piercing black eyes.
She fixed them on me and said, “What want?”
Some kind of accent, Russian, Turkish, Croatian, I had absolutely no idea. “The special,” I said, looking around, wondering where Paul might be. “The cheeseburger special.” There were people sitting on swivel chairs bolted to the floors, eating burgers, dipping fries into tiny containers of ketchup, off chipped Formica tables.
“Here or go away?” she said, her words clipped as if each one were chopped off at the end with a butcher’s knife. For a moment, I thought she was asking me to leave.
“Uh, to go,” I said. I thought the ambiance at home might be better, although the way things were these days, probably not by much.
I handed her a ten. She dug her short, thick fingers with chipped nails into the cash register tray and handed me my change.
“Thanks,” I said with my usual charm. She didn’t even look at me.
Next to the register the counter was raised up, and it was like a salad bar in reverse. Before me, behind glass, were the toppings. Pickles, onions, relish, tomato, hot peppers. Two identical-looking women-these had to be the twins Paul had mentioned-were working shoulder to shoulder. They were younger, but not necessarily more attractive, versions of the woman who’d taken my money. Large, soft, and doughy looking, with arms like hams. They both had their blonde hair streaked with black, pulled back and tied into short ponytails.
They were being handed burgers fresh off the grill, asking customers how they wanted them garnished. That’s when I spotted Paul, standing at the grill, flipping burgers, living his life’s dream.
“Hey,” I said.
He didn’t hear me the first time, so focused was he on his job. He had a huge apron, which years ago might have been white, tied around his waist, a white cap pulled down over his hair.
“Hey!” I said, again, and Paul looked over, and his eyes went wide and his mouth opened.
“Dad?”
I just smiled and waved. He was working, and I didn’t want to interrupt him. I just wanted him to know that I was there.
He didn’t look at all happy to see me. But that’s the way it is with kids. They’re always embarrassed when their parents show up. Make an appearance at their place of employment, and they want the ground to open up and swallow them whole. I thought it was too bad I hadn’t worn something stupid, maybe a ball cap on backwards, to make Paul’s humiliation complete.
One of the twins had grabbed a cheese-covered patty off the grill and slipped it into a bun. “Whatcha want on it?” she asked me.
I started pointing to toppings. “Hold the onion,” I said.
“Peppers?”
“Sure, a couple.”
I watched her pile everything on, then put the burger, with some fries, into a takeout Styrofoam container.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” Paul was standing next to me, up very close.
“Jeez, hi,” I said. I looked to see who was on the grill. Another kid about Paul’s age had filled in for him. “So how’s it going?”
“Why are you here?” he asked again.
“I’m getting some dinner, okay? Is that a problem?”
“Dad, you can’t eat here.”
I shook my head. “What, did I embarrass you? All I said was ‘Hey.’ If they had a drive-through window, I’d do that, you wouldn’t even have to know I was here at all.”
“Dad, just…” He pulled me aside, away from the counter and toward the door. “Just don’t eat here.”
“What is your problem?” I said, shaking his arm off me. “I just wanted to show an interest, for Christ’s sake.”
“No, Dad, you don’t get it,” he whispered. “You can’t eat here. You can’t eat this stuff.”
I glanced down at my foam box and then back at him. “What, you’re watching my diet for me now? If I want to have fast food once in a while, I’ll have it. I had a cholesterol test six months ago and I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Paul whispered. “This place is a fucking death trap. The meat’s bad. I’ve been burning everyone’s burger all day, making sure it’s really cooked, just in case.”
“The meat’s bad? What, why?”
“You know that big thunderstorm last night? Well, the power went off here, and the freezer was off for hours, didn’t even come back on till, like, just before lunchtime, I guess, and everything had thawed out. The burgers had been at room temp for ages.”
I swallowed. “Are you serious?”
Paul looked over my shoulder. “You could get, like, cheeseburger disease from eating this. I can’t talk to you anymore. They might figure out what I’m telling you. Just don’t eat this, Dad. I don’t want you to fucking die on me.” He paused a moment. “I think the fries are okay, though. They’re actually pretty good.”
He turned to go back to his post and this time I grabbed his arm. “Wait a second. Are you telling me, all these people here, they’re eating potentially contaminated food?”
Paul shrugged. “Yeah, they are. But they’re not my dad.”
“Paul, cheeseburg-hamburger disease can kill people. It’s that E. coli virus or whatever. You can’t mess around with that. If these people are eating this stuff, they’ve got to be told. Has anyone been sick yet?”
“Some guy came in a while ago, said he got a bad burger at lunch, felt like he was gonna puke. He talked to Conan over there,” he nodded toward the woman on the register, “and she practically threw him out the door. She’s a fucking linebacker.”
I swallowed hard. My mouth was starting to feel very dry. Paul could see that I was pondering what to do.
“What?” he said. “What are you thinking?”
There was an elderly couple at one table, cutting a burger in half with a plastic knife. At the next table, a guy who looked like some sort of city worker, orange vest and jeans, hard hat on the seat next to him, chowing down on a double burger. And then, two tables over from him, a mother with two small children. She was unwrapping the foil covering on burgers for each of them.
“Kids,” I said, to myself as much as to Paul.
He looked around. “What?” he said.
“Kids can die,” I said. “They can die from hamburger disease. It can cause kidney failure.”
Paul’s eyes were getting wild with panic. “Jesus, Dad, what are you going to do?”
I was feeling pretty panicked myself. What, exactly, was I planning to do?
And then I just acted, without even thinking. I took a few steps over to the mother feeding her kids, bent down, and said to her quietly, “Don’t give them that.”
She looked at me, pulled back in surprise. “Excuse me?”
Paul, behind me, said, “Dad, what the hell are you-”
“The burgers,” I said, ignoring him. “Don’t let them eat the burgers. They had a power failure here. There might be a risk of E. coli and-”
“Oh my God,” she said, reaching across the table and grabbing the burgers out of her children’s hands.
“Mouuum!” one whimpered angrily.
The guy in the orange vest turned around, looked at me. “What did you say?”
“I just, I heard, the burgers, they may not be safe to eat,” I whispered urgently.
“Fuck,” he said.
The mother whirled around. “Do you mind?” She nodded toward her small children.
The guy in the vest turned around and tapped the older woman, the one sharing a burger with her elderly husband, and whispered something to her. He pointed at me, and when the woman caught my eye, I nodded.
“Dad,” Paul said.
“Thank you so much for telling me,” the mother said. “We come here all the time, although the kids usually want to go to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal and-”
