Downtown Ronnie Califano waited 30 hours on a Brooklyn gasoline line — and got no gas.  The marathon started last Friday when Califano’s daughter told him a Gulf attendant on Bath Ave. and Bay Parkway said a gas truck was coming at 8 p.m. Saturday.  “I figure I got the inside scoop so I got on line at 2 p.m. Saturday,” Califano said. “Figured I could make some calls for my doo-wop oldies Christmas show fund-raiser starring Jay Black at St. Athanasius Church on Dec 1. It’s sold-out, but still a million details for catering, security, parking, VIP seating. I set up my office for a few hours in my car on the gas line.”  By 4:30 p.m. Califano, 60, said he knew which guys on line had prostate problems because they started scrambling for places to relieve themselves. “The Gulf station has a Dunkin’ Donuts and people sipped coffees. But the bathroom was locked, natch. So guys started looking for bushes, trees, big trucks to hide behind.”  By 6:30, temperatures plunged and car heaters whirred. “That burns precious gas,” said Califano. “But everybody figures the magic Gulf truck will soon be here.”  By 8 p.m. still no gas truck. “But a Shell truck makes a delivery across the street where there’s another line, which gives me hope,” Califano said.  People turned off their engines, got out of their cars and formed cliques. The Town Car livery drivers talked shop. The truckers compared notes. “Neighborhood guys like me yakked about the old days in 1978 when Bensonhurst was all Italian and the owner of every station was a third cousin who filled your tank. Now gas stations are minisupermarkets with 800 area-code numbers they answer on another continent and nobody knows from nobody no more.”  The gas line became an eight-block long small town that took on a life of its own. “I’m in six hours when I see a guy storm to the passenger window of the car two cars in front of me,” Califano said. “He reaches in, smacking the woman passenger, trying to drag her out the window. I’m ready to grab him, but he’s screaming at the driver to mind his business, that she’s his wife! The driver spins the wheel and burns rubber outta there with the wife half-hanging outta the window and her husband chasing after the car down Bath Ave. I gain one car length in six hours.”  Just after 9 p.m. the first profiteers arrive, selling empty gas cans. “I ask, ‘How much,’ ” Califano said. “Guy says, ‘$35.’ I ask if he Simonizes my car for that, too. But people bought ’em right up. Now other guys come selling gas in 5-gallon Poland Spring water-cooler bottles for $60 — $12 a gallon — off the back of a truck with cardboard Jersey plates. I woulda paid $60 a gallon if I knew it was real gas but I have no idea if it’s gas, Log Cabin syrup or Vitalis in there. People bought it all.”
Man who thought he had the inside scoop got in a Brooklyn gas line six hours ahead of a phantom 8 p.m. delivery, but it did not come. So, he waited and waited and waited some more. Conversations abounded, bladders gave out, car heaters whirred from overwork and a heated altercation ensued. And still no gas.