Fathermucker by Greg Olear

fry the fries in shortening ) life will I introduce this processed, saturated-fat-filled, cholesterol-loaded, super-fucking-delicious crap into my digestive system. In the meantime, however, I view the Golden Arches as a temple of miracle and wonder to which I make frequent pilgrimages—Lourdes with special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun .
    It’s the same woman manning the drive-thru window. She works the breakfast shift, I guess. I’m a regular here, but she never seems to recognize me, or if she does, she pretends not to. Not that she’s unpleasant, or even cold; she’s all-business, no-nonsense, good at her job, a job I had in high school, a job whose duties involve doing six or seven things at the same time, as rapidly as possible, without fucking up, a job that is, for all its lowly societal status and meager pay, difficult. I admire her work ethic: the fluidity of motion as she takes my ten-dollar bill with her left hand and hands me my Diet Coke and straw with her right, the smart efficiency with which she returns my change, the crispness of the fold when she seals my bag, the curt-but-not-rude way she wishes me a good day, as if she’d love to stay and chat if there weren’t two guys in hunting gear in the Durango behind me waiting on their Sausage McMuffins with Egg.
    She’s Latina, is my guess, and of indeterminate age—she could be in her thirties, she could be in high school; it’s hard to tell. She’s petite, and her ramrod posture gives her uniform a military feel. Her long, dark hair is bound tightly in a ponytail, but the few strands that fall into her face are dyed an alluring magenta. There is a thick silver ring on her thumb, the sort of thing you buy from sidewalk vendors on St. Marks Place, and a silver stud on the right side of her face just above her chin. A labret, I think it’s called. Amy Winehouse has one in the exact same place.
    â€œHave a great day,” she tells me, no trace of Hispanic origin in her unaccented voice, and as I thank her and return the well-wish, I drink in her image—I’ve seen her on dozens if not hundreds of occasions, and four times this week alone, but it’s hard to get a good look at someone in a drive-thru window—and I realize that she looks a bit like a waifish Rosaria Dawson. If you plucked her from the New Paltz Mickey D’s, let down her hair, decked her out in whatever “frock” Us Weekly asked a hundred people in Rockefeller Center who wore best, and trotted her out on the red carpet before the Golden Globes, you’d never know she wasn’t a secondary player on some new MTV reality show. Her name is Wendy, according to the plastic tag on her (small but perky) left breast. Wendy? Not a Latina name at all—and an ironic choice for an assistant manager (I’m giving her the stripes on account of the uni and the comportment) at a McDonald’s.
    I wonder what her story is, how she came to be employed at the McDonald’s in New Paltz, New York. I wonder if she has kids.
    I wonder if she has a boyfriend.
    The cars crawl along Main as I wait to turn. The kids immediately complain that we’ve been stopped too long—red lights and stop signs, waiting of any kind: the bane of childhood. I take the opportunity to unsheathe my Egg McMuffin, take a big bite, and am on the verge of concocting a fantasy, perhaps sufficient for this evening’s onanistic fodder, involving Wendy’s labret-adorned mouth, a tub of hot fudge, and the McDonald’s break room—the lightbulb has gone on in my brain, but the electrical surge has not yet coursed down the length of my spine—when a familiar hunter-green Subaru Forester drives by, its rear panel, like the Tattooed Man, almost completely covered in bumper stickers ( KILL YOUR TELEVISION, WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN SELDOM MAKE HISTORY, COEXIST, GOD BLESS THE FREAKS, GODDESS BLESS, OBAMA/BIDEN, HOME BIRTHS,