Ron Devereux had set up shop at the Wangkur GrintCo servo.
They did actual, bonafide five-star service.
Lower Wangkur, situated at the most desolate western point of Leftish Arcadia, was home to about three dozen. Its sister city, Hogg, was a lazy five hundred or so Ks north east.
Ron – former band manager, occasional bush shaman, indigenous to the region for roughly 25,000 years – pumped petrol, squee-geed windscreens, made laboured small talk, the whole five star deal.
The servo saw ten customers, max, on a busy week.
It was the first day of spring, 2023.
A total fire ban was in effect, not that there was much to burn out here.
The digital thermometer hung next to an ancient cheesecake pin up outside Ron’s office read 47 degrees C.
It was 8am.
Ron had been tooling about with a gas refill, lit cig dangling precariously from his bottom lip, when a late model Beemer materialised out of the desert, encrusted in a shell of thick red mud.
It rolled up to a pump and its noncy German engine sighed as the driver killed the ignition.
The door swung and a chunky looking bloke in full bush costume bounded out.
Freshly pressed check shirt, Levis, suspiciously pristine cowboy boots, a spotlessly clean oversize akubra he’d no doubt got off the internet.
“Hot enough for ya?” he’d enthused, because of course he was the sort of bastard that opened a conversation like that.
Ron sized him up.
Playstation 6 phone case.
Flowing auburn ponytail, turning to rust.
Just shy of fifty.
Yep.
Wanker.
“Fill her up thanks cobber!” old mate chirped, oblivious. “Long drive ahead of me today! I’m a radio journalist, you see – the top brass just shipped me over from Sydney –“
Ron shuddered involuntarily.
“– and I’m off up to do a story on –“
Ron levered the cap off his hip flask, took a swig. He tuned out and pumped the bloke’s petrol. City spivs, especially from that bastard place, got him all homicidal.
The pump clicked and Ron screwed the cap back on.
He lit another cig and squinted at the Beemer.
“Car wash up in Hogg if you need.”
The wanker was still mid-reverie. He handed Ron cash, swung back into the pilot’s seat and flicked a salute as tinted electric windows hummed up…