The old man at the gas station plucked a shaft of the long grass that grew from spaces between the concrete slabs and slid it into one of the spaces between his teeth. This was one of his favorite pastimes, another being to count how many cars drove by each day. He considered himself a fortunate man, for he could chew grass and count cars, two of his almost-favorite pastimes, at once.

Today he had already counted eleven cars, and already chewed six grass stems, though it was only one o’clock. Most of those cars, as usual, had come in from the east, where the flat desert was visible for miles before the tan faded to blue and came back overhead as the sky. These cars were less fun to count than the others; he saw them materialize in that blue-tan haze at the horizon and then waited long before they finally passed him. But there were always more coming from the east than from the north, and they were usually the ones that stopped to quench themselves at his pump. They had come farther since the last station.

Only two cars had stopped for gas that morning, and a third was pulling in. It used to be that all eleven of them would have turned into the station, but cars these days were all about mileage. Not this one, though: a heavy-duty truck with four-door cab and extended pickup. A guzzler.

The man at the gas station flossed the grass back through the space in his teeth and dropped it on the ground, moving to where the truck had pulled up by the single pump. The driver cut the engine and dropped down from the truck onto the ground. He was a man of a little over twenty years and a little under six feet, and he walked around the cab to let the woman down as well. The older man stopped short; it was hard for him, seeing them with their wives. He hoped there wasn’t a kid, too, a little russet-colored boy filled with spirit and mirth, like his had been. That was the hardest.

But this couple was alone, and the woman had rounded the side of the building in search of the facilities, so the man stepped forward to speak with the driver, small talk about the heat of the day and the emptiness of the desert and the convenience of a gas station here where the road turned north for a final stretch through rolling hills.

“First station you come to for miles,” he said, “if you’re headin’ to the city, of course. And most of ‘em are.”

The driver smiled and nodded, watching the man fiddle with the gas cap. “Sounds like a healthy business. You enjoy it?”

“I do, I sure do,” the man said. He thought a moment about how to continue; he’d gone about it so many different ways. He could see it would be better to take it slow with this one, ease on in. As gasoline rushed into the truck’s tank, he said, “What you goin’ to the city for?”

“Oh, you know, following in the old man’s footsteps. I’ll be going to school, then coming back this way to join the family business.”

“Ah—˝ the man’s eyes sharpened, a little fire kindled behind them—“and are you content with that? With turning into your old man?”

The young driver was momentarily taken aback. He covered his uncertainty with indignant pertness: “Of course I’m content with becoming like my father. I admire him, I—of course, I want to be like him.”

The man smiled. “Of course,” he said, nodded approvingly, slid the nozzle back out of the truck. The wife reappeared at the corner of the building, still breathing through her mouth despite having left the gas station’s small, dingy restroom behind her. Being in so little use it had equally little reason to stink, but, being what it was, it did so just the same.

The driver handed the woman up into the truck before he followed the man inside to pay for the gas. As he counted the bills the man looked up and found the driver gazing pensively toward the truck and the woman in it.

He leaned forward. “It’s true, what I said, ain’t it?”

The driver didn’t move, but said, “And if it is?”

The man smiled. It had been worth the careful, creeping steps; the pounce would be that much more satisfying. He had grown quite good at this, he thought. After all, it was his favorite pastime.

“Look, I ain’t gonna stick around much longer, you know what I mean? I’ll need someone to pass the business on to, and why not you? Think about it—the only gas station for miles, loads of business, only a short drive from the city. You could have success right now, ‘stead of waiting for it and not being happy with it anyway. What d’ya say?”

The driver’s face, still turned toward the window, couldn’t be read. But the man had heard few things colder than the voice that said, “My car is the only one here, and no others have passed for over half an hour. You wanna know what I say? I say you are one conniving, foolish old man. I don’t know what your motives are for trying to make me stay, but I know they can’t be good. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when you asked me if I really wanted to become my father. But I’m sure now. And I certainly won’t be staying here to become like you.”

Halfway through this speech the driver had turned back around, and now his eyes bore into the man like the book of his secrets had been opened right there on his face. The driver read its contents with disgust. He left his change on the counter and strode outside, lifted himself up into the truck, and pealed out of the parking lot.

Once the truck had gone, the man at the gas station went back around the side of the building to the little garage that stood near the restroom. He undid the padlock on the door and opened it, looking in but not crossing the threshold. It was a drop of about ten feet to where the bodies—his successes—lay.

He’d had plans to go to the city once, too, just like them, his head filled with wild ideas about getting wealth and power and making everyone who’d ever known him proud. But just as he reached the final stretch of the journey, the spot where the road turned abruptly north, his jalopy had sipped its last bit of gas and died, and he was struck with this genius idea to build a gas station right there. He did it, right on that very spot, and he never even made it to the city at all. And one morning he’d put gas in six cars before he even realized that his wife had taken his little boy and gone on to the city anyway, because she thought he was making nothing of himself and she could do better. And he had begun to play the game.

The man closed the door and replaced the padlock, then bent down and pulled himself another stalk of grass. He turned his face back to the road, where he could just see the truck driving away over the hills. Driving away to enjoy the career and the family and the happiness he could never have. That, he thought, was the hardest.