When I landed the McDonald’s job, I was surprised to learn that I was one of only four teenagers on staff. I thought fast food was the primary place where teenagers could get jobs. My mother and father both worked fast food in their youth. But almost all of my co-workers were in their twenties and thirties. One of the cooks graduated from the University of Washington with a psychology degree. And he’s using all that education to count up the student loan money he’ll never be able to repay and to make sure there are two pickles, and only two pickles, on the hamburgers.
I don’t mean to make fun of my co-workers. They’re mostly cool. I’m angry at this country for making these adults work at McDonald’s. A woman who usually works the drive-through is a single mother with three kids. How the hell does she pay for anything with her McDonald’s money?
It’s not an accident that 99% of my co-workers are black and Latino. The owner of this McDonald’s franchise and three others in Seattle is a black man. I’m Native American and I’m pretty dark for a mixed-blood urban Indian. The only thing that's working white in this McDonald’s are the vanilla milkshakes.
Sometimes, I feel guilty that I have this job. There might be mothers and fathers who need it. But it isn’t like my parents are rich. My Mom, the Indian, is a dental assistant and my Dad, the white guy, is a car mechanic at Subaru.
I’m saving my money for college. I screwed off my last two years of high school so I don’t have the grades for a four-year university. But Seattle has awesome community colleges. I can kick ass in my studies there and transfer into a university somewhere close to home. That’s the dream, at least. A few of my co-workers have been McDonald’s employees for more than ten years.
These are desperate times, and I’m not as desperate as a lot of people, but I’m desperate enough to need this job.
There’s an elderly black man who works here. His reflexes are too slow to safely use any of the cooking equipment, so he greets people at the door and clears and cleans tables. But he's still got a sharp mind. I like what he has to say. He fought in two wars. We take our breaks together. Wearing coats to cover our McDonald’s polo shirts, we walk a block, step into an alley, and smoke.
His wife died ten years ago.
“Old husbands aren’t supposed to live longer than old wives,” he said. “My wife should be the widow sitting with other widows making fun of their dead husbands.”
He has a girlfriend, though. A few girlfriends, actually.
“When you’re a single man at the senior's club,” he said, “you spend a lot of time dancing with different women.”
One time, I asked him if he could still get it up.
"Not really," he said. "It's like I got a piece of black licorice down there."
"They got boner pills," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "But I can't take them because of my heart."
"Sorry, man," I said.
"It's okay," he said. "Even when your skin is old, it's still good to get naked and press old skin to old skin."
"Awesome," I said.
After a few months of cigarette friendship, he asked me to call him Grandfather with a capital G.
“Isn’t that what you Indians call your respected elders?” he said. “Not grandpa or gramps. It’s Grandfather like it was my royal name.”
All four of my grandparents—two Indian and two white—died before I was born, so I didn’t have any elders. I needed a grandfather. I was hungry for a grandfather.
“Grandfather,” I said to my black co-worker. “It’s time to step on our cigarettes and go back to work.”
He smiled as big as I’d ever seen. He loved the respect. I loved respecting him. In this sad country, respect is the only thing most of us can afford.
made me cry again. I'm getting softer or your knife is getting sharper. Beautiful.
Respect. No matter what you do to earn your keep,giving yourself to another in honor is priceless. This world needs more humanity.