Eight-year-old Millie leaps out of an old two-door at the curb. It\u2019s a \u201861 Ford Falcon that once belonged to her grandfather. The day is so hot she can smell it, both acrid and sticky-sweet, of scorched asphalt and over-ripe peaches. Through the thin soles of her scrappy shoes, Millie feels the heat from the sidewalk in front of Gus\u2019s World-Famous Burgers and Fries. Well after six o\u2019clock in the evening, the whole day lingers in the air like a wilted canopy that\u2019s been soaked in a summer\u2019s worth of sizzle and steam.<\/p>\n
Shutting the car door behind her and scuttling towards the counter, Millie glances back at the Ford, at her father inside, and waves over her shoulder. A week\u2019s buildup of dust coats the hood of the Falcon while decades of rust skirt the bottom of its faded green fenders.<\/p>\n
In her elfin hand Millie clutches a crisp twenty-dollar bill. Her dad watches from the car. On that newly cashed twenty, Joe can treat his young family of five to a Friday night extravaganza: bargain cheap, super tasty, junk.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s Friday night\u2026 because Joe wears a swarthy five-day-old growth of beard\u2026 because, like the Falcon, Joe is coated with a buildup of dust and grime that the lumber mill\u2019s blowers failed to blast away at quitting time\u2026<\/p>\n
Because he\u2019s refraining from guzzling but is nursing his first, icy, Friday night beer\u2026 because the beer can, cold and slick with condensation, is resting in the crease between the front seat and its backrest where Joe longs to pull it up for a serious chug\u2026 and because he understands that his independent third-grader, soon to be in fourth grade, is eager to impress her old dad\u2026<\/p>\n
Because Millie has memorized a family-size food order to recite on her own, Joe has promised to wait and watch from the Falcon until everything is ready for pickup.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Millie approaches the counter grasping that twenty, much as an organ grinder\u2019s monkey would cling to a fake golden button stollen from an unsuspecting tourist\u2019s coat.<\/p>\n
The eight-year-old practices the order in her head: Two hot dogs (one for each of her baby brothers), two cheeseburgers loaded up with extra grilled onions (one for her dad and one for her mother), one hamburger, no pickles, no onions (for Millie), and two orders of French fries (one large bag of Gus\u2019s world-famous double-fried French fries for her dad and mom to share, a second bag of fries for Millie, her little brothers, and the dog).<\/p>\n
The counter is an inch or two higher than Millie\u2019s chin, so she stands up as tall as she can.<\/p>\n
She notices a schmear of mustard and chili dog sludge on the counter surface, an inch from her nose, and decides that she ought not to attempt to rest her chin there. Millie can smell the raw onions from the smear. With the counter probably obscuring her mouth, she wonders if the cheeseburger man will hear or understand her when she attempts to speak through it. She\u2019s going to have to enunciate.<\/p>\n
Last week she looked up the word when she came across it in one of her library books. She chose the novel from an abandoned reading list that she found on the big-kids\u2019 side of the school yard on the first day of summer, after the eighth-graders dumped out their lockers and disappeared.<\/p>\n
Millie realizes that she may have to shout her order. But she hates shouting. She cringes when people yell. Once, her dad\u2019s uncle and aunt came down from San Francisco to take everyone to see the Roller Derby at the Olympic Auditorium, downtown. So much yelling, so many smells…. Millie waits to place the order.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To Rick, the cheeseburger man, it\u2019s been extra slow for a Friday volcano-hot day. Now the evening is still molten lava. Of course, everyone seems to be getting off of work at the same time, and they\u2019re all like starving sweaty criminals who\u2019ve been bailed out of county jail. A long line is quickly forming at Gus\u2019s, backing out to the street.<\/p>\n
Rick glances down at the kid who\u2019s standing in front of the counter. He wonders which of the adults is her parent. He starts to ask a lady who nudges in next to the little girl, placing a large order. \u201cIs she yours?\u201d he tries to break in.<\/p>\n
But the lady is all wound up, not wanting to forget anything, rolling straight ahead with her order.<\/p>\n
Then, the guy coming up behind her is an asshole who always tries to cheat, saying, \u201cHey, I gave you a twenty,\u201d when Rick knows damned well it was a ten, and when the guy sure as hell knows. Rick plays out the ritual in his head, I\u2019m absolutely positive you gave me a ten because I always put the customers\u2019 money on the ledge above the open cash register drawer. Right here! Then I pull the change and count it out. Only after the deal is all done, only then do I ever put the customer\u2019s money into the drawer. That\u2019s how I was trained. And that\u2019s how I do it. Every time.<\/p>\n
But this guy is going to try again anyway, if not today, a month from today. Ass-HOLE!<\/p>\n
Rick is ringing up the petty thief and scoping out the next customers in line. And have a look at these two\u2026 \u00a0Dude is giving a monkey-bite to his girlfriend, while they\u2019re standing in line.<\/p>\n
How does a cringey guy like this get such a nice-looking woman? Rick is thinking about Meryl Streep and her devotion to the first love of her life, John Cazale. But that Johnny Cazale, he must have been very special, may he rest in peace. As for this dude here. I\u2019ve got no respect for him–because, obviously, he\u2019s got none for her.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Millie has lost track of how long she\u2019s been standing at the counter, how long she\u2019s been going over the food order in her head, wanting to remember everything–even if it is a little intimidating, standing here with all these adults, even if such a cacophony of so many cars and trucks is speeding by, even if there\u2019s a cloud of stinging exhaust from the busses and the day, and even if the heat coming off of the pavement and the walls is still so incredibly hot and sticky…<\/p>\n
Pausing on her list for a minute, Millie finally notices, she\u2019s been standing here too long. She notices the humidity and heat steaming out from the burger joint\u2019s windows, notices the workers, their hustling, sweating, and shouting inside, and Millie notices how much hotter it seems to be in there than the temperature out on the sidewalk, which may finally start to cool a bit, now that the day is nearing done. Noticing the sweet salty aromas of burgers, onions, and fries that are sizzling out onto the street, Millie inhales deeper than her throat and lungs, all the way down to her hungry belly.<\/p>\n
Another minute goes by. She notices, somewhat retroactively, other customers who\u2019ve been coming up beside her. It occurs to her that some customers seem to have placed their orders out of turn. Now, one of those customers, who definitely arrived after Millie, is leaving with bags full of pastramis, onion rings, and French fries.<\/p>\n
Millie inhales deeply again, imbibing the wafting heady aromas straight from the passing bags. She takes a baby-step away from the counter and begins to turn her shoulders, then her neck and head to glance back at her dad, who, though he promised, must by now be getting impatient, waiting in the hot car. But before Millie turns halfway around, she\u2019s surprised by Joe\u2019s hands, by the soot and splinters of two giant Rock-\u2018em, Sock-\u2018em lumbermill worker\u2019s fists, up on the counter at either side of her head.<\/p>\n
The warmth of her father\u2019s saw-dusty work shirt is rough against the back of Millie\u2019s tender tank-topped shoulder. She catches the familiar fragrances of cedar dust and pine sap while looking up at Joe\u2019s five-day-old growth of beard sticking out like pins from under the granite outcropping of his square jaw and chin.<\/p>\n
“Can I help you,” the cheeseburger man asks Joe before looking out at him. Rick is un-wrinkling a fistful of one-dollar bills and fives, slotting them into his drawer.<\/p>\n
Joe doesn\u2019t answer. He stares down at Rick with what Millie can\u2019t actually see, but soon deduces are her father\u2019s dark evil eyes. \u201cSnake eyes,\u201d she mutters. Ba-BOOM!<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I help you?\u201d Rick asks again, this time looking up at Joe, then down at Millie, who clearly belongs to him. Rick stares at the floor in front of his cash register. Shit.<\/p>\n
“Didn’t you see her standing here all this time?” says Joe. Millie can tell by her father\u2019s tone that this is a rhetorical question, and that it\u2019s going to be followed by something unpleasant. She slides away from the counter, out from between Joe\u2019s fists, looking up again, this time at her father\u2019s forceful profile and at his blue-tinged gladiator beard.<\/p>\n
Joe continues. \u201cYou took the orders of three people who came after her. How many were you going to take before you got around to her?\u201d<\/p>\n
“Well, I\u2026I didn’t see her.” Rick avoids Joe\u2019s evil eyes.<\/p>\n
“You saw her. You reached over her to take their money. You figured she probably only wanted a little ice cream or a soda, and you were going to get the big orders first.” Joe catches himself and stops talking. One-Sentence-Joe rarely goes for more than one- or two-line retorts.<\/p>\n
Friday night, make a lot of dough, rock and roll, Butthole! At home and at work, Joe likes to juxtapose silly phrases with cliches to make his kids or friends laugh. Come here, you filthy Mother-Smucker, let me introduce you to my big new Widow Maker. Then, sword-like, he pulls out from under the seat of his rusty old Falcon, a flawless, shiny, hardwood club that he made at the mill from a sixteen-inch long, 3\u201d x 3\u201d scrap of walnut.<\/p>\n
Joe fashioned it during his lunch breaks, with four sharp corners and a rounded grip, adding several coats of impenetrable lacquer, So I can crack some Mother-Smucker\u2019s head with it. The children all giggle and laugh when their dad says things like this. The boys repeat the funniest parts over and over in different cartoon voices. \u201cLet me introdoosh you\u2026Mother-Sssshmucker!\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick tries again, “I mean, I saw her, but then I didn\u2019t. Look, I\u2019m sorry. We were hustling up all these orders and”<\/p>\n
Joe cuts him off, as if to say, No. YOU look. I\u2019m hungry and I\u2019m tired–I don\u2019t have time for your excuses. But what he actually says is, “Go ahead, Millie. Tell him what you want.”<\/p>\n
Now Millie is on the spot. She squares off with the counter, re-focusing on the list in her head, reciting it for the cheeseburger man, and especially for her dad.<\/p>\n
Scribbling down the order, Rick\u2019s writing hand is shaking the way Millie\u2019s grandfather\u2019s hand sometimes tremors, when he tries to eat a greasy drumstick from the Chicken Basket. Grampa is in his late eighties and has Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
Joe stays in place, both fists on the counter. He watches while Millie pays with what would be, if it were in her mother\u2019s hand, a limp, wrinkled twenty-dollar bill. Gloria\u2019s hands get clammy when Joe glares at her or at anyone else with his ominous evil eyes. \u201cJoe, let it go,\u201d she\u2019ll say, if they\u2019re at a Christmas party and the kids are sleeping on the bed with other kids, piled up on all the coats where Millie lies on her side, watching the dancing and flirting through two open doorways. \u201cLet it go, Joe. We were only dancing. You said we could dance. He didn\u2019t mean anything by it. Come on, it\u2019s a Christmas party. Don\u2019t fight, Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick works the cash register. He fumbles with Millie\u2019s change, dropping some coins like cymbals on the counter before snagging them up and silencing the tympany. He manages to get them all into Millie\u2019s lilliputian eight-year-old palm that barely reaches above the counter. Rick\u2019s voice shakes mildly but discernibly while he counts out the change.<\/p>\n
Millie imagines cartoon cranks and gears working in the cheeseburger man\u2019s head. There are probably some distracting things spinning around up there that he\u2019d like to tell Joe, but won\u2019t. She wonders if her dad senses this too.<\/p>\n
Millie observes her father. He\u2019s all revved up, waiting, as if wanting the cheeseburger man to say something to him. \u00a0Joe\u2019s scowling brow, while he almost smiles, and piercing snake eyes are all but daring Rick to say it, the way he dares Millie\u2019s mother when neither of them wants to shoot the first flaming arrow that torches a huge blowup at home, or at the start of a long road trip with the kids. And the way Gloria dares him back, even when her sweaty hands and blouse are drenched with fright, or fight, but not flight, drenched as a cloying handful of soggy dollar bills.<\/p>\n
The cheeseburger man doesn\u2019t say anything. He glances out to the curb where Joe\u2019s old Ford Falcon is parked.<\/p>\n
The peek is quick as a slash from a warehouse box-cutter. But it\u2019s enough for Millie to intuit, when she observes her father, that now it\u2019s Joe who is grinding away at the gears in his head.<\/p>\n
Millie is fairly certain that her father is sure about this: the cheeseburger man saw or can smell how Joe was drinking a beer in the car. Go ahead, Joe might as well be shouting now, his chest puffs up like a cartoon cannon swelling, the giant barrel of it cocking back to Ba-BOOM! In fact, Joe is thinking Go ahead, Cheeseburger Man. Tell me how I shouldn\u2019t complain if I want to sit and drink a beer in my car while my kid is out here trying to order all this crappy food\u2026<\/p>\n
Millie feels a little sorry for the cheeseburger man. Joe doesn\u2019t have to say what Millie is pretty sure he\u2019s thinking. He doesn\u2019t back off from the window after Millie has successfully placed the order and paid, and not after the cheeseburger man has given her the ticket and her change. Joe stays planted.<\/p>\n
She would like to tell her dad, Dude, relax, the way she tells their black German Shepherd when the hair rises on the back of its neck and shoulders because another dog is crossing the street, over half a block away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zorro was Millie\u2019s first brother for a couple of years before the two baby boys came along, thirteen months apart. Joe found Zorro and named him before Millie was born, \u201cSo, technically,\u201d she enjoys telling her cousins, with a small arm lopped heavily over the powerful animal\u2019s thick neck, \u201cthis exceptional beast is my older brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zorro has sent several neighborhood strays away tripping over their own intestines to die at the bottom of the reservoir. Yet, he\u2019s incredibly gentle with Millie and the boys. For all his territorial viciousness when it comes to encroachers, Zorro is useless as a watchdog. He adores people, all people, pushing the force of his weight against the chain-link fence, bowing it outward while he leans with affection, begging even strangers for a scratch or a pat.<\/p>\n
One afternoon home alone with the kids, Joe watched T.V. in the living room while Gloria was out doing the grocery shopping. Through an open window, he heard the big Shepherd whimpering outside. When Joe looked out onto the porch, he saw that one of his baby boys, still in diapers, had crawled out there, and was teething on one of the exceptional beast\u2019s raw-looking ears.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Millie goes to sit by another little girl and her mother at one of Gus\u2019s picnic benches. The girl\u2019s mom is on the chubby side, and is scrolling away at her old-people\u2019s brag postings on Spacebook. The cellphone is half-hidden in her hands, as if she might be gawking at something provocative or violent that she doesn\u2019t want her daughter to glimpse.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour dad looks really mad,\u201d says the girl.<\/p>\n
The golden hour before sunset is glaring in a bright halo about the girl\u2019s head. At first, Millie doesn\u2019t recognize her from school. Then her eyes adjust to the contrast and she does. It\u2019s someone from fourth grade, a year ahead of Millie. Her name is Kati Sevilla. She\u2019s pretty and can run faster than any of the boys.<\/p>\n
The first time Millie saw her was at recess on Millie\u2019s first day in third grade. Millie and her family had newly moved to town during the summer. Out on the school grounds that first day, Kati Sevilla ran several paces ahead of all the boys. Her dark hair was a silky brown mane shimmering with auburn highlights in the sun. Not one of the boys could catch her.<\/p>\n
As the school year churned on, Millie discovered that Kati could make her athletic body do anything she wanted. Without a gymnastics coach or any lessons, she taught herself how to do laid-out summersaults, flying as if into the clouds from the highest monkey bar, landing gymnast-style, sticking her landings in the gravel, arms raised, not even a bobble, perfect 10\u2019s every time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s all about the underdog,\u201d says Millie.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cheeseburger man skipped me. My dad boils-over when he notices someone is getting cheated or bullied. He has to intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInter-what?\u201d<\/p>\n
Millie shrugs her shoulders. \u201cIt\u2019s what he says.\u201d Millie lies, not wanting to be accused of showing off by a fourth-grader who\u2019s going into fifth grade. A week ago, Millie looked up the word intervene after she saw it in one of her library books from the eighth-grade summer reading list. She could tell Kati Sevilla the definition of the word and use it again in a different sentence. But Millie doesn\u2019t. She plays it cool.<\/p>\n
Even so, it appears to Millie that she hasn\u2019t fooled Kati. Because the soon-to-be fifth-grader looks her over in a way that Millie perceives is uncharitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d says Kati, \u201cmaybe he\u2019s not boiling-over just because the cheeseburger guy messed up. Maybe it\u2019s because you are your Daddy\u2019s precious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure\u2026\u201d Kati almost sneers, Shhhhhhure.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe intervenes for people we don\u2019t even know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, a kid at the Little Green Store who got skipped over when he was trying to buy a candy bar. Then there was an old man at Beaches Market, when a couple of punks took a grocery cart away from him that he\u2019d been leaning against, like a walker, so he almost fell down. Once, there was a pregnant lady on the bus, before she got out at Nam\u2019s Cantonese Cuisine on Valley Boulevard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah?\u201d Kati\u2019s eyes light up as if they\u2019re reflecting Christmas tinsel. Her mom is pregnant, and Nam\u2019s is where everyone in town, at one time and others, goes to celebrate special events, after graduations, for example, and first holy communions. Kati can almost taste the giant sweet and sour shrimps. She hopes her family gets to go there after the new baby is born and later baptized.<\/p>\n
Millie continues, \u201cMy dad had words with the bus driver because he was speeding up then stomping the brakes, throwing people around when they got up for their stops. This pregnant lady was sitting beside me. My dad had given his seat to her earlier. \u2018Look Man!\u2019 he yelled at the driver over everyone\u2019s heads, \u2018this lady back here is pregnant, and she\u2019s either going to be sick or hurt–or maybe have this baby in the middle of your bus if you don\u2019t quit speeding up and slamming the brakes like that!\u2019 My dad doesn\u2019t like to talk to strangers, but he was really steamed. He intervened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs your dad a Christian?\u201d asks Kati.<\/p>\n
Millie pauses. What a fat question, similar to the juicy ones that Mrs. Hodge, her favorite teacher, always throws down at the end of pop-quizzes. It\u2019s not mandatory to answer them, because last questions are less about memorized facts than about what students think and how they feel. As a result, Millie and most of her classmates work hard to impress Mrs. Hodge with care-full replies.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, on a bench outside of Gus\u2019s World-Famous Burgers and Fries, Millie realizes that she wants to impress Kati too. In fact, it\u2019s donning on Millie that she feels glad, glad that she ran into Kati here at Gus\u2019s, glad that Kati may be as interested as she is interesting–enough to ask about Millie\u2019s dad.<\/p>\n
Millie is hoping that Kati, the fastest kid in school, who can outrun all the guys, and whose long dark hair shimmers with sunlight when she races by, might become a friend, if not now, or even this summer, perhaps when their paths cross again at school in the Fall.<\/p>\n
Millie considers her reply for a moment or two, and says, \u201cWell, my dad doesn\u2019t go to church with our mom and us. But he went with my grandma when he was a kid. He believes in Jesus and what he said about how we should treat everyone, especially the poor. And he tries to keep it fair, you know, speaking up for the underdog.\u201d Millie can tell that Kati is listening by the way the girl sits still on the bench, leaning towards Millie when a noisy car with twin mufflers rumbles by.<\/p>\n
Bolstered by Kati\u2019s attention, Millie continues, \u201cWhen he was around six or seven, he spoke in tongues at a huge prayer meeting in a giant tent at the edge of town. His mom and sisters are really religious, my dad calls them teetotalers, and they always wanted to speak in tongues. But they never could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millie glances up to see that Kati\u2019s pretty face is kind of screwed up. In fact, Kati is staring at Millie as if she and her father have just landed on the hot sidewalk in the middle of town at Gus\u2019s World-Famous Burgers and Fries, in a space ship from Mars.<\/p>\n
Though the evening is still warm, sweat grows prickly and cold, inching down Millie\u2019s spine like creepy little cooties.<\/p>\n
Kati keeps staring at her, not in an affirming way.<\/p>\n
Millie can\u2019t think of any vocabulary words that might distract from or salvage this situation. She wishes she could turn the clock back a few jots. But this isn\u2019t The Twilight Zone and she can\u2019t do that. She must somehow turn this around. Is your dad a Christian? What kind of a fat out-of-the-blue question was that?<\/p>\n
Millie asks Kati, \u201cIs your mom a Christian? Are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Kati, the super-sport with astounding agility and speed, doesn\u2019t pause or miss a tic. \u201cNo,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re Catholic,\u201d putting a chunky period at the end of it.<\/p>\n
What? puzzles Millie, who, as far as she knows, is both Catholic and Christian.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, anyway,\u201d says Kati, \u201cyour dad is old school. And he\u2019s fierce.\u201d She jumps up to play hopscotch on the sidewalk with a double-packet of ketchup.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got that right,\u201d says Millie, relieved. Then she declares, \u201cI bet you\u2019re going to stomp that ketchup before you\u2019re through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kati shrugs and grins, \u201cHard to know\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah?\u201d Well, I know.<\/p>\n
Kati is still grinning when she replies, \u201cIt will be a perfect 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millie hopes she gets to witness the big ketchup double-SPLAT when Kati sticks that landing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joe keeps his left fist on the counter. The right hand is at his hip now, elbow akimbo.<\/p>\n
The cheeseburger man lilts sideways to take new orders around him. When ticket numbers are called, people who ordered out-of-turn, pushing around or over Millie, quietly maneuver with greater finesse around Joe\u2019s elbow. They don\u2019t touch him, taking their bags of food in guilty monk-like silence. Joe momentarily treats them to his evil eyes too. They won\u2019t look at him. But from the way they avoid looking at him, Millie surmises they feel the snake eyes boring through.<\/p>\n
At last, Millie\u2019s burgers, hot dogs, and fries are being assembled. She can actually taste, in the tissues of her mouth, the hot, world-famous French fries while their aromas swirl around and through her nostrils, her clothes, and her hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cHurry it up back there,\u201d calls Rick to a sweat-soaked worker who stops to gulp a cold soda while finally bagging up the order. At last, the worker plunks two crisp white sacks onto a cart beside the cheeseburger man. Rick turns away from the window to make sure everything is in there. No mistakes. Then he passes the bags through, onto the counter, one sack for the double-order of French fries, a second one containing the burgers and dogs.<\/p>\n
Millie gathers extra napkins, imitating her mom, who is always economizing, and extra mustard and relish for her brothers\u2019 hot dogs. The boys will challenge one another to see who can eat up more of the spicey mustard on his hotdog. Although, neither of them can tolerate very much of it. Millie stops to put several small yellow chilies into a plastic container for her parents. She sees her dad from the condiments shelf. Joe is reaching for the bags. Millie hurries to his side.<\/p>\n
“It was a mistake. I’m sorry,” Rick says, letting go of the bags.<\/p>\n
Millie watches her dad. By now, Joe has observed what Millie noted earlier, has felt the hot air swelling out from the joint, has seen how steamy it is in there, and how the cheeseburger man, his helper, and the grill cooks are all sweating monsoonal moisture. Customers who missed all the slow-burn drama and tension are impatient or distracted as they come up to place their orders. Some have stood a long time in line. Yet, when they finally reach the window, they can\u2019t decide what they want. Rick has to wait. People behind them in line are cranky and impatient. The cheeseburger man takes it all.<\/p>\n
Joe has cooled down enough to see that Rick is an underdog too. Joe\u2019s piercing evil eyes have softened to their usual hazel color now. To Millie, to most women and even some men, to Joe\u2019s father, and\u00a0one day to his sons, Millie\u2019s dad has such beautiful eyes. When he showers and shaves, \u201cHe looks a lot like Elvis Presley,\u201d practically everyone says. But Joe usually ignores them or corrects, \u201cNo. It\u2019s Elvis who looks like me,\u201d adding, \u201cand that isn\u2019t saying much for me. He\u00a0was\u00a0kind of goofy, except maybe during\u00a0the black leather\u00a0Comeback Concert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millie, who appreciates classic cars and classic movies with her dad, thinks that this tired, Friday-Night Joe resembles a contemporary swarthy morph of Elvis and Robert Mitchum.<\/p>\n
Now that the order is ready, Joe\u2019s voice isn\u2019t exactly cheery or sweet, but his dander is way down, not unlike Zorro\u2019s after Millie tells the German Shepherd to relax. Joe no longer has the demeanor of a Rock-\u2018em Sock-\u2018em fighter, or a wild bull searching for something to stomp and gore. He says to Rick, \u201cI don\u2019t mean to preach, but we don\u2019t want to skip over kids or elders, or anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick nods and sighs. He doesn\u2019t appreciate being preached to, but he figures he owes it to Millie, if not to her dad. So, he takes this too.<\/p>\n
Joe scrunches the tops of both food bags in one giant fist. He puts his other hand on the back of Millie\u2019s shoulder, heading with her to the car.<\/p>\n
Millie sighs, relieved, but not as relieved as the cheeseburger man.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Inside the Falcon, Millie opens and nudges the bag of fries toward Joe. She reaches around and into it, pulling out a long, double-fried French fry that\u2019s so crisp on the outside, so soft on the inside when she bites into it, and so hot that it singes her fingers and tongue.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is it?\u201d asks Joe.<\/p>\n
\u201cTastes good,\u201d Millie lisps through the near-blistering treat. Joe takes a few.<\/p>\n
He signals with a soiled muscular arm, cutting out into the Friday night parade of Ford junkers and old Chevy trucks.<\/p>\n
Not half a block later, \u201cHey, what\u2019s this?\u201d says Millie, reaching into the second bag.<\/p>\n
Joe bristles, looking up into his rearview mirror. His teeth clench. \u201cWhat did they do?\u201d What the hell did they do to get back at me? Joe braces to make a sharp U-turn.<\/p>\n
Millie pulls out three giant chocolate chip cookies in separate clear wrappers. \u201cThank you, Daddy!\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe\u2019s jaw becomes slack. His pretty eyes open as wide as his child\u2019s. Then he says, \u201cDon\u2019t thank me. You thank the cheeseburger man, next time you and your friends go to get a soda.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave them to us?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor free?\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe grins, nodding. The stubbles of his dense Brutus chin stick out like a myriad of magnetized pins.<\/p>\n
Millie can\u2019t believe it, and she can\u2019t wait to show her mother and brothers.<\/p>\n
Joe gives his daughter a rough pat on her tiny forearm with his big callused palm. \u201cHey, how about a few more of those fries before we have to share them with your mom and the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millie exclaims, \u201cAnd Zorro!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Because Joe\u2019s refraining from guzzling but is nursing his first, icy, Friday night beer but longs for a serious chug\u2026 because he understands that his independent third-grader, soon to be in fourth grade, is eager to impress her old dad\u2026 Joe has promised to wait and watch from the Falcon until everything is ready for pickup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3725,3722,3347,851,3723,1880,3720,361,2229,3721,3724,3719],"class_list":["post-20546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-burgers","tag-daughter","tag-elvis","tag-father","tag-friday","tag-justice","tag-masculine","tag-masculinity","tag-summer","tag-underdog","tag-vocabulary","tag-worker","writer-d-m-chavez-solis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21051,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546\/revisions\/21051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}