I Fell In Love With A Gas Station Chiquita

The gas gauge was flirting with empty between Celaya and San Miguel, a deep-night high-speed run on a particularly dangerous highway, when I noticed the lighted PEMEX sign on my right side near a drug dealer holding a cardboard sign, “METH.”

PEMEX is Mexico’s government-owned oil company, their gas stations littering the countryside, places where there are no fewer than a dozen ways to be ripped off, most of them involving diversion by the attendant.

I noticed three tall, young girls with long legs and short skirts. As I pulled into one of the lanes, the prettiest of them knocked on my window. As I rolled it down, she reached in, touched my face, and said, “Hi, young man. We are the chiquitas,” motioning to her scantily-clad girlfriends. “Aren’t you cute?”

Maybe I was tired, or maybe it was my perpetual emotional vulnerability, but I thought to myself, “Fuck it. If this is this week’s diversion, they can rip my ass a new one now.”

“What’s your name?” she asked. She had wonderful legs and breasts, her face seemingly carved from marble, with eyes the size of the full moon. Her fake lashes looked ridiculous, except to me. Her makeup appeared to have been put on with a cement trowel, but I didn’t notice. Or, maybe I did, but didn’t care.

As I stepped out of the car, the gas man stepped between us. “How much you want? Regular or premium?”

“You decide, amigo. You’re the gas man,” I snapped, tossing him the keys and motioning him away.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Cohime,” she smiled, coyly.

“Cohime,” I repeated.

Before I had a chance to ask why her mother would name her Cohime, or “fuck me” in English, she continued.

“We are selling this amazing fuel additive. It’s called . . . “

“I don’t care what it’s called,” I interrupted. “How much is it?”

“40 pesos,” she replied.

“How about we go and have dinner and a drink together?” I asked, dispensing with any subtlety.

She thought a moment. “I would. I really would. I’m hungry but I can’t go home until I sell it all,” she replied sadly.

“How much is ‘all’, I asked.

“What?”

“How many bottles do you need to sell tonight, right now, to go home?”

“50, but I’ve only sold . . . “

I cut her off. “I’ll take them all.”

“Really?” she smiled a toothy grin. “Where do you want me to put them?”

“How about you don’t put them anywhere and sell them again tomorrow? Here’s 2000 pesos.” I rolled off four 500 peso bills from the wad in my pocket and palmed into her hand which smelled of diesel and cheap perfume, a surprisingly intoxicating combination under these circumstances.

“Before we go,” I asked, staring into her eyes, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Wha . . What?,” she stammered.

“I had this feeling the moment I saw you that you are the one, the perfect woman,” I observed, altogether serious.

It was a feeling I had before. Many times before. And no, it wasn’t just a hard dick, although that’s always a part of it. More telling is the fact the subjects of my overwhelming affection are always damsels in distress for whom I felt empathy and compassion. Cohime was not different. I didn’t feel sorry for her, or even compassion for her, but compassion in the sense that I am her.

“But for timing, where my parents fucked, money, education, greed, and an unhealthy fear of failure, Cohime, I might be selling fuel additive, too, or maybe meth” pointing to the dealer on the side of the road.

I wondered what kept her going when all seemed truly hopeless: hunger, derision, mockery, and worse.

I had a special feeling for Cohime. Maybe it was my savior complex, or my desire to be young again; maybe it was she had no restrictions, no limitations, that she wasn’t entitled, was always spontaneous, or maybe it was because her tits were so fine, or maybe it was a weird mix of all of the above.

And I came to feel much the same for Cómeme and Lámame. We spent that night together behind the gas station sitting in the dirt, laughing, drinking gas station tequila and listening to their recollections of abject poverty and total absence of hope which to them was not a tale of sadness, but of normalcy. Before I left at sunrise, I gave them the rest of my money and promised to return.

Now, months later, I still deliver tacos and tequila to the girls twice a week. My most vivid recollections are the joy I see and feel when we are together. They giggle and show me their tits, what they call a “regalito,” a little gift, to show their appreciation.

Never a word of sorrow, regret, or self-pity.

We get drunk and act crazy, not because we can, but because we should. No, we need to. All of us. There is one life and time is running short.

“No time to regret what’s happened or fear what may be coming,” Cohime said, matter-of-factly, as she drew deep from the bottle and then handed it to me. “We are here. This is now. I am grateful.”

“I love you, Cohime,” I smiled gently. She knew what I meant, leaned over, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

October 29, 2021

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