The Permutation

Interlude - Wylie

Saturday, November 5th, 12 a.m.

Officer Simmons knew that he shouldn't be clocking out. Technically his shift was over, but calls were still flooding into dispatch at an unprecedented rate. The others needed him, but they didn't understand how bad he needed his nightly ritual, his Scratchers. Scratching away cheap plastic to reach the fated numbers underneath was symbolic to Wylie. Before he scratched, every single ticket held the potential for a better life or at least a well-deserved vacation.

It wasn't until after he'd revealed the numbers with a smelly copper penny, that they lost all their magic, their potential. Christopher once referred to Wylie's romanticized version of scratch tickets as Schrodinger's Scratcher, because each one was both a winner and loser until he observed the contents within.

Shit like that went right over Wylie's head, but he thought it had a nice ring to it. He got a good chuckle out of it when Norma, the lady who'd held onto the night shift at the Oasis gas station as long as anyone could remember, looked at him like he was some sorta Einstein.

Wylie felt a touch of guilt as he entered the Oasis, like he was letting his fellow boys in blue down, but he didn't sign onto the police force for all this excitement. His momma told him he needed a respectable job, and they was hiring. He'd been a fast and strong little sucker when he was a little guy, and supposed that being a cop fit him as well as anything.

He didn't think the job would be so much damn sittin' and doin' paperwork. Twelve hour shifts in the cruiser were giving him a helluva case of sciatica, and the paperwork was giving him carpal tunnel, or at least that's what the doc said. The quack tried to push some pills on Wylie, but he wasn't gonna have none of that. That's the problem with fancy docs, they think the solution to everything is in them little pills, just because it helps them get their wood up with the Missus must work for everyone.

All I need is a little vacation, and I'll be right as rain.

Officer Simmons let out a long sigh of relief when he got out of his cruiser. A twinge of pain shot up from his ass to his brain, but it was nothing a good stretch and Scratch couldn't fix.

Wylie heard the panicked "Wee-ooh, wee-ooh" of their town's outdated rinky, dink fire truck, and that eased up his guilt a touch.

They can handle it just fine without me.

Wylie heard the ding of the door cheerfully announcing his arrival, and he felt a big ol' goofy grin spread along his face. The gas station always sounded so goddamned pleased when he arrived as if it needed Wylie just as much as he needed it. He breathed in a deep gulp of the overheated air, and it had never tasted so sweet. Norma must've been working tonight, these Idaho winters were getting tougher on the old goat every year, but she always got a good chuckle out of it anyways.

'If you saw how much I get paid, you'd know the fuckers got enough money to pay for some gas.'

That was her mantra.

Wylie liked the other gas station ladies just fine. They were polite enough, and clearly viewed the gas station as a convenient stop to pay their dues before they went onto bigger and better things. Wylie tolerated their tired smiles, waves, and forced conversation, but they didn't hold a candle to Norma, the Matron of the Oasis.

Most folks, when they reach a certain age, they cash in their chips and settle back down into their lot in life, if that was a gas station attendant, you didn't make no fuss about anything, because you know your lot in life is shit, but not Norma. The way she figured it, if she was gonna work there, she was gonna do it right, and that meant treating her dump of a gas station like the Ritz, and taking no shit from anyone, including her employers.