Tales in Motion: There's Many Ways to Fill a Tank

By my count there are at least four species of gas tank fillers, they are The Heedless, The All Business, The Performance Artist, The Perfectionist.

There may be more, and as in the study of finches, hard-shelled insects, certain families of clams, and human personality types, there may be branches, offshoots and sub-sub-categories of which I am unaware, or that haven’t yet evolved into full expression.

My science takes me only so far.

For the Heedless, life lacks color and verve unless the red light indicating a dire fuel emergency is on full alert near most of the time. To them, that small button of light, which inspires dread and anxiety in what you might call the normal human being, is as comforting as a night light.

They are among that tribe that requires a certain amount of constant steady-state adrenalin-inducing activity underlying their lives; running clear across town at 2:00 AM on deserted highways with the merest whisper of fuel lingering in the tank just about does the trick, which they experience as something soothing as a glass of warm milk before bedtime.

It takes sudden eruptions of lava in the neighborhood park or the like to rouse their attention, and even then they will only go so far as a slight compression of the lips or shrug of the shoulders as if to say, “please;...this is the best you can do? This?”

Redheads, many of them are, as though their own internal engine lights are stuck on the red side of the gauge and it is lighting them from the inside.

They fill their tanks grudgingly – when they fill their tanks at all – and often rush out of the service station having completed only a tenth of the job, leaving the pumps looking vaguely aggrieved.

The All Business would never do that, for him life is a form of soldiering, and this is strictly a business proposition….so much gas goes in, so much mileage is gained.

There’s no emotion evolved, no satisfaction, no resolution of unformed but powerful internal needs. Well, he doesn’t have unformed but powerful internal needs for one thing, he can’t imagine why anyone would. Life isn’t a mysterious process for him, people, things, and the very elements of the periodic table behave just about as he expects them to, and like those powerful internal needs, he can’t imagine why they wouldn’t. He eats this way too, if you’ve ever noticed, you’ve never seen a hot dog consumed so pleasurelessly, but he gets the job done and he is fueled enough until the tank, I mean his stomach, again sinks to near-empty. You couldn’t imagine that he would ever run out of fuel, that would be contrary to the business contract he has executed with the car, the gas pump, the service station, the gasoline, and life itself. It’s to no one’s interest that any one party fails the other and in his world, they never do.

The Performance Artist, oh, the stop for gasoline is only, say, the 28th stage he has played on that day. The grocery store, the bank, the hardware store, the hamburger stand and now the service station, they each serve mainly as a backdrop and scenery to whatever emotion is coursing through his veins at the moment.

As to what that feeling is, oh, any strong emotion will do, anything in the primary colors along the spectrum.

A favorite is the longing stare into the distance as he stands disconsolately with the pump in his hands, grappling with the gas cap as though unseeing, possessed of a broken heart that the rest of us can only guess at.

But he certainly does want you to guess at it.

And if you don’t seem to be – guessing at it, that is – then the next emotion is standing in the wings; it might be wild bitter laughter and a shake of the head, possessed by some rueful memory; it just as easily could be dark anger, his brow knit as he remembers some wrong or recalls some dishonor to mind.

As I say, any strong emotion will do and given that the Performance Artist has as his props only the handle of the pump, the black hose, the car, the gas cap and the asphalt pavement under his feet, who’s to say, who’s to say. It’s not unimpressive. It might even be that the very origins of street theater began in exactly such a situation, or – to take it back even further – the great Greek tragedies might have had their start as a would-be actor emoted over his horse chewing hay.

The Perfectionist, I know you’ve known him. The balance of his gas guage never dips below half; as it approaches that mark, he’s into the station within the mile, and enjoying the sensation of absolute fullness. Now and again he might time with his stopwatch how long it takes to fill, and he knows the mileage for this car –city and highway both – like the back of his hand. The rearview mirror has been adjusted with a gunnery sergeant’s precision. If you are ever in need of converting miles to kilometers…he’s your man. He stands, certain and assured, finishing off the tank, pleased. The handle jerks and bucks in his hand as he squeezes every last drop in there that the tank will take, and isn’t satisfied until it absolutely won’t take more.

He is aware of the world’s dangers but knows they are destined for others, not him, he has any risks well under the tightest levels of management, the most rigorous control, and he has avoided giving his heart to anything that can be lost or stolen.

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I can see him now, the Perfectionist. The movies – which get so much so wrong – gets this one thing right, the sepia tone of memory, taking you back, right back to the moment. It’s how we think of life, there is always a before and after, a young and old, an honest and free and a compromised and bound.

If you had known him then, you couldn’t think of him in retrospect without tearing up at what awaited him, the reefs he crashed on, the waves that pummeled him.

So let’s instead leave him here in our memory, a black and white photo...certain, smiling softly with private confidence, sure, unaware.- lsm