"Queenie"

The year was 1963. I spent 3 summers working for Daddy Fox in the gas station at the intersection of Highway 41 and 79 in Guthrie, Ky. The location was perfect as both highways moved a lot of traffic and there were plenty of cars and trucks that stopped just for gas. Guthrie was a small town and there was local trade; mostly farmers, town folks and workers from the Purina Pet Food plant. The intersection of both highways created a V-shaped lot that was huge and contained the gas station, a small house, and a modest motel toward the back end of the lot as it widened out.

The motel was a typical 1960’s design with an office in the middle and rooms branching out in both directions with parking right in front of each room. Air conditioners hung from the rear windows of all the rooms and they were numbered 1-10 on one end and 11-20 on the other. There was no room for large trucks, so much of the clientele were traveling salesmen, families on vacation, locals looking for a one-night stand, and seasonal workers. The huge Purina Pet Food plant in Guthrie would also rent rooms for the people coming in from out of town for meetings or as temporary housing for new workers. It was a thriving business for Daddy Fox.

This was my first year working at the station and it was my job to pump gas, check oil, clean windows and check air in tires, but most customers just wanted gas and maybe a quart of oil.

Inside my duties included keeping the place clean, filling up cheap oil bottles from a 55-gal drum and making sure the cigarette machine was always full. I also sold condoms stored in the bottom of the cigarette machine. They were called “rubbers” and were 10 cents apiece.

Lined up next to the cigarette machine there was a bright red Coke machine and a candy machine that also held crackers and peanuts. Keeping these stocked was also my job and I would fill them from supplies locked in a small storage room in the back of the station. The Coke machine was stocked with bottles of Coke, Nehi Orange and Grape soda, and most popular, RC Cola.

When there were no customers, I sat on a metal stool next to the cash register and daydreamed. The summer days were hot and humid in southern Kentucky and a window A/C unit ran constantly. One exceptionally hot July day I was sitting on my stool waiting for my next gas customer when I heard a bark.

Outside was an old mutt, with yellow brown fur matted and dirty. It was a female and her outstanding feature was the absence of her right front leg. I dubbed her “Queenie” for no particular reason, and she followed me around most of that summer on her three legs. I let her inside where it was cool and kept a bowl of water nearby. I was 13 and already had a beagle hound back home, so Queenie became my summer friend. I sneaked food scraps to her, and she would eat whatever was available. Queenie stuck around most days but when the notion grabbed her, she would take off in that weird three-legged shuffle and be gone, only to turn up a few days later and take up her place beside me in the station.

Sometimes the town boys would pull into the station in their old hotrods and buy an RC cola, some peanuts and sit on the hood of their cars pouring the nuts into the bottle and watching it fizz before taking a long gulp and eating the peanuts after the cola was gone. Smoking unfiltered Camels or Lucky Strikes they would tease me about my weight or my horn-rimmed glasses or my shoes or shirt or whatever came to mind to delay having to do something else when there was nothing to do.

I secretly hated them but could not really do much as they were grown boys with a deep meanness that came naturally from living crappy lives in Guthrie with not many prospects beyond factory work, farm work, or the military.

Two particularly nasty boys were Henry and Jack Fordham. They both worked at the Purina Plant and would stop by after work to get $2 worth of gas and give me a hard time.

On this day late in the summer I heard a car pull up to the pumps and could tell by the broken muffler that the Fordham boys were back. I figured my best bet was to go on outside and face the music rather than have them come in to give the 2 bucks and start in again. Maybe this time I could simply pump the gas, take the money and only have to put up with a few comments thrown out the driver’s window. I went out to the car as Jack Fordham was rolling down the window and yelling, “Give us 2 bucks of regular, fat boy, and don’t spill any on the ground this time.”

Jack was the uglier of the brothers with a buzz haircut, acne scars and a constant sneer that exposed a missing front tooth with the rest deeply yellowed from too many unfiltered cigarettes. They both sported the typical summer dress of ragged jeans, faded tee shirts and leather work boots.

I pulled down the license plate to expose the gas nozzle and started to pump, keeping my eyes on the white numbers so as not to go over the requisite 2 dollars. I heard the passenger door open and Henry came around the back of the car holding a beat-up gas can. “Hey, pull that hose out and fill this can up.” I hit 2 dollars on the nose and pulled the nozzle from the tank and filled the one-gallon gas can up to the brim. Henry screwed the cap back on and disappeared around the side of the car as I replaced the gas cap and released the spring-loaded license plate.

As I stood up to collect the money, I heard the driver’s door open and Jack got out. “ I guess we got time for an RC cola and shoot some shit with gas boy.”

My heart sank as I realized that I was not going to get rid of them so easily. As Henry and Jack sat in front of the station drinking RC colas, I tried to keep busy hoping they would finish and leave me alone. I went inside, shut the door and fiddled with the cigarette machine.

Suddenly I heard a bark and then a laugh and then a sound that could not be real.

There was no way it could be real because it started as a low growl and grew into a scream that was so sudden and loud that it cut through me like a knife.

“Damn Jack, you see that three-legged mutt take off when you lit it up...hee hee hee hee.”

I heard Henry’s high-pitched giggle as I threw open the door and rushed to see both Fordham brothers pointing across the lot to a yellow blur trailing smoke. They had doused Queenie with gas from the can when she had approached them for a handout. It was common for Queenie to bum food from customers and she did not know the good ones from the bad ones.

The Fordham’s were the bad ones. Real bad. Bad enough to set fire to a helpless crippled dog and laugh as she ran and screamed and ran and screamed...right into the path of a speeding car on highway 41 in front of the gas station, as a terrified 13-year-old boy looked on in disbelief.

Mercifully her death was quick from the speeding car as it ran over her and pushed the still burning body into the ditch across the road. Queenie came to rest in a smoldering heap and died. I ran toward the nearest Fordham brother, not knowing whether it was Jack or Henry because of the tears flooding my eyes and the scream building in the back of my throat.

In that moment time slowed down and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a large black hand as it shot out of nowhere grabbing my arm in a vice-like grip and shoving me back against the wall of the station. It was Buford. He had coming rolling up in his old Buick Roadmaster and I never saw him bolt out of the car and grab me before I made it to the Fordhams.

“Stop Mista' Trent, just stop yo’self right there...them Fordham’s are bad boys and that Jack carries a knife...you jist let it go. I seen what dem boys dun and they ain’t nothing you can do about dat now. Dat dog is burned up and run’d over and getting yo’self hurt ain’t gonna bring her back. You jist come on inside and leave dem boys be...they be gone soon enough...they dun had their fun.”

I never knew Buford’s last name, not in all 3 summers that I worked for Daddy Fox. I guess it was not important. He was just Mister Buford to me, and he was a large black man with hard hands, a huge smile and a booming laugh. I couldn't tell you his age, but he had to be about 50 something at the time. For some reason he took a liking to me and the friendship grew from there. I called him Mister Buford and he called me Mister Trent and it just worked.

He was my friend. I would arrive for work at the beginning of summer and just like that Buford would appear and we would spend time just talking and drinking cokes and chasing the time between cars at the pumps.

Sometimes Buford would help me pump gas when the cars piled up.

On this day he probably saved me from a severe beating and maybe more. Since the fun was over and the Fordham’s had places to go, they piled back into their old Pontiac and took off. Buford sat me down and started to talk to me in that low deep baritone voice of his.

“ Now Mista' Trent, dem boys will get what’s cumin' to ‘em, don’ you worry. We tell Mista' Fox what de did, and you see what happen then. I know your granddaddy and that man don’t put up with no foolishness, no sir, no foolishness, ‘specially from dem trashy Fordhams.”

I was still crying even after we found a shovel in Daddy Fox’s shed and buried Queenie in the grass lot next to the gas station.

I never told Daddy Fox what happened... I guess I was too scared of what he might do. But I never saw the Fordham’s again the rest of the summers at the gas station.

They never came back.

Maybe Buford told.