new jersey 2:3

An hour later, I was at least five miles from the car, still wandering between identical houses on identical streets with the same oil tanks looming in the background. No problem, I thought. Everyone has gas but me, along with functional gauges and houses and kids. Meanwhile, Jack and Jill, not my kids, had probably been crushed by a dump truck or abducted by white slavers. I'd thought about knocking on someone's door for a hundred blocks, and finally I chose one that looked somehow welcoming in its sameness. Bruce Springsteen himself answered the door, or perhaps a cousin. Hey, he said. And I asked could he tell me where the nearest gas station was since I'd run out on the road and my kids were waiting there, and there were all these oil tanks around. They won't hurt you, the tanks, I've been living here since they came in, since I was a kid, he said, but no there isn't a station for miles on. He waved indistinctly. Let me get you a can, he said, my car's got plenty of gas. We siphoned some out, and he said keep the can, he had a hundred of them.

move on...