A2: Keep on driving
“Nah, who cares? I’ll just fill up on our way back. We’ve got enough to get there and back,” shrugged Andrea.
“Are you sure about that? Because I’d hate to be stuck out and ..”
“It’s fine! Don’t worry your little head about it, okay Orrin?” Andrea scoffed at the idea of running out gas. “I know my own car. This isn’t going to be a problem. Plus, the needle can go way past the E. One time, we were in my dad’s truck, and he let it go past the E and we were fine.”
“I don’t think the needle is, like, a recommended time to fill up. E means empty. You should really just turn back and put some gas in. We’re still a few kilometres from the weigh station. Wouldn’t you feel a whole lot better about it?”
“It’s no big deal, honey. Just sit still and think about all the frustration you’ll be able to get out once we get to the open house? You’ll be able to rant and rave and beat your chest. You’re going to look handsome, you know.” Orrin crossed his arms and released a big, throaty sigh of disgruntlement.
Andrea was playing the radio, which was set on a Top 40 station, and Orrin grew even more cantankerous. His huffing and sighing didn’t matter to Andrea, she knew he was just being a bitch about the whole thing, plus she thought it was funny.
Orrin eyed a traffic sign, indicating that the limit was 80 km/h. Frustrated, he bothered to glance over at the speedometer just to prove to himself that Andrea was driving like an old lady. Sure enough, she was doing just a little over 70. Not good enough.
“You can safely drive about ten to fifteen over the limit. Cops won’t care. Even if they pull you over you won’t lose any demerit points,” said Orrin.
“Yeah, but I’m just conserving gas – this way we won’t run out. You know, just in case.”
“Do you know what else might help you not run out?” Orrin barked at her. Then he calmed a little and huffed under his breath, “Filling the fucking tank up when you pass a god-damned gas station.”
No sooner had he said it when the dashboard lights flickered briefly, then dimmed. Then the radio went silent and the engine shut off. While it wasn’t visibly noticeable, the power steering on the Sunfire cut out as well, and Andrea began to panic.
“The steering’s gone! I can’t steer!” panicked Andrea.
“You’re just going straight, you don’t need to steer. Just apply the breaks and you’ll be fine. Good, now put the car in neutral and ease it over to the side of the road. Good job. You’re doing fine. There you go.”
After coaching Andrea to a stop, she had settled herself down a little bit. She took the keys out of the ignition, and then put them back in to start the car up again. The ignition wouldn’t turn over. Andrea was in disbelief.
“What happened?” she asked rhetorically.
Orrin rolled his eyes as if to say ‘I told you so.’ Then when Andrea didn’t notice that he’d rolled his eyes, he hastily took off his seatbelt and said pointedly, “I told you so,” just to make sure that she knew he was right.
Orrin got out of the car and asked Andrea to pop the trunk. She did, and asked what he was looking for. He didn’t say anything. And, he didn’t find anything in the trunk either.
“Why don’t you have a gas can back here?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean when I ask about having a gas can? Seriously, you don’t have a back up? I mean this is exactly why you should have one in your trunk.” Orrin slammed the trunk closed and strode off down the street to calm himself down. Yelling and slamming things wasn’t going to get anymore gas in the tank, and he knew it. After taking a few deep breaths he came back to the car, where Andrea remained in the driver’s seat, unmoved. She hadn’t even taken off her seatbelt.
Orrin placed his hands on the window ledge and tried to be polite and soothing – while any preparations could have been made to resolve this set back, what was done was done, and they were both going to have to resolve the problem together.
“Okay sweetie. We’re out of gas. There’s no point in us arguing about that anymore, but we should come to a consensus on what you want to do next,” he began. “Basically, you could wait here while I go get some gas, you could come with me to the station, or we could both just wait here for someone else to drive by and help us out, hopefully. What would you like to do?”
Andrea was the one to sigh now, knowing that this was her fault. “Well, how far would we, like, have to walk to get gas?”
“Well, we’ve got to be about 25 clicks away from the gas station back up the road. It’d be about an hour there and back if we were to walk it. We’d have to carry back enough to get the car up and going, too. That might be a bit heavy, but whatever. We’d just have to do it, and then forget about it, right? Plus, ha, you’d have a spare to fill up next time we’re at the station, right?”
“We’d have to walk two hours?”
“Well, or … we could wait here. I mean, it might be a while, but I’d imagine that someone would drive by in the next two hours, right? Perhaps they’d be good enough to drive us back to the station, pick up some gas, and drive us back. They might even have a back-up of their own, and they could just sell us the fuel.”
“How quick do you think someone might do that?”
Orrin was getting frustrated with her questions again. These were things that she could as easily reason for herself without asking him. What was he, the traffic fortune-teller? “Look,” he said hastily, “I don’t know when someone is going to come. And I certainly don’t know, even if someone were to come, if they’d even bother to stop and help us out. Who knows what kind of creep might roll up. I mean, there’s nothing out here but a truck stop.”
“But besides all of that,” continued Orrin, “what do you want to do? We’re either walking or waiting. What’s it going to be Andrea?”
WALKING – TURN TO PAGE: A3
WAITING – TURN TO PAGE: B3.1
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