IN BURGERKING

But I was there. I ate my burger at that table by the window where a
woman now applies her lipstick as her solid husband stares. He has no
choice. The chairs aren't bolted to the floor but his neck, I guess, is
stiff. How many men in Burgerking look around, I mean, really look around?

Aren't these internal windows strange? You get so used to thinking
windows open on the air or sky, some neighborhood. But here in
Burgerking, there's just the mall and not too much of that, just what
clear patches advertisements leave on glass for eyes to peep through.
Just like the buses. You have to hunch or twist to see outside.

It struck me earlier today that this is just as close to home as I get
these days. Don't get me wrong. I could see through windows plain
enough when I was there but still, I never felt like I belonged. This
suits me fine.

Hunger stopped me in my tracks. I wouldn't otherwise eat lunch in
Burgerking. I don't like burgers much, don't like them much at all.
There's something very disgusting about them really. Today I sniffed
mine and, you know, it didn't smell like food. Like matting underneath a
carpet or damp wood or something not quite clean, but not food. Someone
surely will remember me.

The woman nearest me said things like that was before I got married. And
had me, her son chimed in. And her friend, not a close friend I would
say, just built an atmosphere for talk but hardly said a word except and
swallow your tongue when the married woman said she was my best friend
all through grade school, she had epilepsy you know. And to her son,
it's an illness, you fall down, you froth at the mouth. And swallow your
tongue.

When they had gone I saw that their tab was $8 and then some. The cost
of a fast lunch for a small family. I shouldn't feel so bad. Their
number was 24; mine was 43. Almost the number of the house I grew up
in. Almost the age I am going to be.

There was a child in brown boots and blue jeans who peeped in the window
under the signs and I smiled. She was about five, with curling brown
hair, but shy. Then she peeped in again. This time she had sneakers.
Why aren't you at school, little girl, I was thinking, but I smiled,
igniting the ghost of a smile on her lips as she melted away. When she
peeped in next time, it was brown boots again. Then a whole flock of
children was herded in by a man not quite right for a grandfather or
case-worker. I saw my mistake: Triplets!

There was a boy too, or a man, a small man, a large boy, with a very loud
voice, and one hundred percent dedication to the job. Burgerking did
well out of him. There was a woman with a pointed face and a haircut
like a hedge. There was a very handsome man who could have been
rehearsing a scene from a movie. There was a bulging man in work clothes
whose eyes had disappeared into his head. I was the woman with collar
turned up who looked like a Polish laborer or somebody on parole for a
nonviolent crime. Shedding grey hairs on my navy blue jacket. Sitting
over there.