23 Cents Worth of Gas

Summer was hot and weeks had passed since I saw any of my friends, except for E, who went to the same church I did. I lived three miles from town—two miles down the road from Taylorsville, Mississippi, and one mile west, up the road on Gregg Hill, near the end of the road on the Smith-Covington County line.

In the field up the hill from my house, the very pinnacle of the hill, my dad had a beautiful terraced field, where he grew corn, watermelons, or field peas. Scattered about in that field were our famous plums, the most delicious in Smith County.

One of my friends, MB, had a new Chevrolet, which she drove from house to house and collected her friends in town. She loved the plums we had. One afternoon, she gathered up a car full of girls and headed up the hill to my house.

When I saw her car, I rushed out to our big front porch to greet them. Since they were town girls, I didn’t ask them inside.

“Could we get some of your plums?” MB emitted a nervous giggle. “We just love those plums.”

My mother appeared with a bucket. “Here. Take this. You can keep it.”

“Is it all right if we take Mary Lou for a ride?” MB asked Mother.

“Sure. Y’all be careful.”

“Come on.” MB climbed into her car. “Y’all get in the back seat and let Mary Lou sit up front.”

We piled in and drove the short distance to the edge of the yard and took off by foot to the plum trees. As soon as our buckets were full, we climbed back into the car.

At the bottom of the hill when it was time to turn back onto the road, somebody in the back seat said, “Where y’all want to go?”

“Hot Coffee,” a voice said.

“Yes, let’s go to Hot Coffee,” two other voices answered.

MB turned to the right, and soon we were giggling and talking all at once.

“Oh no!” MB’s hand slapped her own face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m out of gas.”

“Let’s go get some gas then,” BA said.

“Have y’all got any money?”

I had a nickel and a penny in the pocket of my shorts. Squirming in the back seat, the girls collected a total of fifteen cents.

MB checked her billfold. “Two cents.”

“Oh, no. What will we do?” E was laughing, and we were all chewing our nails and twisting our hair.

“Everybody just calm down.” Always a natural leader, MB took charge as she pulled up to the service station in Hot Coffee. “Mary Lou, you’re on the passenger side. Here comes the attendant. Tell him we want to buy twenty-three cents worth of gas.”

By the time the attendant arrived, the girls in the back seat were laughing so loud, they got me tickled. I tried to say it, but the amount wouldn’t come out of my mouth. “We need some gas.”

MB spoke up. In a no-nonsense voice, she said, “Y’all be quiet. Sir, we need twenty-three cents worth of gas please.”

That’s the end of the story. MB took me home and rushed back toward Taylorsville.