Gas Station Apple

One is nicked and two are bruised but hidden in the back of the shelf behind all the flaws is a perfect apple.

I don’t normally buy fruit at gas stations, the bananas hanging in baskets by the door so often dotted black, the precursor of dilapidation and death. Also, they smell like gas.

The young man at the counter arranges my things to scan them. He scans a chocolate bar and then says “Wait! Are there two?” And there are, stacked perfectly one on the other, and he laughs sweetly like I could’ve made off with two for the price of one if he hadn’t been so vigilant. We have a secret.

“I love your earrings,” he says bagging my things. “They’re wolves, right?” They are but I don’t explain. It would take too long and it doesn’t matter anyway. Still, the compliment makes me happy. It takes so little.

I eat the apple later at the ball game. It’s remarkable for a gas station apple. Nearly perfect.