Gas Station Boy

Finally I got up the nerve to go get some gas there. It was so pathetic—I was like, "He's gonna KNOW I don't really need gas and I'm just going there to scope him out!!" But I went, pumped my gas, handed him my five dollar bill while trying not to geek out too bad, and he smiled back at me and said thanks.

I continued to go there to make feeble contact with him under the pretension of buying gas (thank god he worked somewhere where they actually sold something I needed on a regular basis!). He always seemed really friendly but never really spoke much, just a quick "hi" or "thanks." I started to wonder if maybe he didn't speak English. I noticed that the patch on his jacket said "Dan," but I was skeptical whether that was really his name or if it was just a patch. However, I eventually did find a friend of a friend who vaguely knew him, and he was able to confirm that his name was indeed Dan. He then informed me that he was an artist and had a girlfriend. Drat! I had actually figured as much when I had driven by one night and saw him with a girl (but I was hoping that maybe she was just another crushed-out customer like me).

My crush continued on, and my brother-in-law teased me about going to see "Gas Station Boy." I thought "Gas Station Boy" would be a cool name for a song, and I'd just gotten a 4-track but hadn't really recorded much yet. Divine inspiration came to me and I made up an entire song about having a crush on a gas station boy. I recorded it and it actually sounded pretty cool. Now, I wasn't a total stalker and it's not like the song was "an expression of my love for him" or anything—I just thought it was a good catchy idea. But of course there was some truth behind it as well ...

Anyway, somehow I decided that I had to tell Dan the Gas Station Boy that he was the inspiration for my song. I knew he had a girlfriend and I wasn't trying to make a move on him, and I knew it would be kind of weird to tell him this, but I felt like he should know. So one night I got my nerve up, drove over, got gas, and then said, "You know, I wanted to tell you that ... don't think I'm a freak or anything, but I wrote a song about you." He smiled and said, "Really? Wow!" or something. I was like, "I'm really embarrassed!" He said, "Don't be, I'm flattered!" I thought I would die. I told him I'd bring him a tape, and drove off totally mortified by the fact that he was apparently the nicest person in the world. (This contradicted my original impression of him. He had kind of a Nick Cave look, pale and gorgeous with dyed black grown-out-Elvis kinda hair, and I had invented this whole mean, bad, juvenile delinquent personality for him, which of course turned out to be pretty far from the truth.)

Weeks passed and I hadn't made the tape. I felt like a retard. Finally I got a tape from my sister who'd made some copies of the song, and wrote a note to go with it. I tried to explain that I wasn't stalking him or obsessed or anything, but I had thought he was cute and then just thought it would make a good song. I also wrote out the lyrics because people had told me they couldn't really hear them (I'd mixed the vocals down pretty low). I did put my phone number on it and told him to let me know what he thought. I drove up, had to awkwardly wait around because there was another customer (just an old man, not another girl checking him out) taking forever, and said, "Here it is!" He said thanks and said, "Your hair looks good orange." (I'd just dyed it from blonde.) I was of course very tickled and to this day am touched by how cool he was in the face of my total geekness. I didn't hear from him, but I wasn't too disappointed—like I said, I knew he was unavailable, and I didn't expect anything to come from it, but I just felt like since he had inspired a song, he should know about it.

So, months later, I got a call from this guy I know. He was telling me his band was playing, and I should go, etc. Then he said, "Yeah, I thought of you because this guy gave me a tape with your name on it." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "Yeah, he said this girl gave it to him, and there was supposed to be a song on it, but it was blank!" All of a sudden I went "No way—is this DAN??" He said, "Yeah! He's my girlfriend's brother!"

Oh my god. I couldn't believe that not only did my lunacy get back to someone I knew, but worst of all, I had given the gas station boy a BLANK tape!! I guess my sister fucked up dubbing them. Anyway, I did go to my friend's show and saw Dan there (with his girlfriend). I told him I couldn't believe I'd given him a blank tape and said he should have let me know. (By this point the crush had subsided to a manageable level and I had no problem communicating with him with some level of intelligence.) I told him I'd come by and bring him another one, but the whole thing seemed so silly and ancient at that point that I never did. Eventually I heard he wasn't working at the gas station anymore. I still could have given a tape to his sister's boyfriend, but I never did.

A while after that, I met a girl who had worked at that gas station too, and she confirmed that there were about 10,000 other girls who had a crush on Dan. He really is cute. I also heard that his girlfriend was kind of pissed about the song thing, and I can understand that—but I hope she knew that I meant no offense and really was not trying to make a move on her man or anything, I just wanted him to know about the song. (But okay, I did have the hots for him, so I guess it wasn't entirely innocent either.) Sadly, to this day I don't think he's ever heard it since I retardedly gave him an empty tape ... maybe someday I'll find him again and give him a copy.