'It worked with me,' she said. She took his hand and held it until they landed.
Nahir Patel had reached the fourth chapter of The Satanic Verses when the battered Oldsmobile pulled into the station. Nahir didn't consider himself much of a Muslim. His mother had dragged him to Episcopal Sunday school until he was in his mid-teens and was able to mount an effective rebellion, and his father seemed to have no religion whatsoever beyond an abhorrence of pork sausage. As a family they attended a mosque-which required a trip to Memphis-only when relatives visited. Nahir himself had drifted into a vague belief in an essentially indifferent creator to whom one applied for relief in emergencies but otherwise ignored. With mild variations, he discovered, it was the basic American concept of the deity, based primarily on convenience, with no thought required. Best of all, it was a maintenance-free credo, plastic enough to cover a variety of permutations-he knew one girl who thought God was revealing herself through the anim ' alswhile demanding absolutely nothing of the believer. Islam, on the other hand, had some rigorous requirements, the hardest one being, for Patel, belief.
However, thoroughly non-Muslim though he was, Patel could not help feeling an illicit, not to say mildly dangerous thrill when reading the work of a man condemned to death for heresy by a large segment of Islam.
It seemed akin to deliberately walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror just to prove one was not superstitious. Rationally, there was no danger, yet one did not take such unnecessary chances without the sense of tempting retribution.
A man seemingly larger than the car itself got out of the Oldsmobile and puzzled for a moment at the gas pump. Nahir watched him with half an eye, wondering briefly that there were some people in this day and age who still did not understand that one must pay before receiving the gasoline. The instructions were written large, but somehow some people never managed to see them.
The big man stuck the hose in his tank and squeezed and looked at the pump and squeezed some more.
Nahir returned to his book. He had been working — the five-to-midnight shift for six months now and had seen all manner of dummies in that time. They all caught on eventually and came to visit him in his Plexiglas booth.
He had a microphone at his disposal if he had wanted to help the customer, but he chose not to use it. He would be off duty shortly and he wanted to read a bit more. At home, he kept the book out of sight, not wanting to risk stirring up any atavistic orthodoxy in either parent. He thought they were enlightened-for parents-but there seemed no reason to press the point. He had time enough to read while on the job, after all.
The big man had finally noticed Nahir in the booth.
'I want gas,' he said.
Duh, thought Nahir. No kidding. Although schooled in politeness at home, he found that the insulation of the booth led one towards a degree of insolence that only absolute security could nurture. No one could touch him in his little booth. The glass was even bulletproof. There seemed little need for civility when the worst that could happen as a result of rudeness was a dirty look and a nasty remark. What were they going to do, drive away without gas? A few did, but if any had ever reported him to the manager, he had never heard about it.
'You have to pay me first,' Nahir said, making no effort to conceal his contempt.
The man seemed bewildered by the statement.
'I want gas,' the man said, I and then, as if clarifying things, he added, 'for my car.'
Nahir made a big display of seeing the car for the first time. 'Oh, for your car! Why didn't you say so?'
The man nodded. 'Gas for my car.'
Nahir could not believe this moron.
'Pay first,' he said. He turned back to his book. Let the goon figure it out, or not.
The man scowled at him. 'I don't like that,' he said.
Nahir sighed deeply and looked away from his book, letting the man know how tired he was of the whole conversation. He turned the microphone on so that his words were issued into the night.
'You don't like what? Paying? Sorry, chief, that's the way the system works. Pay now, gas later.'
'I don't like the way you talk to me,' the man said.
Nahir leaned his face right against the glass, grinning contemptuously.
'I'm not here to talk to you. I'm here to throw a switch that allows you to pump gas, after you pay for it. Got it?
Too hard? You. Money. Give me. I. Gas. Give you.'
'I could kill you,' the man said.
Nahir smirked.
'Ooo,' he said. 'Oooo.'
The man smashed his fist into the Plexiglas in front of Nahir's face.
Nahir jerked back, startled, and the man struck the glass shield again and again, hitting it with the power of a club.
'Hey,' Nahir cried. 'Hey, calm down.' He looked out into the night for help. The station was lighted in the unreal sodium light, but outside that oasis was a desert of blackness.
The man kicked the cage in the metal siding below the glass. Nahir heard the thuds as if he were on the inside of a drum. People had hit the glass before, but no one had ever attacked the metal. He did not know how strong it was; he hoped it was strong enough, they wouldn't have built it that way if it wasn't strong enough, would they?
The man was hurling his whole body at the shack now, slamming with his back and shoulders with his full weight behind the blows. The booth groaned and shuddered. Nahir thought he heard the whine of bolts giving way. He was being attacked by a hurricane of rage, and the storm had worked its way to the door of the booth. The door was held by a dead bolt, but that was secured only by screws. The door bucked and crashed as the man alternately yanked on the handle, then threw himself against it. Nahir could picture the screws popping and the giant catapulting into the booth.
'I'll give you gas,' Nahir shouted. 'Please stop! I'll give you gas.
Fill it up, fill it up!'
It was not until Nahir remembered to use the microphone and his voice reverberated through the empty Chattanooga night that the man seemed to hear him.
'Free gas!' Nahir shouted, crying with fear now.
'Free gas!'
The giant stopped and nodded once as if he found the notion reasonable, then returned to his car and turned on the nozzle. He watched the pump rather than Nahir.
With the giant looking away, Nahir dialed 911 and whispered frantically for help. The huge moron returned to the booth and Nahir quickly hung up.
'No charge, no charge,' Nahir said, waving the man away.
'I want some money,' the man said. His voice was perfectly calm, as if it were the most ordinary request.
'Yes, sir, how much would you like?'
Oh, no, I confused him, Nahir thought. The giant was actually considering sums.
'Why don't I give you all of it?' Nahir asked.
'Yes.' The man nodded.
Nahir opened the cash drawer and took out half the money. It occurred to him that he could pocket the rest and report all of it as stolen. The giant was certainly too dumb to know the difference. Nahir was proud of himself for recovering his wits so quickly despite the incredible stress. He had turned a bad situation into something positive for himself.
He put the giant's share of the money into the revolving drawer and slid it out.
'That's all I have,' Nahir said.
'That's okay. Thank you.'
'No, I thank you.' For a moment Nahir thought the comment was too much, that the moron might react again, but he walked to his car and started it up. 'Y'all come back now, you hear?' ahir said, doing his best cracker twang.
Nahir waggled his fingers in a parody of a wave, then froze as he realized the man had put the car in reverse and was driving backwards straight at the booth, and very fast.
Cooper thought he had to do something about the Oldsmobile. The rear end was badly smashed after driving
