Pump Screen on South Lamar Just Asked If I Wanted to 'Subscribe to Fuel'

The screen blinked at me like a slot machine that already knew it had won. "Subscribe to Fuel and save 8 cents per gallon," it suggested, right after charging me $5.79 a gallon for regular. I was holding two crumpled fives and a handful of ones, same as I have since the Clinton administration, but the machine wasn't interested in my cash. It wanted my phone number, my zip code, and apparently my feelings about oat milk.

This corner used to be the Texaco with the crooked sign that read "Coldest Beer in Town" even though the beer cooler only went down to about 38 degrees. You'd pull in after last call at the Hole in the Wall or the Continental, windows down, Steve Earle leaking from the tape deck, and the night guy—Ramon, who wore the same blue jacket for fifteen years—would nod at you without saying much. Three dollars got you a full tank if your car was small enough, a pack of Camels, and one of those terrible pre-wrapped honey buns that somehow tasted perfect at 2 a.m.

Now the place calls itself a "mobility center." The old service bays where they used to fix flats for $12 are gone. In their place: eight Tesla chargers guarded by an app that demands you create an account just to stand near them. The remaining two gas pumps sit off to the side like embarrassed relatives at a fancy wedding. One of them has a handwritten note taped over the card reader: "Cash inside only." The note is already sun-faded. Nobody goes inside anymore.

I went inside anyway.

The clerk was maybe twenty-four, wearing a company polo with a headset, eyes glazed in that specific way that says I'm timing how long this interaction takes for my metrics. In 2008 the woman who worked the night shift was named Lupe. She kept a Polaroid of her kids taped to the register and would let you run a tab if you were a regular and your truck broke down on Riverside. She'd heat up a burrito in the microwave and slide it across the counter without being asked if you looked like you'd had a rough one. Cost you $2.75. Tasted like salvation.

The new store smells like nothing. Not gasoline, not burnt coffee, not the particular musk of a thousand cigarette breaks out by the ice machine. It smells like corporate HVAC and the faint chemical ghost of those little trees they hang in rental cars. The magazine rack that used to hold Texas Monthly next to Hustler is now a wall of "functional beverages" in gray cans. $4.50 each. The coffee station offers pour-over for $3.25 and a QR code that promises to tell you the origin story of the beans. I just wanted the stuff that tasted like transmission fluid and regret. That option appears to have been discontinued.

They kept the lottery machine, though. Progress has its limits.

I asked the kid if they still sold those little bottles of 10W-30 motor oil that used to live by the door. He stared at me like I'd requested a rotary phone. "We have synthetic blends starting at $11.99," he said. Eleven ninety-nine. For the bottle that used to be $2.79 and came with a paper funnel you immediately lost in the trunk.

Outside, a guy in performance fleece was yelling into his AirPods while his Rivian charged. "No, tell the team we're still iterating on the brisket experience," he said. I almost laughed but the sound got caught somewhere between memory and rage. Same parking spot where I once watched a man in a cowboy hat eat cold pizza off the hood of his El Camino while lecturing me about proper barbecue technique. That guy didn't iterate. He just knew things.

The parking lot itself tells the whole story. Used to be gravel and oil stains and people actually talking to each other while they filled up. You'd get weather reports, gig recommendations, and the occasional unsolicited but usually correct advice about your transmission. Now it's all painted arrows and designated "charging zones" and signs threatening towing if you linger longer than twelve minutes. Twelve minutes. The old timers would sometimes leave their trucks running while they walked across the street to the bakery for kolaches. Took twenty. Nobody cared.

Three dollars doesn't do anything here anymore. It doesn't buy gas. It doesn't buy a soda. It barely covers the air for your tires, and even that comes with a two-minute video about tire pressure awareness. I remember when the air hose was free, the water hose was free, and if you bought a sixer of Lone Star for $4.50 Ramon would throw in a bag of peanuts "for the road."

The peanuts are now "curated trail mix" for $6.29. The bag is smaller. The peanuts look sad.

They put up one of those digital price signs last year. It changes every four minutes like it's trading on the stock exchange. $5.49. $5.59. $5.69. The old plastic letters that spelled out the prices took actual human effort to change. You'd see the manager out there on a ladder twice a week cursing at the letter E that never wanted to stay in its slot. There was theater to it. Now the numbers just float up like they're ashamed of what they're asking.

I finally paid inside because the pump wouldn't take my card. The kid scanned my two items—a bottle of water and a pack of gum—and the total came to $8.47. I handed him a ten. He looked at the bill like it was a rare artifact.

"Cash," he said, almost impressed.

"Yeah," I told him. "They used to let us use it everywhere."

He gave me my $1.53 change and for a second I saw something flicker across his face. Maybe recognition. Maybe just exhaustion. Then the headset beeped and he was back in the matrix, asking the next customer if they'd like to round up their purchase to support electric school buses.

I sat in my truck for a minute with the windows down, same spot where I once waited out a thunderstorm in '09 listening to KGSR on a radio that only got half the stations. The rain smelled better then. Or maybe I was younger. Either way, the new building across the street—another block of "luxury flats" starting at $2,400 for 550 square feet—had those awful blue LED lights in the hallways that make the whole place look like an aquarium for sad professionals.

Ramon would have hated it. Lupe would have laughed once, sharp, then gone back to stocking the beer cooler with actual beer instead of whatever "hard seltzer" is supposed to be.

The pump screen outside was still blinking its subscription offer. I started the truck, the old V8 rumbling like it was personally offended by the electric cars around it, and pulled out onto South Lamar. In the rearview the mobility center glowed sterile and bright, a spaceship where a campfire used to be.

At least the honey buns are still terrible. They just cost six bucks now and come in compostable packaging that somehow makes them taste worse.

Progress.

I miss the version that didn't need an app to sell me a Coke.