Burger

It's hard to mess up a burger. Heinz, whoever he was, did most of the work. When I saw this diner listed as the only food option off the exit, I found it low risk. I sat nestled in a faded yellow booth with no cushioning, grateful it was different from my driver's seat. There were those big exits that rolled by periodically, always with a Cracker Barrel. I'm not a chain man, unless we're talking smokes, so I thought I'd hold out for something unfamiliar, support a local business. I questioned my choice and the mimicry of a burger in my hand. Impressions from my fingers balled the bun into a fist ready to wreck havoc on my teeth. The patty resembled a kid's drawing of Australia but was probably as dry as the real deal. I squeezed at it, curious if the meat had any tenderness.

Ketchup oozed out, dribbled across my pinky towards the only flannel I'd packed. My tongue caught it before it could reach the hem, savoring the familiar taste that gave me the confidence to try for a bite. I went for it, teeth landing in the middle. If I could get this chunk down, it'd stop the gnaw in my stomach.

The young cook leaned over the counter, his eyes cut slivers, skin a curtain he had to peer through. In my experience, when people lock eyes, especially strangers in a public space, there's a sense of awkwardness and the immediate desire to look away, or at smile reassuringly to let them know you didn't mean any judgement. Not this guy, he kept drilled forward. He was the headlights and the deer. Lifeless, thoughtless beams, just piercing at me.

Retracting my teeth was mechanical, like I was reeling them back in, while my tongue flopped like a fish ready for release. Gravel might've been the burger's secret ingredient based on its texture. My throat expanded as I swallowed, and the concrete mix wedged its way down. A little dramatically, I thought of the story of that poor, lone spelunker that got stuck into that cave's gap and died at that moment. When the coalesced mush rock-skipped in my stomach, I felt relief and the immediate urge to relieve myself. I couldn't get up, not yet—not after one bite. That would've been a bad look to the cook, who still hadn't stopped looking at me.

Another bite. It felt like a dozen. If things were supposed to get easier as you went on, this didn't apply. The burger—if I could even call it that—inflated my cheeks as I tried to keep it off my tongue. My head nodded at the cook with performative satisfaction, and I gave a crooked thumbs up, like a fearful hitchhiker.

His expression changed, and I sensed I'd walked into a trap I didn't know had been set. His eyebrows dipped, squinting further, providing a stark contrast to the smile on his lips. His raised a finger back at me, his middle, before turning back to the kitchen, where shortly after, the sound of heavy rock paired with the unmistakable skunkish aroma of my teenage years.

My urge to get the hell out of there had morphed. I found myself at the order station, palms against the countertop, trying to overpower the cook's radio. "Hey! What's your problem? I tipped, rather generously. Hey—" I walked a couple paces further down the counter, where I could peer around the wall to the kitchen. His shadow draped across the floor, bunched up and rocking, almost fetal.

"Are you okay?" Concern brought my voice down. There was no way he'd heard me. I walked around the counter, lifting a hinged slab to enter the back. Dried soda coated the floor in a thin layer by the machine, making my shoes suction to the terracotta-color tile. A fallen to-go box ruptured beneath my boot and made the burger feel like it was coming up. The cook—it felt weird to identify him by vocation—he was just a kid, really, a kid not moving a muscle, at least not any new ones. The shadow still rocked. A protruding foot spasmed, trying to be in-time with the music.

He could be seizing—I needed to get a grip. I crossed into the kitchen, peered past the corner to watch the kid jump of out of his skin. He lurched a second time from his blunt falling into his lap.

"Why're you still here?" His voice contended the music as he stood up to inspect himself, digging a pinky through the new hole in his apron.

"I thought you might be hurt." I was turning away, done with this forgotten diner that wouldn't make it another year.

"All you travelers, man—I don't know why you don't go down to 187. There's a McDonald's there."

Over the kids head, I noticed a framed photograph—black and white, man with his hands on his hips outside the diner. The interstate loomed over top of it now—in the photograph, the bridge and its weeping graffiti were absent. Just a smile painted on the guys face, like this place was his ounce of immortality.

I pointed to the frame. "You know him?"

"Nope."

"Not the owner?"

"Not the current," He sucked a drag from his blunt.

"Okay, so you know him a little bit—"

He shrugged, blowing smoke in my face, "I thought you meant personally."

My hands cupped my hips hard enough to feel bone, not unlike the photograph, but admittedly, more defeated.

"Hey, can I bum that for ya second?" I ripped the roach from his hand before he could answer. Took a drag without inhaling because one, I didn't want to be stoned for the rest of the drive, and two, I didn't want this kid to see me cough. I blew the smoke straight towards the detector. Its incessant chime overpowered the interstate's traffic overhead, and I could hear it still even after I'd shut my car door. Only the sound of incoming sirens made it fade.

I hoped if the former owner got a laugh out of this at the very least or that the kid got a scare. Maybe he'd go on ruining business to collect his hourly while getting high, I don't know. While I sat at McDonald's off 187, I wrote an online review for the shabby place—"Most memorable burger I've ever had," just to churn waters I wouldn't be there to swim in.