Shell
I could have anything I wanted
from the maws of the vending machines
that stood watch over the waiting
room of my stepfather’s Shell station.
Larry or Chubbs would fish out keys
with grimy fingers, swing open
the face of the machine, reveal its innards
stacked columns of soda or candy bars.
Outside the constant ding of the bell
as cars pulled in for gas, directions,
air in the tires, a clean windshield,
drivers impatient for destination,
and Chubbs or Larry would dash, leave
me to choose: Planter’s Peanut
Bar or Nestle’s Crunch, Coke
or orange or chocolate pop. Grit
covered that tiny room, layered
on maps in their laddered racks, dusting
the globe of the gumball machine,
sifted over neat rows of motor oil
in silver cans, smudging the white
pages of homework I filled with
painstaking script. I breathed
the stink of petroleum, kicked
at the legs of a yellow plastic
chair with my black and white
school oxfords, waiting for my stepfather
who was supposed to watch me till
my mother got off work. Nine was too
young, she thought, to stay at home alone.
But every day he’d disappear, banged-up
Chevy gone from the lot, the men
in oil-streaked uniforms shrugging excuses.
“Anything she wants,” he’d instructed them,
and I watched the clock as the sky
darkened and the bright shell glowed
against night. My new bra was too tight;
I hugged my three-ring binder to hide my roll
of belly from Larry, from Chubbs, and sucked
the dregs of chocolate pop or lemon-lime.
Terry Wolverton, “Shell” from Mystery Bruise. Copyright © 1999 by Terry Wolverton. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.
Source:
Mystery Bruise
(Red Hen Press, 1999)
