Issue 19

Daniel Uncapher

Shellhead went back to the counter. They’d put pickles on his burger again and he’d really specifically told them not to do that. Why did they always mess up his food like that? They obviously didn’t really like him. He didn’t like them back. He stood right in the middle of the line of customers and waited. Every few moments he’d yell in a deliberately annoying monotone, I want my food, I want my food, I want my food.

Beaky was frustrated too. She came back from the bathroom and started yelling in a similar monotone, this time directed at Shellhead. She was on the verge of tears, if she hadn’t been crying already. I want to go home now, she said. Let’s just go home. Why are you doing this? Please, she said. Please can we go?

Shellhead said nothing to her. He didn’t even acknowledge her. He didn’t have to do anything at all for Beaky to slowly work herself into a real torrent of emotion. He just stared at the workers in the kitchen through the microwaves and maintained a perfectly level face. If anything, he was smiling a little. He was perverse. He was in nervous shutdown. There was no other way to respond to the abuse he was receiving and dishing in simultaneous fashion. The black girls in the kitchen openly talked shit about him, how obnoxious he was, how annoying, how they wished he didn’t work there.

There was a palpable mystery in the restaurant. Why was it taking so long to correct Shellhead’s order? And why was Beaky so anxious to leave? She needed to go, she said. I want to go now. I’m hungry and I want to go home, she said. Her voice got higher. She started basically screeching like a tropical bird. I want to go now, she said. Please, I want to go.

Shellhead remained stoic as ever. It’s difficult always being the uglier person in the room. It’s even harder to be poor. It’s hard to work at a place like Burger King, especially when you don’t really get along with your coworkers. Work is shit. Wage labor is exploitation, everyone knows that, so it’s no wonder that Shellhead takes a stand now and then. The alternative in his case is to give in to the humiliation, and then he would die.

I. Want. My. Food! Give. Me. My. Food!

He kind of said it like a dinosaur, out wailing Beaky’s shrieking until they learned to alternate in the space between each other’s words. I. I. Want. Want. My. To. Food. Go. Now. Home!!!

Whenever a customer came in one of the girls came up from the back and took their order, saying nothing about the angry chanting going on directly adjacent to the register. No one addressed Shellhead at all, and Shellhead not once addressed Beaky.

After ten more minutes they brought out a big sack of food and dropped it in front of Shellhead. Now get out of here already!

Shellhead’s head bobbed a bit like a turtle’s as he picked up his food. He raised two sideways fingers at her. Sit down, he said, making sure the whole restaurant could hear him. Be humble.

It was something of a victory for Shellhead.

They got into their red 2001 Ford Ranger in the parking lot. Shellhead kept the bag in his lap. He slipped a CD out of the visor and put it in the stereo. It was the smash album by Kendrick Lamar. He turned it to the hit single HUMBLE., drove into the adjacent Walmart parking lot, parked the car next to a cart corral and ate his fill of fresh meat, and Beaky turned her face to the window and cried.