down the bus with the two seats to his right empty… he thought that might deter any unwanted passengers to join him.

It didn’t work.

After ten hours of having the aisle to himself the next stop on what Roman figured was the milk run… they seemed to be pulling into every one horse town between Chicago and Atlanta… a disheveled man in his mid-twenties got on and took the seat directly across the aisle from Roman.

Roman gave him the once over and lumped the new passenger in to the weirdo pile of judgement calls.

An hour hadn’t gone by before the man proved roman correct.

The new passenger got up and went to the back and went into the toilet… where he stayed in romans opinion quiet a long time. Roman wondered if he had fallen asleep in there.

When the man came out he walked past Roman and took another seat one row ahead and to romans left, the man squeezed past a chubby middle aged guy to sit down.

Roman thought that was kinda strange since before the man had the entire row to himself… why would he want to squeeze in next to someone else? Go figure roman thought… people were nuts.

It wasn’t two minutes later the man started talking nonsense to chubby and BAM! In a blink of an eye… the man punched chubs in the face.

Who knew why. Probably for no reason at all… roman guessed. The bus pulled over along the country highway, two sheriff’s deputies came on and drug the man off and put him in the back of their patrol car.

Just another day on dis here greyhound… roman heard an old woman mutter behind him. They not all locked up ya know.

When the bus pulled into the small town of branch creek roman was sore and stiff for sitting all the way from Chicago… 

His aunt Mary and cousin rita two years older… were standing in front of their pickup truck waiting for him… “well, well, well… look what the cat drug in… said aunt mary…

“the city slicker has finally arrived!” Rita pipped in.

Once they arrived back at the farm his aunt and uncle made quick putting roman to work and earn his keep.

The following day he was awakened at four in the morning…

What the hell… roman muttered.

Get yer butt up his aunt said flippin on the light in her sewing room now converted into roman’s bedroom.

Getcha some breakfast… it’s gonna be a long day no doubt.

Donny, Rita’s older brother, was sitting in his truck waiting to take roman out and introduce him to the wild and wonderful world of pulpwoodin’… cutting down pine trees to truck over to the pulpwood mill.

Aunt Mary had packed him a lunch and thrust a thermos of coffee in his hands… “go on and get, she barked at roman.

Still half asleep and rubbing his eyes, roman walked out into the still blackness of the cold and foggy early morn…

“get yer ass in gear boy! Donny yelled… we ain’t got all day!

As roman sat in the passenger seat bouncing up and down on the rough country dirt road Donny told him what he was gonna be doin for his foreseeable future.

Donny and his brother Danny… (yep that’s right) leased land and grew pine trees, once they had grown to a certain size or diameter, usually greater than four inches thick, they came in with a crew known as pulpwooders… and with chainsaws in hand would cut down all the flagged trees of appropriate size… remove the limbs… slice up into six foot sections… and that’s where roman came in… his job was to stack up those freshly cut six foot sections of pine and stack em into cords…

Cords of raw wood or pine… are stacks about four foot wide by four foot tall and 6-8 feet in length. Or 128 cubic feet of pine stacked together… each cord weighs roughly two thousand pounds.

As soon as the sun began to climb over the horizon the chainsaws erupted to life… running non-stop all morning until they were silenced for an hour at noon… while the crew ate lunch… at one oclock they roared back to life cutting down the pine until the sun faded away and was too dark to work.  otherwise the sound of chainsaws filled romans ears all day.

The crew of men as far as roman could tell looked to be anywhere between eighteen and forty years old, maybe a few older… fresh outta jail… on probation… recently paroled from prison… hardened cons with no where else to go. Tattoos covered their bare arms and necks… their clothes dirty and tattered.

Roman wasn’t allowed to touch the chainsaws. Donny said hell fuckin no boy… your ONLY job at the moment is to pick up the wood and stack it into cords… got it boy?

I got enough trouble with the rest of these boneheads cutting themselves up… I can’t have you cutting off yer leg… momma would kill me.

Roman could certainly understand that after witnessing one of the guys lay a still running chainsaw on his thigh… to light up a smoke…

All it took was a second.

He was rushed to the hospital where he received about a hundred stitches… he never returned.

By the time Donny dropped roman off at aunt mary’s it was eight o clock at night… mary told him to leave his dirty clothes outside on the porch and she’d wash em.

Roman stared at his chest and stomach… covered in the sticky sap of the pine. No amount of scrubbing with soap and water would remove it.

Mary handed him a can of turpentine and an old cloth… “here ya go… only thing that’ll take it off. Just wash up after… otherwise it’ll burn yer skin.

Hurry up now… I made a plate for you… get some sleep and you’ll be waking yerself up from now on… I put an alarm clock by the bed. Four a.m. is gonna come mighty early… 

This was his nightly ritual… scrub the pine sap off his body with turpentine… wash down out in the yard with lye soap and a hose… eat a plate of leftovers and go to sleep… rinse and repeat.

After a month of laboring away six days week then church on Sunday… which was mandatory if roman wanted to live in Mary’s house…

Donny handed Roman an envelope stuffed with cash.

What’s this? Roman asked.

It’s yer pay boy… whattya think… you earned it. Momma told me if you lasted a week to go on and put ya on the payroll. Four-hundred a week for stacking the cords. That’s sixteen-hundred dollars there… I’d stick that in the back if I was you… or blow it all on beer whatever… we always need some dumb kid to stack pine.

Roman had never held that much money in his hands ever.

Yessir roman replied thanks.

Don’t need to thank me boy, you earned every penny.

How bout we getcha trained up on a chainsaw tomorrow? Move up a notch… start as a trimmer.

A trimmer position was the guy who came after the pine trees were felled and removed all the limbs… it was the first rung of the chainsaw operator ladder… and roman was stunned to be getting promoted.

On day three of roman’s new position as trimmer, he had just finished trimming a pine when he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye. While working in a particularly swampy section of the woods, his boots were submerged up to his ankles…

Roman jumped in surprise as a big water moccasin was headed straight for him.

Goddamn roman yelled but his voice was drowned out by the symphony of sounds in the pine forest of chainsaws, swamp buggies that were picking up the cords and loading the trailers of  pulpwood trucks.

Roman stared in amazement as the full grown snake came straight towards him.

Why wasn’t he afraid of all the noise roman wondered.

Just as the water moccasin coiled preparing to strike it’s mouth opened wide… roman just squeezed the trigger of his chainsaw and thrust the spinning teeth into the snakes opened mouth.

It’s head disintegrated in a split second.

Now I know why they’re nickname is “cotton-mouth” roman thought… as he recalled how white the inside of the water moccasins mouth had been when he pushed the chainsaw inside. Just like cotton.

Now paranoid to death of more snakes coming up on him while his back was turned… roman found it hard to concentrate on his work… 

Luckily for roman he didn’t need to worry much longer.

The last lot of pine had been harvested and there wasn’t any more pulpwood work on the calendar… a competitor had swooped in and bought up several leases under cousin donny’s nose.

Though roman wasn’t without a job for long. As the school year was beginning and roman was enrolled as a freshman at the local high school cousin Danny put roman to work at one of his two Texaco gas stations, they owned one out on the interstate and another in town…

The Texaco in town was managed by a kid not much older than roman… Charley was nineteen and up to his neck in rebuilding his 1957 Chevy bel-aire that he kept in one of the two bays of the station. 

Roman looked up at the big neon Texaco sign that red star flickering on and off and definitely approved.

Benny Atkins was looking for a fall guy when he ran into Roman at the Texaco. They both attended the same high school and knew of each other by reputation only. Benny was a junior, and Roman was barely hanging in there as a freshman. Benny had a rich Daddy, who owned a liquor distribution company… Benny could lay his hands on booze whenever he chose. Benny drove last year’s model Chevy Silverado, it had big fat street drag tires on Craiger SS rims, a souped up engine and a sound system that could be heard in the next county. Benny also seemed to have a never-ending supply of pills… 

     Roman imagined Benny to be his nearly perfect best friend.

     Benny thought Roman to be the perfect guy for what he needed.

     It was shaping up to be a day just like every other day at the Texaco station, Roman unlocked the Coca-Cola machine that sat out front, pulled open the door that held the ice cold bottles of Coke, Grape Nehi and Orange Crush…next to the change receptacle Charlie hid a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. Roman pulled out the chilled booze and took a long swig… stuck it back in, wipes his mouth. That hit the spot… and closed the coke machine. 

     Roman was making a few extra bucks detailing Mrs. Whitehouse’s Buick Park Ave which he had recently started as a great way to get access to a vehicle, which meant a little more freedom… now that Charlie never let him drive the ’57 Chevy any longer since he was using it to stash the copious amounts of pot he was acquiring these days. Young Charlie was making more money under the Texaco Star from his weed enterprise than Cousin Danny was from selling gas and oil… combined.

Roman couldn’t believe it when he happened upon Charlie’s stash… while in the back room of the gas station searching for an air filter for a customer’s Ford Fairlane roman looked inside a unmarked box and discovered several baggies of weed all equally proportioned into ounces.

Holy shit! It had to be Charlies roman thought…

Later that afternoon roman went full on recon mode and searched every inch of the back room and garage looking for any further stash… but nothing.

So he pinched just a small amount from each baggie not enough to be missed and called it a banner of a day.

While sitting in the front leaning his chair up against the wall dreamily flippin’ the pages of the latest Motor Trend magazine… high as a kite… roman heard a honking sound far off in the distance… or so he thought.

As the car squealed out of the pumps and the ding ding of the sensor hose went off alerting anyone in the station that a car had just pulled in…

Roman looked up and realized he had just missed a customer.

Whoa… I’m stoned as hell” roman whispered then started to laugh.

That freakin skunk weed was some creeper shit for sure… he thought… just cuz it smelled like crap and was rough as hell on one’s throat… it packed a powerful wallop of thc.

He was determined to not make the same mistake twice and straightened up so he wouldn’t miss any more customers.

A car pulled up and Charlie got out the passenger door… then motioned for the driver to pull into the open bay of the garage.

Oil change roman guessed. Then less than ten minutes later the car pulled out and drove off with Charlie inside.

What the hell, roman was wondering… that wasn’t nearly enough time for ana oil change… and where was Charlie going anyways?

Roman walked into the garage bay and looked around… no signs of Charlie starting an oil change was found… hmmnnnn.

Roman looked into the front of charlie’s 57 chevy and didn’t see anything unusual… then scanned the backseat as well.

Roman spotted a green army duffel bag laying on the floor in the back… it was full of … something.

Roman pulled gently on the door handle recalling charlie’s warning not to touch his car unless he was looking to get his ass kicked.

Only if you catch me, roman was thinking.

The door clicked open. 

He reached down and hefted the duffel bag… Christ it was heavy as hell. Roman quickly unclicked the clip securing the top and looked inside.

Holy mother of perpetual hell Charlie said very loudly inside his own head.

He thrust his hand deep inside the bag and all he felt was baggies and baggies of weed… just like what he had found earlier… only a hundred times more!

Oh hell, the shit is on now roman was thinking… and began to pinch some grass out of every single baggie.

By the time it was all said and done… roman had two shoebox sized containers filled with mary jane and a smile a mile wide on his stupid face.

How could he had ever known that he was working for one of the biggest pot dealers of the south??

Charlie moved several duffel bags of weed just like the one roman had found through the Texaco gas station every month, people would pull in for oil changes and fill er up… oil, gas and ganja!

     Roman was just finishing up a little doobie that he had pinched from Charlie’s stash as he wiped down the interior of the Park Ave. It was a very sweet ride, Roman thought, though not his style or first choice for the money… speaking of, he finds a crumbled five dollar bill between the electric seat and console… Payday Bitches! Roman had pinched quite a lot from Charlie’s stash over the past couple of months. The more Charlie squirreled away in the back of his hot rod, the more Roman squirreled away for himself. At last count he had accumulated almost three pounds of the potent pot, which he kept hidden deep inside the fold-out sofa he slept on at aunt mary’s.

     The Buick Park Ave. was parked in front of the coin operated vacuum station on the opposite side where the garage bays were located. He had already vacuumed the floorboards and was almost finished wiping the dashboard, day dreaming about a girl in his class… 

“Hey you deaf or what?! I said fill it up… dip shit.” Har, har, har… snort, snort… grunt, grunt… Vern chuckled to his buddies sitting in Vern’s Mom’s car, with dumbass grins plastered on the pimply covered faces. 

Fucking Vern, Roman said under his breath. Fucking Vern… you fat-ass-little-weasel. The big park ave sedan was already idling, Roman had left it running while he vacuumed so he could feel the ice cold AC since it was hot as balls that afternoon. 

Roman dropped the Park Ave. into drive and pushed down the gas pedal.

     The massive V-8 lunged the Buick forward quicker than Roman had anticipated. In a blink of an eye the car had jumped the ten feet that had separated Roman and Vern… Roman slammed on the brake and put it in park, he had only meant to scare Vern not actually hit the dumb shit. Vern screams in pain or from the shock of what had just happened.

     “You HIT me… You fucking HIT me… you…” Vern was screaming at the top of his lungs. Roman jumps out of the sedan and runs around to the front of the car to check on Vern. Roman couldn’t see any damage to the Park Avenues grill, or bumper… that was good. He looked at Vern writhing around on the ground like a snake after it’s been hit. “Stop yer whining pussy… you’re not even bleeding or anything.” Roman said.

Vern gets up and brushes himself off, pushing Roman away from him. “Get off of me, you’re fucking crazy you know that?! Fuck You!” 

“Cool your jets, Dude…” Benny says as he walks from the other set of gas pumps where he had pulled up and sat there and watched Vern almost become road kill. “It was just an accident I’m sure… right?” Benny looked at Roman. “Yeah, it just slipped into gear, I don’t know what happened…” Roman replied staring back at Benny. Where the hell did you come from? Roman wonders. Benny was looking at Vern with his palms out in such a way as if to say, You wanna make more outta this than you can handle?

     Vern hustles back to his car, jumps in, flips Roman the universal symbol to “fuck off” and peels out from the Texaco.

     “You got any plans tonight?” Benny asked him. “Not that I’m aware of…” Roman replies looking at Benny not quite sure what he has in mind. “Great, I’ll swing by around closing… we can grab a few beers, smoke some dope… maybe find Vern and his friends and try to run him over again.” Benny smiles, and hands Roman a twenty dollar bill, “For the gas…” he says as Roman just stared at it. Benny laughs and climbs inside his jet black beauty of a ride and drives off in a hail of dust and the Silverado’s hopped up engine roaring like a wounded beast.

     Roman continues to watch him drive away and can’t help but think things are finally starting to line up… yes, they definitely are.

     The days roll by in a blur of bloodshot eyes, drunken parties and pill-popping daze of hanging out with Benny. Cruising downtown in his black Chevy truck with cold beer between their legs, passing a joint back and forth… Ransacking his father’s booze supply and drifting on floats in Benny’s lagoon themed pool as his brain becomes desensitized from the new supply of pharmaceuticals Benny has procured… called Quaaludes, prescribed as a pain killer and Roman could certainly vouch for that. Benny told him to split it in two and take only half… in Roman’s mind if a half was a good high then a whole ‘lude would be better, right? Roman fell in love with them.

The Quaaludes were manufactured by Eli Lilly & Co. and these were stamped with the authenticity seal of top of the line… RORER 714 on one side, and ELI LILLY on the other. After Benny has Roman thoroughly buttered as a piece of toast up one side and down the other, he lays out his big plan and asks for Roman’s assistance.

“Look… all you need to do is make like you’re stealing it, right? Then take the damn thing on a joyride out in the boonies somewhere… and torch the fucker…that’s it.” 

     Benny’s speech is slightly slurred but that ok, because Roman’s mind is slowly grinding to a halt so it seems to be making perfect sense. “Cool… yeah, Man… let’s torch that fucker!” Roman is smiling at the idea of starting a fire, but then he pauses briefly. “But, I dunno… Why are we torching your truck Man… it’s fuckin’ an awesome truck! What the fuck Dude…?” Roman is confused. Spoiled little shit… I fuckin love that truck! Roman’s mind wrestles with Benny’s plan trying to make sense of it.

     “For the insurance money… I told you already… don’t you listen? You’re too wasted anyway… shut the fuck up…I can do it without your help.” Benny went on.

     “My old man won’t buy me a new truck, said mine is fine… fuck him! I pay my own insurance, right? I’m getting a new truck with or without your help.” Benny went quiet.

     “I’ll help… fucks sake… I was just messing with you. Let’s do it.” Roman lit a smoke and smiled, “What the hell.”

     The plan was simple enough. Benny would be shooting pool down at Stan’s… airtight alibi with beaucoup witnesses… Roman would show up an hour later in the parking lot and steal his truck, drive it out into the sticks where he’d meet up with Miles, Roman’s friend from school that could be trusted to keep his mouth shut, especially for five-hundred dollars. Roman and Miles would torch Benny’s truck and call it a night. What could possibly go wrong? 

     Roman was no stranger to stealing cars… he had caught the driving bug early in his young life… nothing excited Roman more than slipping behind the wheel of a vehicle and going for a joy ride. He’s boosted his first car by the age of fourteen. Maura’s Mazda RX-7…  But sneaking it in and out was a hassle so he had begun to find easier ways to boost, you name it, Roman had stolen it. Trucks, Vans, VW Beetles… station wagons… even an AMC Gremlin, yep… a gremlin!  

As Roman and Miles got out of the truck at the specific location that Benny had picked…just down the road from the poolhall he said one more time…

“Make sure y’all torch the shee-it outta her alright”

Roman gave Benny a thumbs up sign and he peeled off throwing red dirt on them.

“Asshole!” Roman yelled at the vanishing black truck.

“Let’s get to it” roman said and they started walking towards stans poolhall.

Twenty minutes later they were approaching the parking lot from the heavily wooded side and roman scanned the area for anything or anyone that might interfere with his next move.

Benny’s black truck was parked towards the back closes to the woods… roman didn’t see anyone around and they bolted for the truck.

Inside his pocket roman carried a small pen-like device with a metal point on one end… it’s purpose was to break car windows in case of an emergency… and roman figured this counted.

Out of habit more than anything else… roman tried the drivers door. Shit it was opened. Dumb fuck… the plan was to break the glass and have fragments on the ground for the cops to see… roman checked the ignition… well at least benny had taken his keys… kinda hard to explain to the insurance company that your car had been stolen when you don’t have your keys… and you left the door unlocked.

Roman tapped the window anyways.

It shattered. With his free hand he pushed the glass onto the parking lot and brushed the rest off the drivers seat. He felt under the seat for the tools they had hid there earlier… pulled out a large screwdriver and jammed it into the ignition then tapped the handle with the hammer.

One pair of vice grips please… roman whispered to Miles and then with a quick turn had disengaged the locking mechanism and cranked up the truck.

The ride out to the designated spot where Miles had his car parked was fifteen minutes away… and Roman made sure to make the most of it.

By the time the two car thieves arrived at the location where they planned to torch the truck it was in pretty bad shape… roman had hit every small sapling, guardrail and sign he’d seen… 

Miles poured lighter fluid all over the interior and the engine… roman pulled out the flare they had grabbed from the emergency roadside kit behind the seats and struck a flame.

Whoosh… a huge ball of flames erupted scaring the shit outta them.

Within a minute the truck was engulfed… completely.

Roman jumped into Miles care and they drove back to the Texaco.

Weeks passed and no news of Benny’s truck getting replaced.

Roman was getting nervous… he thought benny might collapse under the pressure from his father, the police and insurance claims adjuster investigator. That would not be cool. He had pounds of weed stashed under his bed at aunt mary’s… if the cops ever searched the Texaco… shit… no tellin how much they’d find there.

Then one day a traffic stop changed everything.

A state trooper had pulled over a semi truck right at the weigh station on the interstate exit by Branch Creek, his little town…

Upon inspection, the troopers discovered behind a faux wall of toilet paper… thirty five thousand pounds of weed.

Bales and bales of grass… probably enroute from Miami to the drug corridor of I-95 in the northeast.

It was the biggest drug bust in that county… ever.

Not having much experience with seizures that large the local authorities did a piss poor job of securing the load.

They thought that by locking the trailer up behind a ten foot fence at the weigh station would be sufficient deterrent to wannabe thieves… oh how they under estimated the local criminal population of Branch Creek.

When the sun rose the following day… law enforcement found less than fifteen thousand pounds remained inside the trailer.

Evidence was strewn about all over the place… leaving a trail of ganja from the back of the trailer doors into the thick pine woods behind the weigh station… where fresh four-wheel drive trax were evident.

There was so much pot on the streets of that small town the prices plummeted and the usual suspects, like Charlie found it nearly impossible to distribute his product. Roman learned first hand a valuable lesson in business economics of supply and demand.

As local law enforcement brought in help from the federal level and DEA agents swarmed the area looking for those responsible Roman thought it was high time he returned to Chicago.

He had the perfect excuse… as Mora was getting married and wanted Roman to be there if possible. 

“I’ll be happy to send you money for a bus ticket” she told him.

Thanks, but I’ll fly this time… roman replied. I’ve got some money saved up.

As Roman put his plan into action two things happened simultaneously that changed everything.

One… Benny ratted on Roman and Miles.

His father knew the bullshit story his son was trying to sell him was an out and out lie… his lawyer instincts knew that Benny was behind the whole thing. After pressuring his son to spill the beans… Benny sang like a canary.

Benny’s father contacted Aunt Mary… who called Danny and Donny… they searched Roman’s room looking for the five hundred dollars Benny had paid him but instead discovered pounds and pounds of marijuana. 

Danny took possession of the weed and told Mary he’d have it destroyed… for all Roman knew sold it back to Charlie… theres was no way to know for sure.

After much yelling and pointing fingers… hand wringing and prayers… it was decided that Roman needed to leave.

Donny was driving roman to the bus station headed back to Chicago…

All of a sudden Donny pulled over and started punching roman in his face. He screamed at roman what a piece of shit he was, endangering their lives, momma’s house… bringing drugs into their lives… everything they’d done, he’d done for him… wham, wham wham… the fist slammed into romans head.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry… Roman cried.

Not another word was spoken for the rest of the trip into town.

As roman looked out the greyhound bus window watching his foster town recede in the distance… he cursed his life… his poor choices… and felt the white hot tears roll down his face of shame.