AUBURN - On West Genesee Street in Auburn a gas station is out of business. The building looks like a blank sheet of paper, the price on the sign stationary at $2.51 per gallon.

But Handy's Bait & Tackle is still open. No sense in quoting the gas price there - it's surely going to change. Which is why independent owner Mike Ballard is struggling to keep the place going.

It's a guessing game: to know what his next load of gasoline is going to cost him, then what price his competitor across the street will have on his sign on any given day and how long it's going to take to catch up on the gasoline load two deliveries back he lost money on.

Confusing? You bet.

“I just try and listen to the news like anybody else. Sometimes you can feel it - it goes up faster than you can catch up with it,” said Ballard, who just recently took his third day off in almost as many years. “You've got to be competitive in this market. For a penny they're going to go somewhere else.”

Indeed, pennies per gallon, on a good day, said Ballard, is what he makes. That means, if the price of his next delivery exceeds the profit margin of his last, he's in trouble.

“It's usually, ‘the wholesale price is going up.' People will come in and say, ‘You're still selling what's in the ground, why're you raising your price?' But if the price goes up 5 cents, I've got to order gas and it's still got to be paid for. How do I make up that 4 cents? I may have to sell 2,000 of those gallons at a price less than I paid for it, if my competitor's price doesn't go up. Last month there was actually two loads I was losing money on: I was selling at or above cost,” he said.

That's where corporate owned stations have the advantage over independents, he explained. While he has to order a minimum amount of gallons, he also can not exceed a certain amount. Since his tank holds 10,000 gallons, allowing for expansion, he can only fill to 9,000. So catching the right price at an advantageous time is up to chance.

“Big business can order a truck, put 2,000 gallons here at this station, 4,000 over there, until it's gone. I have to wait until I need it. Some of that big business also has its own refineries. I have to pay a middleman. That middleman is making money too,” he said. “It's not easy to make a living selling gas. It's similar to your mom and pop stores; how long can you compete with Wal-Mart or Wegmans?

That, and other reasons, allow for why Handy's may some day end up like that station down the road. For Ballard, who said growing up he always wanted to have a business of his own, it can be a nerve-wracking possibility.

“I get along with me. I've always been on my own,” he said.

“It was during the '70s that he first got involved with service stations. Gasoline was measured in cents per gallon in those days, if memory serves: that's two numbers with the decimal point at the beginning. He got re-involved in the '80s and again in 2000 - including managerially and, just prior to purchasing Handy's in September of 2003, subletting the grocery space of a station in Buffalo, where he's from. Once he sensed a new owner was going to take that interest away, he pulled out.

Now, in a sense, he's back to where he was, as the majority of his profits are made inside, not out at the pumps.

“Credit card fees are outrageous. In general, credit card companies and banks charge a percentage, and/or transaction fee. There are times I'm accepting a credit card and losing money. Let's just say gas is $3 a gallon. If there's a 2 cent transaction fee, and 2 percent of the dollar amount: right there I've paid 6 cents - I've lost 8 cents. If I'm lucky, I make 5 cents off a gallon of gas. People would rather use their credit card and/or their bank card than cash. Soon as that (gas) price started skyrocketing: if I make 6 cents, next time 5 cents, then 4 cents -- you try and recoup if they go up and down,” he paused to pick up a Slim Jim from a display on the counter, “trying to make money, I'd just as soon sell you one of those Slim Jims. I can make a nickel off a quarter, instead of off of $3 of gas. You've got to make your money somewhere. That money for credit card fees, that's $500 to $700 a month. That's another employee, more time with my family.”

Another tether, attempting to pull profit from the connection to gasoline, is the seasonal fishing bait Ballard offers. That includes a variety of minnows, worms and grubs. Success depends upon the weather. This past warm winter meant not much ice, which meant not much ice fishing. However, even with the sky getting dark to storm, this day is good.

Best guess, Ballard figures 70 to 80 percent of his clientele is comprised of regulars, people who stop by regularly. A lot of visiting goes on, be it about fishing, the numbers of the lottery, how so and so is doing. There is a lot of give and take and that includes sympathy.

“I feel sorry for a lot of these people. The ones that work for minimum wage. They have no choice but to put gas in their cars, they need their cars to get to work,” he said. “Very seldom do I catch hell about the prices. I have a number of customers I see four, five times a week, because they can only put in what they've got: $5, $10 at a time.”

Walking a familiar customer back to the bait cooler, he said, “Everybody's catching perch, I can tell you that much - nobody's complaining about the perch.”

Halfway out the door with his minnows, the customer called back, “See you later, my friend.”