American Gods by Neil Gaiman

for the moment. We’ll stop at the next gas station and get you some breakfast. You’ll need to clean yourself up, too. You look like something the goat dragged in.”
    â€œCat dragged in,” said Shadow.
    â€œGoat,” said Wednesday. “Huge rank stinking goat with big teeth.”
    Shadow unscrewed the top of the water and drank. Something clinked heavily in his jacket pocket. He put his hand into the pocket and pulled out a coin the size of a half-dollar. It was heavy, and a deep yellow in color.
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    In the gas station Shadow bought a Clean-U-Up Kit, which contained a razor, a packet of shaving cream, a comb, and a disposable toothbrush packed with a tiny tube of toothpaste. Then he walked into the men’s rest room and looked at himself in the mirror.
    He had a bruise under one eye—when he prodded it, experimentally, with one finger, he found it hurt deeply—and a swollen lower lip.
    Shadow washed his face with the rest room’s liquid soap, then he lathered his face and shaved. He cleaned his teeth. He wet his hair and combed it back. He still looked rough.
    He wondered what Laura would say when she saw him, and then he remembered that Laura wouldn’t say anything ever again and he saw his face, in the mirror, tremble, but only for a moment.
    He went out.
    â€œI look like shit,” said Shadow.
    â€œOf course you do,” agreed Wednesday.
    Wednesday took an assortment of snack food up to the cash register and paid for that and their gas, changing his mind twice about whether he was doing it with plastic or with cash, to the irritation of the gum-chewing young lady behind the till. Shadow watched as Wednesday became increasingly flustered and apologetic. He seemed very old, suddenly. The girl gave him his cash back, and put the purchase on the card, and then gave him the card receipt and took his cash, then returned the cash and took a different card. Wednesday was obviously on the verge of tears, an old man made helpless by the implacable plastic march of the modern world.
    They walked out of the warm gas station, and their breath steamed in the air.
    On the road once more: browning grass meadows slipped past on each side of them. The trees were leafless and dead. Two black birds stared at them from a telegraph wire.
    â€œHey, Wednesday.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe way I saw it in there, you never paid for the gas.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œThe way I saw it, she wound up paying you for the privilege of having you in her gas station. You think she’s figured it out yet?”
    â€œShe never will.”
    â€œSo what are you? A two-bit con artist?”
    Wednesday nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I am. Among other things.”
    He swung out into the left lane to pass a truck. The sky was a bleak and uniform gray.
    â€œIt’s going to snow,” said Shadow.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSweeney. Did he actually show me how he did that trick with the gold coins?”
    â€œOh, yes.”
    â€œI can’t remember.”
    â€œIt’ll come back. It was a long night.”
    Several small snowflakes brushed the windshield, melting in seconds.
    â€œYour wife’s body is on display at Wendell’s Funeral Parlor at present,” said Wednesday. “Then after lunch they will take her from there to the graveyard for the interment.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI called ahead while you were in the john. You know where Wendell’s Funeral Parlor is?”
    Shadow nodded. The snowflakes whirled and dizzied in front of them.
    â€œThis is our exit,” said Shadow. The car stole off the interstate and past the cluster of motels to the north of Eagle Point.
    Three years had passed. Yes. There were more stoplights, unfamiliar storefronts. Shadow asked Wednesday to slow as they drove past the Muscle Farm. CLOSED INDEFINITELY , said the hand-lettered sign on the door, DUE TO BEREAVEMENT .
    Left on Main