Gas Station Liars

It was my first day, and Jimmy was supposed to be showing me how to work the cash register. Instead, he told me a story about how he once saw a ghost in the candy aisle. The spirit looked like him but older, more distinguished. After staring at him for a few seconds, it saluted and then vanished. Jimmy swore it really happened. He took its appearance as a sign that one day something important involving him was going to happen at the gas station, claimed it was the reason why he hadn’t quit yet.
 
I grew up with Jimmy, but we all knew a kid like him. His uncle owned Nintendo. His girlfriend lived in Canada. Before working together at Kwik Trip, I bumped into him at a bar, and he told me the FBI was recruiting him for a secret mission. When I asked if he should be telling me about it if it was secret, he scratched his chin and said he trusted me.
 
I get it. Living in Podunk, it can be hard not to feel like one of the hogs marching to their deaths at the slaughterhouse. It can be hard not to feel like you’re being sliced to pieces, getting smaller and smaller until nothing’s left. That’s why I got into acting, which is its own form of lying. It helped me complete the small-town mantra, “When I get out of this shithole, I’m going to do X.”
 
I escaped for a bit. Drove out to Los Angeles to live in a two-bedroom apartment with seven roommates. But I struggled to land any parts, only picking up an extra role here and there. One by one, my number of roommates shrank until it was my turn. Out of money, I came home and began lying to everyone, began telling them I was just regrouping before heading back out to La-La Land.
 
The bells tied to the entrance jingled, and a man wearing a ski mask stumbled into the gas station, pointing a handgun at Jimmy and me. He ordered us to empty the cash register. I raised my hands like I was asking for a double high five and rambled about how it was my first day, about how I didn’t know how to work the register yet. Jimmy didn’t move. The robber pressed the handgun’s muzzle into his sternum and asked if his job was worth dying for.
 
With super speed, Jimmy’s fingers shot forward and bent and twisted the robber’s hands until the handgun faced the opposite direction. The robber bolted, and Jimmy hopped over the counter and chased after him. Not knowing what else to do, I called the cops. When I finally worked up the courage to leave the gas station and check on Jimmy, he was walking back, the sound of sirens in the distance.
 
“How’d you do that?” I said, standing next to the pumps.
 
“That?” he said, his hand chopping the world in half. “Oh, I’ve been taking martial arts classes ever since I was a kid.”
 
I’ve known Jimmy for most of my life. Our parents play cards together. Not once had I ever heard of him taking any martial arts classes. That was when I realized that somehow, even if just for a moment, one of his lies had come true and saved him, saved me. The cops pulled into the parking lot. They took my statement, and I was sent home.
 
The next day, Jimmy didn’t show up for his shift. The gas station’s owner informed me that Jimmy had resigned after nearly a decade of dedicated service. I wondered if another one of his lies had come true, if he was undercover somewhere, finally on that secret mission for the FBI.
 
A few hours later, while restocking the Snickers bars, the ghost of my future self materialized in the candy aisle. Behind him, faint flickers of cameras and red carpets. I swear it really happened because otherwise I’m just a guy who works at a gas station. I swear it really happened because dreams are kind of like lies you tell yourself, lies you must believe in if you have any hope of them coming true.