Night Shift(53)

'Do it,' I said, 'and find out.'

He flipped the switches and a series of flyspecked globes overhead came on. At the same time a neon sign out front stuttered into life: 'Conant's Truck Stop & Diner - Good Eats'. Nothing happened. The trucks continued their patrol.

'I can't understand it,' the trucker said. He had gotten down from his stool and was walking around, his hand wrapped in a red engineer's bandanna. 'I ain't had no problems with my rig. She's a good old girl. I pulled in here a little past one for a spaghetti dinner and this happens.' He waved his arms and the bandanna flapped. 'My own rig's out there right now, the one with the weak left tail-light. Been driving 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.

We walked over to the side door where I'd come in that afternoon and stood there for a second, watching the shadows wax and wane as the trucks went back and forth.

'Now?' the kid said. His arm brushed mine and the muscles were jumping and humming like wires. If anyone bumped him he'd go straight up to heaven.

'Relax,' I said.

He smiled a little. It was a sick smile, but better than none.

'Okay.'

We slipped out.

The night air had cooled. Crickets chirred in the grass, and frogs thumped and croaked in the drainage ditch. Out here the rumble of the trucks was louder, more menacing, the sound of beasts. From inside it was a movie. Out here it was real, you could get killed.