March 7th, 2020 at 8:56 AM
McDonalds
3971 Fredericksburg Rd, San Antonio, TX 78201
When I walk into a McDonald’s and order, my surprise that I
would patronize this chain overwhelms me. The house sells beef, beef and more
beef. Moreover, the fries use the Burbank russet potato. The potatoes must be
perfect so that the fries look perfect and long. Hence, the growing of the
Burbank russet requires plenty of herbicides and pesticides. It’s hardly a
sustainable French Fry. But give me a cheap senior coffee and all is pretty
much forgiven. I have even forgiven the covered-up plugs. I cannot write for
more than an hour because my laptop battery has almost run out.
I mean, you’ll give me a free refill but nothing to do after
my laptop goes dead.
I worked at a McDonald’s briefly and the house put me on the
grill. Looking back now, I wish I had learned to manage that job. I would have
become so much more efficient in all my work. I had to run the grill, toast the
buns and a few more tasks. At that time, the timing seemed impossible to me.
Burgers came back, slightly raw.
The uniform made of polyester, slacks and tunic, had a lime fluorescence
that cannot be wiped from my mind. One night, I walked into my room at the
Sigma Nu house, dressed in uniform. My brothers were drinking beer and couldn’t
believe their eyes when I sat down in my chair. I smelled of grease and
beef. Before I was chased out to shower,
Mark promised to get me a job at the Kellogg Center kitchen. The next week, I
started as a dish dog and grew to like it.
I worked the job for a full year. We played baseball
together at the ball field by the Spartan statue, near a bend in the Grand
River. I smiled like a loon. I smiled so much I was teased for it. We supported
the Red Cedar Restaurant and all the banquet rooms, and all the excess food was
put in a warmer for our meals.
I ate steak tartar and chicken cordon bleu and beautiful
desserts and never felt hungry. Thankfully, I was cycling like a fool all over
the immense grounds of Michigan State and I never gained weight. All manner of
students found jobs with us, and many were foreign students, like Mai from
China. We threw parties in the evening and I never lacked a place to go for
company.
I could always go drink with Phil McAndrews at Beggar’s
Banquet, a painter who started in the dish room years ago and never quite left.
Phil taught me about abstract painting by talking gibberish to me. “See my
fingers. See my fingers converging. See. Everything must converge. It is all
converging now”. He drank on a tab at Beggar’s. Once a year, he put up an
exhibit of paintings along a bar wall and paid off his bills with the sales and
a few paintings. I still remember viewing the series and sitting with an
Amaretto Disaronno straight up and talking about them with him. Straight up. On
him. He listened as I talked and didn’t inject.
My skills in the kitchen came in handy because I was often
called in to do food preparation or work the salad line during the rush. I got
to know the waitresses and began to go out with them, not dates really. Just
hanging out. The waitresses preferred to date the chefs and the cooking staff,
or so it seemed.
I just looked up Julie C, who has succeeded amazingly well
on Broadway. She produced a play in Erickson Kiva, leveraging a special fund
from the university that no one knew about but her. She even found funding to
buy us hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at Small Planet, Small Planet in the small,
intimate location.
Thankfully, LinkedIn has allowed me to look her up and write
a personal message, which she may or may not read. Hi Julie, in a universe far,
far away, a playwright lived above a tobacco shop and wrote a line for a play,
"fools swim on the surface". We gathered after the play at Small
Planet and contemplated what that meant. I've puzzled with the line for years.
I'll get back to you when I know.
None of this was what I intended to write when I sat down
with my senior coffee at a table at McDonalds on the Fred, short for
Fredericksburg Road. I loved Friday at school. The students had a water balloon
toss on the football field, and I was tapped to help run the concession stand.
I almost blurted out, “But this isn’t in my job description” when I pulled a
huge chest of ice out to the stand. I am glad I just kept pulling and kept my
mouth shut. Because selling cold pickles, icy pop and walking tacos became a
magical event I didn’t understand how happened to me.
My students came up to me after five days working together.
They jived with me. They teased me. They called me, “El Jefe Grande”, which is
how I introduced myself. The boys came up in twos, and one pulled out a twenty
and bought it for his companion. I never had a twenty in middle school. One boy
came up with one of the girls and bought a round of soda and a flaming Takis
with cheese to share. Only a young teenager's body could handle that injection
of salt and fat, but it was charming to see the two walk off together with
their snack. I was given a crew of boys and I had them cleaning up the stand
and putting away the unsold merch fast. I told them how what to do and it got
done. I paid them wages of a cold soda and a bag of chips and they were happy
to have it.
For some reason, after the field day on Friday, I understand
what people around me are saying in Spanish?
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