Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven by Jennifer Robbins
It was the type of small town that even Greyhound avoids . Where men riding 10 speeds are not doing well . Where spring welcomes not only wild Rose of Sharon out of hibernation but also meth heads ; stumbling out of their apartments one after the other , like the Seven Dwarfs , forging ahead hunchbacked and wild , making their way somewhere , strange and purposeless .
When we were kids we called the smokestacks ‘ cloudmakers ,’ an endless mile of factory , steam , and petrochemicals that pierced the back of your throat when you inhaled . The smell of rotten eggs meant closing the windows and tuning into K106.3 " The Rock " to see if it was safe to go outside . Every Monday a gargled voice came wheezing out from the spiderweb of sound systems littered across the city : “ This is a test of the emergency broadcast system .”
It was 3am and I couldn ’ t sleep so I walked across shadowed downtown streets under an orange-lit sky , the smell of mustard air crawling up into my nose and ears , clawing its way through like a centipede , deeper and deeper until my brain hurt . My nose ran and I picked up my pace . Vidal , Wellington , George , then Christina , to 7- Eleven , where I hoped a chocolate covered something 36