A Place to Fill Up on City Life

When he was a young man, my grandfather owned a gas station on the South Side of Chicago at which, family legend has it, Al Capone and his cronies refueled. When my grandparents married, Capone sent them a lovely cast-iron cookware set; I remember my grandmother making mashed potatoes in one of the pots.

So I have always considered the gas station a sort of communal crossroads. As checkered a history as the McNamaras have, I cannot imagine other circumstances under which they would have made the Mob’s gift list.

Nowadays, there are very few gas stations. There are mini-marts and carwashes, cappuccino bars and burger huts, newsstands, fruit stands and gift emporiums, all of which may have a few attendant pumps (yet no pump attendants). But the old-time gas station, the kind my grandfather ran--in his neat black cap, coveralls and oil rag to hand--are few and far between.

Still, they remain the places of cultural and economic intersection, where people who would otherwise never lay eyes on each other exchange lamentations about gas prices or wrangle over the one ratty squeegee.

One of my favorite L.A. moments occurred one winter night at a gas station on Sunset Boulevard, just west of Los Feliz. When I approached the window to pay, I saw a small, brown cardboard sign on which was written, “Be Back Soon.” The station seemed empty, and then through an open door, I saw a movement in the back room.

A man was kneeling on the ground, his head pressed against the floor. His arms appeared to be in back of him, and I was certain I was witnessing a holdup. Panting with adrenalin, I considered my options: Run away? Call the cops? Attempt an intervention?

Then the man raised himself from the floor, his eyes closed. Horrified, I could not look away, expecting the gunshot any second. Instead, he lowered his head to the floor again. And then I saw the prayer mat. And then I realized it was Ramadan, and he was a devout Muslim. What a great city, I thought and still think, that you can stop to fill it up and see a man praying toward Mecca. Or watch a customer spend minutes trying to explain the pump system to a young Chinese family, then surrender to the language barrier and do it for them. Or see a woman adjusting her daughter’s sari. Or a man and woman, after spotting each other at a stoplight, pull in, burst out of their cars, and rush into a passionate kiss while onlookers laugh and applaud, just like in a movie.

Not all of the scenes are idyllic or even pleasant. A friend recently saw two men yelling at the cashier of his local station, and wondered if the argument was indicative of larger world tensions--the two angry men were Arab, the attendant Indian or Pakistani.

And last Saturday night, my husband kept a careful eye on the two cars behind us at the pumps; they were full to the brim of young white guys whose argument over who owed whom for gas and beer made it clear they didn’t have enough money for the big time they had planned, and that things were just this side of ugly.

So much of the commerce that takes place at gas stations is non-petrol-related that it’s not surprising that human interactions are so varied. I have used gas stations in myriad ways that had nothing to do with my car: They are a natural place to meet someone, especially an illicit someone. Breathing deep those heady fumes, I’ve changed my clothes and my children, the course of my travels, my choice of companion. I’ve pulled into a glaring oasis during more ill-advised early morning hours than I care to remember, in search of cigarettes or a phone booth or just human contact, even with a stranger behind plexiglass. Once, I watched a very large family in a very small car win $200 on a Scratcher, and was reminded, in the nick of time, of the existence of the miraculous.

In a city where too much is passed by too fast, the gas station is a place where we are forced to get out of our cars and look at each other for a moment. When travel was of the quadruped variety, watering holes were one of the few places nobility mingled with peasants, where everyone’s lives were interrupted by a common need. They were places of succor and peril, and so they remain. Me, I haven’t met up with a gentlemanly mobster with a good eye for cookware, but it’s a big city yet.

Mary McNamara can be reached at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.