Speedway

Speedway is a gas station chain in Indianapolis, Indiana, that becomes the site of one of the most harrowing and intimate moments in Hazel Grace Lancaster's story. It is at the Speedway at 86th and Ditch that Augustus Waters, in the depths of his cancer recurrence, calls Hazel for help after a G-tube malfunction leaves him stranded and vomiting in his car, revealing the raw, unglamorous reality of his decline.

Location and Context

The Speedway at 86th and Ditch is a standard gas station in Indianapolis, a place of mundane commerce that is utterly transformed by the events that unfold there. It is a location that Hazel knows, as she drives there in the middle of the night after receiving a desperate call from Augustus. The station's parking lot, with only two cars present, becomes a stage for a private crisis, far from the hospital rooms and support groups that have defined their shared experience of illness.

The Night of the G-Tube Crisis

In the early hours of the morning, at 2:35 A.M., Hazel receives a call from Augustus, who is at the Speedway. He is covered in his own vomit, his hands pressed to his belly where the G-tube enters, and the skin around it is warm and bright red, indicating an infection. He had left his house in the middle of the night to buy a pack of cigarettes, a small act of independence that went catastrophically wrong. He pleads with Hazel not to call 911 or his parents, begging her to come and fix the tube herself. When Hazel arrives, she finds him in a state of utter humiliation and despair, a far cry from the charismatic boy who once spoke of metaphors and heroism. He admits, "I wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. I lost my pack. Or they took it away from me. I don't know. They said they'd get me another one, but I wanted... to do it myself. Do one little thing myself." This moment strips away all pretense, revealing a boy who is not a noble warrior but a desperate, frightened human being.

Consequences and Aftermath

Hazel, overriding his pleas, calls 911, telling the operator, "The great love of my life has a malfunctioning G-tube." As they wait for the ambulance, which initially drives past them, Augustus breaks down completely, screaming and crying, saying, "I hate myself I hate myself I hate this I hate this I disgust myself I hate it I hate it I hate it just let me fucking die." Hazel recites a poem to him, "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, and then improvises her own lines, to which he weakly responds, "And you say you don't write poetry." This scene at the Speedway marks the definitive end of Augustus's ability to maintain his heroic self-image. It is the moment when the metaphor of the unlit cigarette—the killing thing held between the teeth but not given the power to kill—fails, and the raw, unmediated pain of his condition takes over. The Speedway, a place of ordinary errands, becomes the site of his most profound vulnerability, a stark contrast to the romanticized battles he once imagined. After this, he is hospitalized and returns home permanently robbed of his ambitions, his decline accelerating toward his death eight days later.