Mike and the Hamburglar
I’m not entirely sure where this came from… then again, maybe I am quite sure.
Mike swirled the last half of his coffee in the paper cup and little bubbles from the steam spread wet circles on the glossy table. A frail and gray-haired old man in a denim truckers’ jacket and a Red Sox baseball cap. “When did goddamn McDonalds get so fucking fancy?” He said with a smirk. “Where did Ronald and all them outlaws go, the Hamburgerler. Man, he was cool!” And he laughed out loud.
It had been a while since we’d last met. A good long while. I marvel how he’s aged, while I’ve stayed so young and handsome, this story in my head lasts about five seconds before I catch a glimpse of myself reflected in the window.
“Seriously, though,” he says, he’s stopped laughing. This place looks like my goddamn lawyer’s office, all this fake oak and stainless steel and cheap art and paintings and stuff. What the fuck?”
Mike joins me in staring out the window, and we see the ghostly images of the shadows of who we once were…
“I thought it would be harder, a lot harder,” he comments as he sips and nurses the last of the coffee in the cup. I assume when the coffee is gone, this chance encounter will reach its end, and we will say goodbye and we will never see each other again. Never friends, we were at best soldiers in the same war, some undeclared war of our youth.
“Harder how?” I have to ask.
“The transition, man, we were outlaws, we were bad asses. Remember when we were just starting out? Selling nickel bags of weed out back of the old high school? That’s gone now, right? Did they tear it down?”
“Nah, man, the building is still there, I think it’s an elementary school now, or some shit.”
He smiles, “Damn, we ruled the world back then. Weed, money, cars, pussy! What more could we ever need or want? But that was the problem, right? We always wanted more, and neither of us were fond of working in grocery stores and gas stations. We got greedy, we wanted more, and we liked the whole business of thinking ourselves outlaws. Shit got complex quick, didn’t it? We started to hang with guys who didn’t play and next thing I knew I was in way the fuck over my head and scared to death, but I couldn’t show nobody I was scared…
“Sometimes I think about it all, how the web of crime and cover-ups and cohorts and lies and secrets spreads. It spreads like a gas-fed fire and next thing you know, before you can blink it is your life, your whole life…”
He looks out the window, past our reflections, to the highway and passing cars.
“Then one day, before you got out, I think, maybe not, I got out. I sit here today, just a guy talking to another guy here in Micky D’s. The world forgot us. For that I am thankful. It’s quiet now. It didn’t used to be quiet at all.
“The darkness was the drug, the darkness and all that went with it. The scramble, the fight, the fear. It was all such a rush. Fear of cops and lawyers and the D.A. and judges and other guys who wanted what we had. You ever hear from any of the old boys?”
“Me?” I ask, “No, everyone I knew from then is dead now. I thought you were dead too. Dead or moved to Florida. Eddie G. went to Florida. Last I talked to him I figured that was better than dead, but not by much. He fishes a lot now and sits by the docks and looks at the boats. His back is all fucked up. I think he’s still got a slug in him, one or two…”
“Are you still afraid, Mikey? Do you ever think it will all come back one day and bite you in the ass?”
“Nah, he says, that’s my point. We’re forgotten now. That doesn’t make me sad or necessarily happy. It’s just what it is now. It’s just sometimes I wonder how it all went away almost as fast as it came. I got married, had some kids and they had kids.
“There is a big hole in the middle of my life I don’t share with people, anyone. I know you know what I mean. No one who knows me, I mean the ones who should know me best, my wife, my kids, my family, they don’t know me. There is that whole giant chunk of my life that never happened. Like a huge piece of me never happened.
“I guess that’s a good thing. The secrets only old men drinking in this fancy ass McDonalds can share. I still look over my shoulder every now and then, that’s silly I suppose… sometimes someone will ask me about where I went to college or what did I do back then, and I scramble to make shit up.”
“No, Mike, it’s not silly at all. I think we all saw ourselves bound for glory and big things, but we’ve spent our lives hiding and hiding who we are, only to find that no one ever really cared at all.”
Mike finishes his now cold coffee, “Living in the light has baffled me. I hated the light as much as I hated myself for trying to embrace it. This life is so goddamn boring. But then I think it’s all I can do to get my aching ass out of bed in the morning, the outlaw life is for the young boys. I suppose the cops who wanted us and the judges and lawyers are all dead now too. Dead or too old now to give a fuck.
“I guess I spend my days now wondering what was the point of all that motion and noise. All that energy now faded like the commotion of summer nights in the dead of winter. For the first time I know what winter feels like and I know it’s upon me.”
It’s started to rain hard, and I watch Mike walk slowly, with a limp out to his old pickup truck. He drives past the window where I still sit. He waves goodbye. He doesn’t smile.
The lie we share we’ll both carry with us to the grave.
I suppose this isn’t the blaze of glory we all somehow expected.
Thats it for me this week. Here are some books to look at.
Stay safe, it’s getting weird out there!
Bill