Just Another Morning at McDonald's

I was sitting at a different booth from usual in McDonald's this morning reading the paper and drinking fifty-cent coffee. My usual booth was taken by a guy who had a cloth-cased guitar sitting next to him.

Meanwhile, a guy with no legs in a wheelchair wheels in the door. I have seen him there before: unkempt, in old military fatigues. I have tried to avoid him, he tells a sad story and is always hitting up customers for change for coffee, and management tries to chase him off. He picks up a conversation with a guy in painter whites sitting at a booth by the door.

"Hey, I'm Ed. You the guy who wants to buy the sprayer? I'll give you everything for seventy-five bucks. It's worth a lot more than that, but I can't sell it, and I really need the money."

The guy in whites says, "Yes, I'm interested. Where do you live?"

"Over on Mark Dabling, just around the corner in the apartment building."

"Do you have a phone, Ed? I can stop by tonight to see it."

"Yeah, seventy-five bucks is a good deal."

Ed gives the painter his number and then talks about the time he painted a McDonald's in California.

"Yep, I painted the whole damn thing. Those big windows drove me nuts. Just after I finished them, it started to rain, and it washed away all the paint. Onto the sidewalk and down the gutter till it was all gone. Can't do it no more since I lost my legs. I had seven blood clots in them before they chopped them off."

"Sorry about that, Ed."

"Oh, I live with it. I'll wait for your call tonight.

From my regular booth comes the funky strumming of a guitar. Bluesey, percussive and syncopated. The musician is good looking and well dressed. Out comes a ballad  with lots of soul about hard times:  

Everyone knows

How this story goes,

There is no end.

The only road left to roam

Is the lonely road home,

You've got to let me in.

After he finishes, I walk over and ask him  his name and if he wrote the song.

"The name's Mark. Yep, I wrote it.  I have been on the road for quit a while. Headin' for California. I've had lots of time to write down my stories."

I ask him about his guitar.

"Yeah, this guitar is part of me."

I say, "I know, I lost my Gibson somewhere in the Northwest a couple of years ago. It was a big loss.

"Well, you can always get an old guitar for not much money."

"Well, I have some other guitars at home. My wife's nephew made them. He teaches a course on guitar design and construction for a Perdue engineering class."

"I'm from Indianapolis and went to Perdue. Took engineering, but only lasted a year."

"Yea," I say, "You either resonate with engineering or you don't."

I had to leave and didn't learn anything more from Mark.

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I never know what to expect when I walk into McDonald's