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The company hung flags for my grand opening. A line of pointy
plastic flags strung on twine. From out of state they brought me in a
round big sign on a steel pole. A red horse on a white sign. A red,
muscled horse with lifted, horse-sized wings, to hang there above the
property.
 I got two red gas pumps, two clean-approved restrooms, one service
bay, a tub of Cokes, and five kinds of candy bars. In the service bay, I
had a chugging pump that brought automobiles off their feet and above my
head. I could stand all the way up under cars.
I got oil guns, grease guns, fluids for all the tanks and joints,
drums of sweet deep green grease that you could sink an arm into. And they
extended me a full, tall, drawered box of wrenches that clicked as they
worked and snapped cleanly back into place in their box.
The pumps had an arm of hose each, with handles like plated
handguns, and had the sweetest sniffing gas in the county. A squeeze of
the palm-sized trigger and it poured out into the tanks of people lining up
for it opening day, lining up for it in small amiable lines, taking their
time, chatting over it--shooting the breeze with the sole operator.
It was Spring. The pavement got cool in the evening. Breezes
came up and carried in the scent of manure from the fields. Breezes came
up and set the flags to clapping.
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