4.18.2010

Flied Wice

The faint black hairs above his upper lip
left me with only one question:
was he old enough to finally have gotten laid?
Although he was surrounded by women
in the Chinese restaurant where we'd been reunited
they were surely family, and working the register
every evening may have taken up too much of his time
to leave him with much of a social life.
I gave him my phone number and asked
if my pick-up order was ready. He scanned
the receipts stapled at the tops of the
brown paper bags and responded with a confident "No."

His voice, like the spot between his mouth and nose
had matured. Ten years ago when he'd come through
the Burger King drive-thru he used to deafen us
with his high-pitched squeal. Beth, one of my elderly
coworkers, would pull her headset away from her ear
and cringe whenever the seven-year-old
leaned out of the back seat of his mother's sedan and
said "Can I have a double-cheeseburger, no pickles?"
We'd suffer through his aural assault once a week
and wished that his off-the-boat mother spoke English
so she could order instead, but to no avail.
It's funny what pointless things one remembers.

"That'll be thirty-seven eighty," he said, reaching out
to accept my crumpled bills in one of life's splendidly
ironic role reversals. When he handed me my change
I let the coins slide into the tip jar on the counter
well aware that he'd need far more than that to help him
if my assumption about his recent manhood was correct.

"Good luck," I said as he handed me my bags, still not
recognizing me. He looked confused. I let it stay that way.
He'd figure it out in a few years if he ever made it out of there.

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