Different Circles

The proprietor of the fueling station was heading toward them from the direction of the little snack shack where he had been sitting in a wooden chair out in front of it. He was a grizzled man in his late fifties or early sixties. He was balding, missing a few teeth, and constantly smoked cigarettes, even when he was fueling someone up. He was the same man who had fueled them on their previous trips to the dock and he was a man of few words, speaking no more than was necessary to complete the transaction. Jake did not even know his name, as he had never offered it and he wore no form of name tag or badge.

He walked up to them now, his lit, half-smoked cigarette sticking out of his mouth. He was looking at them intently as they approached, much more intently than he had ever looked at them on previous visits.

“Good morning,” Jake greeted when he reached their position.

“Ayuh, it is,” he agreed, still staring at the two of them, as if he were trying to memorize their features. “Shapin’ up to be a real pisser of a day, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” Jake agreed. “It looks like it.” Pisser, he had learned from his time spent in Maine, was not a bad thing, but a good thing. As in, ‘that was a real pisser of a blowjob you gave me last night, hon’.

“We’d like to fill both tanks up,” Laura told him.

“No problem,” he said. “That’s what I do here.”

“Is it okay if we keep the skis tied up to the dock here long enough for me to walk up to the store and pick up a few things?” Jake asked him.

“Ayuh,” he said. “I’m not exactly drove right up at the moment. No problem at all as long as you book it.”

“Book it?” Jake asked.

“Do it fast,” he clarified.

“Oh ... right. I’ll certainly book it as much as I can.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He still had not taken his eyes off of them, and he made no move to get to work putting fuel in their tanks.

“Uh ... is everything okay?” Jake asked.

“Ayuh,” he said. “Everything is just fine with me. Was just lookin’ to see if you two really are who I think you are.”

Ahhh, so that’s what this is about, Jake thought. We’ve been recognized. “Who is it that you think we are?” he asked.

“I don’t just think, I know,” the proprietor said. “Now that I’ve had a chance to get a good look at you both.” He turned to Jake. “You’re that rock and roll musician that they say is up to devil worshiping and sniffing dope out of butt-cracks.” He then turned to Laura. “And you’re the woman who travels around with that Mexican singer they play on the radio sometimes. You just had a show down Bangor way, didn’t you?”

“We did,” she said. “But Celia Valdez is Venezuelan, not Mexican.”

The proprietor shrugged, as if to say, what’s the difference? “They say you two are married.”

“They’re not making that up,” Laura said, showing him her wedding ring, which she had felt more comfortable wearing on the jet ski than leaving unattended on the houseboat.

“Girl, that’s a wicked rock you have there,” he said. He looked back at Jake. “You’re quite the rig, aintcha?”

“The rig?” Jake asked.

“Flashy, flamboyant,” the proprietor clarified. “Someone who would buy a diamond ring for his wife that probably costs more than I earn in ten years runnin’ this place.”

Jake wanted to be insulted, but he could not quite rise to it. The man was not trying to get under his skin, he was just stating what he believed to be a fact in a no-nonsense way. “I see,” he said simply. “Rig. A good word for it. Short and to the point.”

“Ayuh,” he said. “We like to speak plainly up here in the willy-wags.”

“A good custom,” Jake said with a nod. “So ... anyway, I’ll just...”

But the proprietor was no longer listening to Jake. He had turned back to Laura. “When I saw your picture in that tabloid rag up to the store this morning, I thought you looked familiar,” he said.

“Tabloid rag?” Laura asked.

“The New England whatchamacallit,” he clarified. “You and that Mexican singer are both on the front page of it.”

Jake and Laura looked at each other incredulously. They had known that the issue was hitting the newsstands today, of course, but they had not dreamed that anyone in this part of the state would have access to it. “You sell the New England Report here? At that grocery store?”

“I don’t sell nothin’ at that grocery store,” he said, “but Maudie does. She’s been runnin’ the place since 1978. That’s when that old timer Tim Jenkins finally up and sold it.”

“And there is a demand for that rag here?” Laura asked. “In this little town?”

“Ayuh,” he said, nodding. “Not by the townspeople, of course, but we get lots of flatlanders from down Boston way up here in the spring and summer. And it seems like they like to keep up on all the gossip from home.”

Jake looked at his wife and sighed. “Well,” he said to her, “it looks like our little break from reality is now over.”

“It looks like it,” she agreed with a sigh of her own.