Mairéad Byrne
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.
