💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › magazines › UXU › uxu-190.txt captured on 2022-06-12 at 15:05:13.
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Underground eXperts United
Presents...
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[ Gas Station ] [ By The GNN ]
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____________________________________________________________________
"GAS STATION"
by THE GNN/DualCrew-Shining/uXu
A small regard to Robert Graysmith.
He could always be seen chewing a bubble-gum while reading some cartoon
he had borrowed from some shelf in his gas station. Many people had met
him, but few of them had ever learned his name. Most of them just passed
by, others stopped and bought some gas and stuff from his shop. Neon signs
and big letters teased the car owners who approached the station and almost
forced them to pull over and meet Bill Lee.
Bill Lee actually hated his Shell gas station but that had not kept him
away from it during the last twenty years. Every morning at six o'clock
Bill would unlock the doors, light the neon signs and sit down by the
counter, reading cartoons while awaiting the customers. Outside, the
freeway would wake to life and yet another day with thousands of cars
passing by would begin.
The first customer arrived ten minutes past six. A blue volvo stopped
right outside the door. A young man with sun glasses, despise the fact
that it was still dark outside, entered the shop, looking around as if he
expected an enemy to be inside.
"Hi there, what can I do for you!" Bill shouted, to indicate that he was
almost deaf but still ready to help anyone.
The young man pulled out a black pistol from the back of his soiled jeans
and pointed it at Bill.
"Cash." the man answered with a voice that revealed his drug abuse.
Bill pretended that he did not see the deadly gun.
"Right. Cash. What do you want to buy with your cash?
The young man sighed and cocked the pistol with his thumb. The click
echoed through the shelves.
"I want your cash, and I want it now."
The young man walked towards Bill until the muzzle of the gun was tightly
pressed against Bill's left cheek. Bill raised his finger and moved it
slowly in front of his face.
"I opened this store ten minutes ago. How can you expect me to have
any money other than some coins for change?"
The young man lowered his gun a bit, smiled, then he raised it again and
firmly squeezed the trigger.
There was little noise. A seal was created between the skin and the
muzzle and the blast was expended into the body tissues. A conical
perforation of the skull was created as the projectile was fired. The
bullet, twisting and spiraling, particles of molten metal being thrown off
as it traveled over a thousand feet per second, created multiple fractures
of Bill's skull.
In unison, the barrel slide of the gun recoiled until the barrel's
movement was arrested. Continuing backward, the slide passed over the
hammer, cocked it, and slammed against receiver as the empty casing was
seized and ejected onto the floor of the shop. The slide sprung forward
again, peeled off the next cartridge from the double-rowed magazine, and
forced it into the chamber. The gun was ready to be fired again.
"That is not my problem," the young man said without any sign of
feelings. He turned around, checked that no one was around before he
placed the gun in his jeans again. A little bell could be heard as he
opened the door and went to his car. The blue volvo gently drove away and
disappeared in the crowd of cars on the freeway.
Bill's dead body lay on the floor behind the counter. Streams of red
blood mixed with grey brain substance slowly made its way out on the floor
around him.
The next customer arrived half past six. A black Ford.
"'ello?"
It was a woman with two kids. The kids ran around in the shop, chasing
each other while screaming loud. The woman looked around to find any
employee in this hell hole of a gas station. She had just filled her car
with fuel and would really like to pay for it too. A good citizen did not
cheat small gas stations, she thought.
"I will get you!" one of the kids screamed to his friend.
"Be quiet..." the woman said with a voice that was doomed to be ignored.
The woman looked around, holding her wallet with both hands. Her mouth
was open and she understood that something was wrong. Her suspicious eyes
examined every visible part of the small shop. One of the kids accidentally
ran into a shelf and several bottles of Coke fell to the ground. One by
one, the bottles were crushed against the concrete. The brown liquid
splashed around together with pieces of designed glass.
The woman stared at the kid who just stood still and watched what he had
done.
"Oh shit..." the woman said. "What have you done? There must have been
ten bottles on that shelf!"
"I'm sorry mom," the kid said with a weak voice.
The woman took two gigantic steps against the kid, smacked him with her
fist before taking both of the kids in their hands, dragging them against
the car while repeating over and over again: "Shit, shit, shit.. hope no
one saw us, I do not want this trip to be more expensive than necessary!"
The Ford quickly drove away. The two faces of the kids in the back
window of the car looked guilty. The woman would slap herself on the
forehead and look guilty too, a couple of hours later when she remembered
that she had forgotten to pay for the gasoline.
The sun went up and shined on the Shell station and the cars that drove
by. It was going to be a hot day. People cursed themselves for the fact
that they had not bought air condition for their cars. Cars stopped to let
out people who desperately needed to puke. Shiny and dirty exhaust pipes
coughed smoke that smelled bad. The smell found its way into Bill's gas
station but no one cared. The blood had stopped to stream out of his head
and had now started to coagulate. A fly landed on his face, looking for
food. It walked around a bit before it crawled into Bill's mouth.
The third customers arrived at nine o'clock. Two teenagers jumped out
from a chevrolet and danced their way into the station. They were both
dressed in white t-shirts and blue jeans together with hip baseball caps.
When inside, they jumped into the air and did high-five with each other.
"Yeah boy! Lets get some beer before we hit the road again!" one of them
said. The other one got down on his knees and yelled, with his hands in
the air: "Beer! Beer!"
Laughing, they went to one of the shelves and took two six-packs of
Budweiser each. On their way to the counter one of the turned around and
walked back to the shelf.
"Hey! Where are you going?" the other asked, still walking towards the
counter.
"I think I want three six-packs boy!" he replied with a smile.
The teenager placed the two six-packs under his arm and began to fumble
for another on the shelf.
The other one arrived to the counter, saw Bill behind it and immediately
dropped the beers. One of the bottles exploded and sent white spume over
his legs.
"Oh, fuck!" he screamed and took two steps backward in disgust.
"What's wrong?" the other asked, clearly confused.
The teenager with the spume over his legs looked at his friend, holding
his hand over the mouth.
"Someone has been shot here..." he said with a low voice, almost
whispering as if he was afraid that someone heard him.
His friend shouted "What?" and ran to the counter. When he had seen
Bill's cold body he looked at his friend with a scared face.
"What the fuck are we going to do?" he asked. "What the fucking fucking
hell are we going to fucking do?"
"Have you got the shot gun with you... in the trunk?"
"Yes, of course..."
"Fuck! Let's get out of here! If the police comes, we will be blamed
for this mess for sure!"
They ran to the door at once. But before they left, both of them took as
many six-packs as they could carry. The car roared away with a cloud of
dust behind it.
If Bill had been alive, he would have written down the letters and
numbers on the plate and reported them to the police for theft. But Bill
had been dead for two hours and did not mind. The two teenagers said the
same thing to each other while crying and getting drunk in the car on their
way to the beach.
The sun climbed the sky. The day became hotter and hotter. Fast cars
honked angrily at those who by some reason stayed within the ridiculous
speed limit. A bus full of old people pulled over and stopped by Bill's
Shell station. A group of pensioners stepped out, covering their eyes from
the sun.
The clock turned eleven.
The driver, a tired man, stepped out and lit a cigarette while
waiting for the old people to finish their break.
"Now listen to me love, a white-haired old woman said. This is a gas
station and it is forbidden, f-o-r-b-i-d-d-e-n, to smoke here! Now put it
out at once!"
The man dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, mumbled something and
started to look at the passing cars. Seven old pensioners entered the
station. Canes clicked against the concrete floor, eyes closely examined
the price tags on several items.
"Oh look!" a lanky man said. "The cigars and potato chips are on sale!"
The group slowly made their way to the shelf with the bargain.
"You are right," someone said. "Come on, lets buy this and then go."
Wrinkled hands reached for the items, placed the cigars and potato chips
in plastic bags before they in a slow pace went to the counter.
They must have stared at Bill's corpse for several minutes before someone
broke the silence.
"What a shame. He looks so... young."
The others nodded. An old woman looked through the window of the shop to
make sure that the driver did not know what was going on.
"What a waste. He could have done so much in his life. Now it's all..
spoiled."
"If we tell this to the driver," a bald man with a broken voice said, "we
will never get to our hotel! Our vacation would be spoiled!"
The others did not say anything.
"This is not our problem!" the man continued. "Why should we take care
of this? We have worked our whole life, earned our living as good
citizens! We deserve some fun! We do not deserve this!"
He is right, they said to each other. They walked outside and entered
the bus. The driver praised the fact that he did not need to wait any more
before the bus drove away on the freeway. While cars ran on the hot
asphalt, the pensioners ate their potato chips and whispered over and over
again to each other what a good idea it had been to leave without telling
the driver about the dead gas station keeper.
Several more customers entered the gas station that day. Most of them
saw poor Bill on his back behind the counter but no one did anything about
the situation.
"This is not my problem!"
"Why should I take care of this shit?"
"Come on guys, lets split!"
"I am not responsible!"
"Let me just check if there is any money left before we leave!"
When the night fell the road slowly chilled down and less cars drove past
Bill's Shell station. Another day had passed and the hysterical freeway
would calm down for a few hours. But this night, no one locked the doors
to the gas station and no one turned the neon signs off.
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This story may be unpleasant, but there is hope!
uXu cares for everybody! Call THE STASH +46-13-tofindout
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I've visited Sellafield.
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uXu #190 Underground eXperts United 1994 uXu #190
Call CHANNEL ZERO -> +1-410-426-7737
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