Burger With Fries

by Jeff Baker

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Draws for this month’s Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were: A Bedtime Story, set at a Burger Place, involving a Pepper Mill. I’d been where a buddy of mine had stayed in college and this story just breezed out of me! —-jeff

It was back when I was in college. A couple of my friends and I were renting this old house on the edge of campus by the tennis courts. We didn’t play but we liked it. Charlie could check out the guys, Hector could check out the girls and I could check out both. Plus it was a three minute walk to class or to the cafeteria or to the convenience store and burger place down the road.

Of the three of us, Charlie was the only one who had grown up in town, and so he went for a dentist appointment one Friday afternoon after class (I drove we only had the one car, a beat-up old Nova with a Dr. Who bumper sticker on the back) and sat and read comic books while he was getting checked out. Then he came out (wearing a bib) and said “J. D., uh, I’m gonna have to have a couple of wisdom teeth pulled. Can you stick around?”

I nodded. I had no place else to go. My next class was a lab class but that wasn’t until Monday morning. So I sat there and read and about four comic books later, the doctor helped Charlie out of the room. He was staggering like a TV drunk and had a sloppy grin on his face.

“He’s okay, but he’ll be out of it for a while” the dentist said. “Take him home and get him to bed.”

“Thas’ right, get me to bed,” Charlie said.

The dentist bill was paid by his folks insurance so I drove home with Charlie happily dozing in the back seat.

Got him home just as Hector got back from his last class. The two of us helped Charlie into his room, got him down to his shorts and into bed, all the while he was babbling away like Dick Wilson on an episode of “Bewitched.”

We were about to turn out the lights and leave when Charlie called out that he wanted a bedtime story. He insisted on it.

So I sat down beside the bed and faked it.

“Once upon a time,” I said. “Not too far from here, a car drove up to the burger place on the corner. The car radio was playing Buddy Holly or The Shirelles and the kid behind the wheel wanted to impress his girlfriend.”

“Hey! How ‘bout makin’ it his boyfriend?” Charlie said groggily.

“It’s my story, remember?” I said. “Besides, this is back about Nineteen-Sixty-Two.”

“Oh,” Charlie said.

I went on.

“Anyway, this guy pulled up to the drive-in place the Burger place had and grabbed the microphone and ordered a couple of burgers with fries for him and his girl. The voice asked if they wanted their special Seasoned Pepper Fries (which cost extra.) Of course, the guy said yes, to impress the girl.”

“Impress th’ girl,” Charlie said with a snorting laugh.

“Works for me,” Hector said from the doorway.

“Okay, the carhop brought the order out and the girl and the guy started eating and then the girl said she couldn’t taste the pepper on the fries. So the guy grabbed the microphone and said they needed more pepper. The carhop showed up a few minutes later with a little shaker of pepper and sprinkled it on the fries. She left, the girl tried the fries and there still wasn’t enough fries for her.”

“Thas’ why I date guys,” Charlie said.

“So, the guy gets on the microphone again and yells at them to send out more pepper. About a minute later, this old pepper mill floats up to the car all by itself!!!!

“Hooray.” Murmured Charlie.

“It starts sprinkling pepper on both of them in the car and there’s this weird, ghostly laugh, and the kid shifts gears (he’d had the car on for the radio) and barrels out of there, jumping the curb.”

I paused for dramatic effect and then began saying (in a spooky deep voice) “And THAT was the Last time they ever went to: The Haunted Burger Place!”

I was about to give off a weird, loud laugh, when Hector grabbed my shoulder and pointed at Charlie. Happily asleep. We snuck out of the room, turned out the lights and shut the door.

And I had forgotten about that evening nearly thirty years ago until this afternoon. Car cut me off in traffic; beat up old Nova with a ragged Dr. Who bumper sticker on the back.

I breathed out “My God! When we owned that thing I was amazed it made it around the block!”

—end—