Patriotic

While driving from Vegas to the Oregon border and back we passed several gas stations, many with fluctuating price tags, but it was the Patriot station we stumbled upon on our way through the roller-coaster hills of San Francisco that became the most symbolic of the trip. All through the state of California where the gas prices for regular unleaded peaked at 5.29 a gallon, Patriot gas stations beckoned drivers. Back home there aren't many uniquely named gas stations, just your general Exxons and BPs and Mobiles, but out here the chains are more creative. Patriot. Be a Patriot and spend 5+ dollars on gas. It's patriotic to consume fossil fuels. All hail the red, white, and blue. As we sped through a ghost town in the heart and heat of Central California where the Sierra Nevada meets Death Valley, low and behold our trusty Patriot. Run down, with a sign at eye level from my passenger seat, no customers, no snack store, just the word PATRIOT on the side of a white placard dangling from a white wash two by four. 

Back in Vegas the gas stations have names like Terribles, Grumpys, and Rebel. I can't help but think they got it right here, as I walk through the parking lot grumbling about the terrible heat and refusing to drive the car as much for it's lack of a.c. as my frustration with driving a standard in stop and go traffic. In Vegas desperation hangs out of landscaping trucks at red lights and in the shade on metal bus stop benches that burn exposed thighs, the win big jackpot crap shoot failure exists in every wrinkled brow and leathered skin, the american dream rests on penny slots and $50 black jack tables on a line of pavement constantly clogged with drunks and foreigners and vacationers and the oddly placed child holding hands with a parent or guardian who clutches a football shaped goblet of 151 and strawberry in the other. To live here, outside of the strip of synthetic dreams and bright lights and gluttony, is to live in the fringe of desperation, to call the gas station Patriot with a graphic of stars and stripes would be absurd.