News has traveled fast that in these tough times, the town has been able to parlay the clout of its most influential citizens into tangible advantages—most significantly, a daily visit from a tanker containing gasoline. The Route Six thoroughfare leading into Marietta is clogged for miles as motorists, desperate to obtain a tank of this liquid gold, line up at the local station—all willing to pay from seventy to ninety dollars a gallon, depending on the day in question. “We’re out of gas by ten in the morning,” says Pete Patterson, the station’s owner. “Folks come with ten-, even twenty-gallon containers. I don’t allow them to fill up with extra gas, though. I only permit each driver to fill his or her tank.” “That’s so unfair,” complained Alice Tucker of Sage Valley. “My tank is smaller than the tanks of some of these gas guzzlers. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to buy as much gasoline as they do?” When asked about the source of this gasoline tanker, Patterson revealed that Shell has released some of its emergency oil reserves to key distributors.
