FEEDING SERGEI

I've always got on well with gas station people. I can't really tell you why; maybe it goes back to my teenage years. I would often hang out at the Clark station, shooting the breeze, and smoking Marlboros or for a time, Lucky Strikes. 

It probably started when a friend of the family started working there. He was my brothers' age, and sort of a big brother figure in some ways. Through him, I got to know the couple who owned and ran the franchise, and the other employees. Most importantly to me, it was a place I could hang out, smoke cigarettes, and people watch.

The steady drip of customers and conversations always held my interest. A gas station is one of those places where, on a long enough timeline, you're going to meet everyone - and I did. Everyone had to stop for gas at some point. This was a time before gas stations began to focus on being convenience stores, although they already were, in a way. They were just more efficient. You could gas up the car, grab smokes, a soda, and something to snack on. Maybe a six pack to go.

Let's not forget the coffee. Gas station coffee was serious stuff. Hot black, and sometimes sludgy. It was brewed to keep drivers awake, not just a quick littler over-priced pick-me-up. I remember meeting the country singer Little Jimmy Dickens there once. He was too short to reach the coffee pot, so I offered to help. The gal working that day was star struck. Little Jimmy Dickens was just grateful for the coffee and the help. I had no idea who he was. But he was a really nice guy, and he gave us tickets to his show. 

That's how gas stations used to be, and in some ways still are. You'll meet all kinds.

When I got out of my old hometown, I still tended to drift towards gas stations. There's a certain safety there. If you're in a new town, you learn a lot about the place from the gas station gossip. You'll eventually meet, albeit briefly, almost everyone in town. If you pay attention, you'll learn their habits. Do they smoke? If so, what brand? Do they buy regular gas or high test? What kind of car do they drive? Coupe, sedan, hatchback, minivan, SUV, pick-up truck? All of these things say a lot about a person, but only if you pay attention to the details.

In my last two years in Ohio, I started working in the wonderful world of gas stations. It was, for the most part, easy work. Low pay, for sure, but steady work. Within a few months working at the Starfire station, I was promoted to assistant manager. The pay still sucked, and it came with more responsibilities, but I was OK with it. I had my daily regulars and my weekly regulars. I got on well with most of them, but there's always at least one jagoff in every bunch. There was a guy who came in on Fridays, without fail. Just after 5pm, he'd come in and want to pre-pay for $5-10 worth of gas and a pack of Salems. He always tried to pay with a hundred-dollar bill, and every time I had to tell him I wasn't going to break a hundred for him. A pack of cigarettes was still only about 95 cents. That plus the gas would've been no more than $11. As Friday was payday, all of the other customers spending were twenties. We just didn't have the cash on hand to break big bills. Keeping that sort of cash in the till was also a great way to get robbed. Not on my shift! Every Friday he'd come in, we'd go through the same routine. I'd suggest he ask for smaller bills when he cashed his check. Typical smalltown bigshot wannabe. I think he got off carrying around large bills. It made him feel important. He'd always threaten to take his business across the street to the Marathon station. I usually suggested he do just that. I knew the folks there. They usually wouldn't break a twenty or a fifty - best of luck pal. 

I ended up taking a job with BP, first pumping gas but later fixing car washes. Still the same setting. People getting gas, a car wash, pack of smokes, down and dirty dark, dark coffee that could hold its own in a fight. I always enjoyed meeting and chatting with the different people every day. 

By 1992, a lot had changed. I'd inherited my house in Pittsburgh. The Soviet Union was a memory, and there had been a number of Russian immigrants to the area. I learned more about this than most because I married one of them.

From experience, when you become closely involved with an immigrant, you start to notice them everywhere. Most Americans used to be really good at not noticing. Nowadays, certain people seem to think immigrants are crawling all over the place, stealing jobs and eating dogs and cats or whatever the latest crazy line of bullshit is. I can tell you that in the early 90s, the only way you knew if a person was a Russian immigrant was by the accent. It was that simple.

I was driving a little Geo Metro 5-speed convertible at the time. It had a small gas tank and got insanely good mileage. If it weren't for my pack-a-day habit, I would have had almost no reason to stop at the Sunoco station near my house. That's where I met Sergei.

It seemed to happen overnight. A Russian couple, Andre and Tonya, had taken over running the station. They were a nice young couple, and as hard-working as you'd ever want to find. They had one other employee, another Russian guy named Sergei. Between the three of them, they worked every shift, every day, every week. To them, it might've felt like the proverbial American dream. To me, it just looked exhausting.

Still, they were gas station people. I'd stop in for a pack of smokes or a soda and try to shoot the breeze. Andre wasn't one for small talk. Tonya tried, but she was still struggling with the language. Sergei, on the other hand, spoke decent English and seemed genuinely happy to have someone to talk to. 

My wife had been trying to teach me some Russian, so I'd throw in whatever words I'd learned into the small talk. Sergei thought this was thrilling! An American learning his language. Needless to say, this always kept the conversations going much longer than they normally would. 

Back in Russia, he'd been an engineer or such. Here, he worked at a gas station selling cigarettes, coffee, snack, and sodas. Talk about culture shock! 

We would talk about anything and everything. Recent events, TV, music, movies. We were building one of those casual, day-to-day friendships. He was an interesting dude, no doubt there. A favorite conversation I fondly remember was about James Bond films. As fans of the franchise do, we discussed our favorite Bond actor. I was definitely Team Connery. Sergei's favorite? 

Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Say WHAT? I had to ask for clarification. I had never seen Arnold in a Bond film, and was pretty sure if he had, it was never released here. Sergei insisted he had. Back home in Russia, he had them on videotape. He was hoping his mother would send them, along with some of his books and music tapes, to him - but even then, such parcels were expensive. He insisted that should they ever arrive, we would grab some beers and watch them. He would translate! 

To this day, I've yet to find any proof of these films. It's possible that Sergei was joking. Soviet-era Russians have a unique sense of humor. 

My ex-wife was no fan of cooking. This was fine with me, as the kitchen is my domain. At the time, my 88-year-old auntie was still living with me, and she insisted the kitchen was her domain. Every now and then, my then wife would make us dinner. I will take full blame for this.

When she had her apartment, she had these photo recipe cards hanging on the wall of her kitchen. They looked exotic to me! Fancy Russian Cyrillic lettering, blinding colors, photos of culinary mysteries. One always caught my eye. She told me the dish was called pelmeni.

I learned that it's basically a dumpling with some meat in it. Somewhere between a pierogi and a ravioli. OK, those I knew. I wasn't crazy about either, but I'd had them. I expressed curiosity about this pelmeni. I was keenly aware of her frequent homesickness for a country that no loner existed as it did in her memories. I figured some food from the old country could be a healthy way of holding on to those memories. Maybe "healthy" isn't the best word. 

Neither my aunt or I cared for pelmeni. Auntie called them "gut cloggers". I just thought they were bland and doughy. Boiled dough with bits of minced meat, garlic and onion...not exactly what my American palate was accustomed to. I later found that if I fried them in some garlic butter, they were better - but still, "gut cloggers". 

Trying to be a good husband, I applauded the wife's cooking, and even the peculiar pelmeni. She was so thrilled by this, that she spent more time in the kitchen, much to auntie's and my shared chagrin. Especially with pelmeni, she always made plenty. Much more than we'd ever eat. 

Rather than fill the freezer with leftovers, I hatched a better plan. I'd give them to Sergei!

I knew the man well enough to know that he, too, dealt with daily bouts of homesickness. Not only had the only life he'd known been destroyed, but our government was also making it nearly impossible for Russian companies to compete in business here. My wife worked as a translator for a Russian company - until the roughly 90% tariffs ended that. Sergei was a highly intelligent man, reduced to working in a gas station. It had to be a strange time for them.

The first time I brought leftovers to Sergei, he great me with his usual "Hello my friend!" as I walked in the door. When I told him that I had a surprise for him, the look on his face told me it had been a long time since someone had surprised him with a gift of any kind. When he opened the bag and looked in the Tupperware container, seeing a healthy serving of pelmeni, I thought he was going to cry.

"Ahhhhhh! Pelmeni!" Then he popped a cold one in his mouth. His expression was the look of satisfaction one only gets when they taste something they enjoy but have not had in a long time. It was a look of honest joy. He closed up the Tupperware, and ran to put it in the cooler, so he could enjoy it properly at home. He insisted I thank my wife, and he even wrote her a little note, in Russian, thanking her himself. 

A few customers came and went. Sergei was smiling like I'd never seen before. He had the look of a man who had something pleasant to look forward to. We chatted a bit more, then I said I'd better get on home. I asked for my usual pack of smokes, but Sergei refused to let me pay for them. This was the moment I had become, in his eyes, a true friend. 

Let me tell you something about the Russian concept of friendship. To them, it's as important - if not more so - than family. Once a Russian considers you their friend, you will never find a more loyal one. They'll have your back through good, bad, and everything in between, your joy is their joy and your troubles become theirs. And if possible, they will fix your trouble - come hell or high water. 

Communist-era Russians tended, back then, to have a different view of commercial products. Giving me a free pack of cigarettes was no big deal to him. Sure, technically they were company property, but in his mind, it was his responsibility to sell them, or not. Giving to a friend was more important to him, personally and socially, then worrying about 'the company'. 

Often, I had to remind Sergei that this was not a good idea, at least not here in the States. Andre would notice short inventory counts. It could create problems. It could even become a legal issue. He just waved it off like I was being a silly old woman. 

As the weeks and months moved on, my wife would occasionally make Russian dishes, most of which I wasn't a fan of, and I would take the leftovers to Sergei. 

"Just like Mama makes!" was his usual response. He would then remind me how lucky I was to be married to a Russian woman who could cook so well! I'd laugh and tell him he needed to try MY cooking. In time, I took him chili, fried chicken, gumbo, and on Thanksgiving I took him a massive plate of turkey with all the trimmings. I would have had him join us for dinner, but as always, he was working. If nothing else, we kept the man fed!

One night, I stopped to fill up my gas tank. As I was standing at the pump, I saw Sergei come out of the gas station carrying a couple cases of soda, with a couple cartons of cigarettes perched on top. He greeted me with his usual "Hello my friend!" and then added that he had a surprise for me and put the soda and cigarettes into the back seat of my car.

"Sergei, what are you doing, man? You know I can't take this!"

I tried, once again, to explain that he couldn't do such things. I didn't want him to lose his job, or worse, get arrested. 

Russians are, if nothing else, damned stubborn people. 

Sergei insisted, repeatedly. These were gifts for me, his friend. He'd been truly moved by my kindness towards him. I finally relented and told him "OK" - but this had to be the last time. He, as well as Andre and Tonya, were working so hard on building new lives in a new country, that I couldn't permit him to jeopardize his situation like this. I assured him that I was grateful for his friendship but please, I wanted to demonstrate how we do it here. 

Damn, he was stubborn. 

He learned to stop playing Santa Claus with company goods. OK, he'd still give me the occasional pack of smokes or a soda. He'd just say something in Russian, laugh, and suggest I ask my wife to translate it. This was just how it was. I always enjoyed Sergei.

When my wife and I split, another thing happened. As quickly as the Russians had taken over running the Sunoco station, they vanished. I stopped in one day and saw a new face. A young lady with big hair. Smiling face. I greeted her in Russian, "Привет!...and she just stared at me like a bird had flown out of my nose. 

"Excuse me? What did you say?"

I just chuckled and asked where the Russians were. She told me she didn't know anything about that. The regional manager transferred her to the station for a few weeks while they hired new staff. I was shocked and stunned at the news. 

What happened to my friend? Where's Sergei? I never got a straight answer. One day the new manager told me Andre and Tonya quit. Other folks told gossip and rumors, but no one ever seemed to know what really happened to them. As quickly as they came, they left. I never saw any of them again.

I still enjoy gas station people. I still enjoy running into the occasional Russian immigrant, although there a remarkably fewer than there were thirty-five years ago. 

I still don't enjoy pelmeni. "Gut cloggers". 

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