How to Pump Your Own Gas
First, move out of New Jersey. It is the only state where it is illegal to pump your own gas. As such, it is diametrically opposed to the development of this valuable life skill. It would be wise to move somewhere relatively far from New Jersey—say, Minnesota—so that you are not tempted to go back.
Your father will ask if you even know how to pump your own gas. Remind him that one of the many odd jobs you’ve worked involved doing exactly that. He will insist you use the restroom before you leave. Do so. Remember to wash your hands. Dry them on the hand towel your mother bought you. The one that has the words ‘You Are Loved’ embroidered in rainbow lettering across the top. Leave the towel here. It cannot help you pump your own gas.
Pack only the things you absolutely need. The pre-rolled joints duct-taped under the compartment for the spare tire. The stuffed animals you’ve won from crane games. The exercise bike that you will mostly just use to hang dry clothes on. The 48C bras that you need to buy at the specialty stores because you are both too big and too small.
Find a reason to move to Minnesota. The fact that a boy you like to have sex with lives in Minneapolis is not a good enough reason to move to Minnesota. Remember that your father always wanted you to go to graduate school. He wanted you to be a lawyer, but he will settle for anything at this point. Apply to every Fine Arts program you can find in the area. Get rejected from all of them. Do not take it personally. Apply to a few creative writing programs. Get accepted to all of them. Pick the cheapest one that is closest to the boy you like to have sex with. Tell your father that you are going to become a famous author so that he can finally be proud of you. Don’t cry when he tells you that he has always been proud of you.
You will find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. Well, your sister’s old Subaru, but it’s close enough. For now, climb into the passenger seat and try to get some sleep before it’s your turn to drive.
Your mother will be joining you for this trip. You are apprehensive about this. Your mother has a tendency to catastrophize, and you aren’t much better. Wonder who will keep their shit together if something goes wrong. Decide it will have to be you. Bravery is necessary if you hope to ever pump your own gas.
Three hours into the crawling eternity that is the state of Pennsylvania, it will be your turn to drive. Switch places at a gas station near Jersey Shore. Learn that there is a town in central Pennsylvania called Jersey Shore. Everything smells of gas fumes and petrichor. Inform your mother that she is holding the pump for diesel fuel. Go with her when she says she needs to use the restroom inside. Talk about where you’d like to stop to eat. Then, notice the writing scrawled on the inner side of the stall door.
“God hates trans people.”
Except it doesn’t say trans people.
Tell your mother it’s nothing when she asks why you’re suddenly so quiet. Avoid eye contact with everyone on your way back to the car. Turn the music up and drive the rest of the way to the first hotel on the outskirts of Columbus.
Have an uneventful start to your second day. Banter with your mother about music and say “cow” every time you drive past a cow. Get tired of saying “cow.”
Look in the passenger side mirror. See your gas cap flapping in the rain against the side of your car. Ask your mother if she forgot to screw the cap back on when you stopped for gas outside of Dayton. Google what to do if water gets into your gas tank. Read an article saying it will be fine. Read another saying it will ruin your engine.
Stop at a rest stop in western Indiana. Pretend not to notice the older woman staring at you through the gap in the stall door. Keep your hand over your crotch until your jeans are buttoned again. Wash your hands. Tell the woman to have a nice day and get back in your car.
Realize, slowly, that you will need this car to survive the journey; that you are going to your first place without trains. The people there will point out that they have a light rail, and you will think to yourself that this is cute. On the third day, somewhere north of Chicago, decide to take back control of both the gas pump and your life.
Drive toward Madison while stuck behind a truck with a bumper sticker that reads, “All Lives Matter” and hear your mother groan. Tell her it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Make fun of all the anti-abortion propaganda billboards that dot the highway. Remember that Roe got overturned and laugh a little less. Ask yourself, where does this highway go to?
Pass Wisconsin Dells and become nostalgic for Stevens Point–a small college town in central Wisconsin where, at age twenty-nine, a man held your hand in public for the first time. Think about the insecurities of male sexuality.
Stare out the window somewhere around Eau Claire and think about the stories you’ve heard about your mother from back before she was your mother–the ones about motorcycles and skydiving and boys. Consider which of you has lived the stranger life. You’ve never ridden a motorcycle or jumped out of an airplane, but your mother has never been on stage at a seedy nightclub or gone out with friends to a sex party in Brooklyn. Or maybe she has, you don’t know. Wonder if this is just how all of the women in your family are.
You are now arriving in Minnesota, home of the hot dish and the winningest team in football that never actually wins. Buy dinner and an air mattress at the Super Target down the road from your new apartment. Drive your mother to the airport in the morning. Thank her for her help, all of it. Tell her you’ll be home for Christmas.
Now that you are in your new state, you will, from time to time, be asked where you’re from. Some of these times, you will mention that you used to live in New York City, and someone will almost always remark, “Ah, so you’re from the bubble.” Think about how Minnesota is 80% white, Wisconsin is 83% white, North Dakota 85%, Iowa 88%. Mention none of this. These people are very sensitive, and you must practice the following phrase in front of the mirror: “Yeah, pampered east coast liberals, am I right?”
Make the boy you like to have sex with your boyfriend. He will ask if you are ready for your first Minnesota winter. Tell him that you love snow and the cold. He will challenge you and say that you’ve never known a cold like this. Drink a beer on his balcony in your underwear in the middle of a snowstorm to prove a point. Take a hot shower.
Go to school. Confront your social anxiety, at least a little bit. Sign up for a workshop. Submit a story with a bondage scene. Make friends with the other girl that writes stories with bondage scenes.
Go to a bar in Minneapolis and meet an older trans girl from Boston. Get drunk together and walk to the only diner that’s open at 3:39 in the morning. Split an order of poutine and ask about her life. Learn that she is a chemist, that she’s in town for a conference on whatever chemists hold conferences for. Learn that she teaches herself how to code as a hobby, that she has a boyfriend back home but that, in her words, it’s kind of an open thing. Notice how feminine her voice is compared to yours. Notice how much bigger her breasts are compared to yours. Feel inadequate, feel like a failure, but continue to tell her jokes. Think about how humor and putting out are the only two ways you really know how to get people to like you.
Excuse yourself to use the restroom. Be pleasantly surprised when you close the door to the stall behind you and see the words “Protect Trans Kids” scribbled on the toilet paper dispenser. Wonder if all the nice bathroom graffiti you’ve ever seen is just other trans girls trying to make each other feel a little less terrified. Take a trans pride sticker out of your purse and slap it on the tampon dispenser.
Go back to the older trans girl’s hotel room. When it’s time to say goodbye, she will hug you tightly and say that she loves you. Tell her that you love her, too. Be surprised at how much you meant it. Wonder why so many people tell you that they love you, but only when they’ve been drinking.
Fall in love with the boy you like to have sex with—a classic mistake. Move in together. Spend the next month moving things from your old apartment to your new apartment.
Stop for gas. Lift the switch under the driver’s seat to open the gas tank. Unscrew the gas cap. Insert the credit card with your deadname still on it into the machine. Tap the button for regular unleaded. Lift the pump and place it firmly in the tank. Squeeze. Grimace at the price. Screw the gas cap back on. Look at the pump, then your car, then the big pink evening sky that is so much bigger than any sky you’ve ever known.
Decide you should use the restroom. Enter the first stall. Shut the door. Pull a black permanent marker out of your coat pocket. Uncap the marker.
You may, in big, blocked lettering, ask yourself:
“How did I get here?”
-Violet Robak
Violet Robak's work focuses on the lived experiences of transgender women and other LGBTQIA+ identities. Her particular fixations include the inherent loneliness of being queer in a cisgender and hetero-normative world; as well as how the trans experience both relates and varies across different cultures and regions. She has previously resided in New York City and Tokyo, where she studied studio art and Japanese language respectively. She has since, somehow, settled into life in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, where she continues to write and search for a vague sense of meaning.