February 02, 2005
Hell's Burgers
The other day I went to the McDonald’s near my office for dinner. It was in midtown, around seven o’clock, so the restaurant was filled with the lonely dinner crowd. A graying businessman was poring over a pile of handwritten papers. A mother with three kids -- two fat, one skinny -- filled them up on dollar menu items. A man with a rhinestone jacket that read “Ice Man” was asking around for change. Depressed teenagers sulked over fries.
This McDonalds does a lot of business during the day, so they have an express counter over by the restrooms. That night it was closed, and a man was sitting there in front of it at a baby grand piano playing old time ragtime music. Another man with an electric guitar was sitting at a booth listening and keeping time.
The muzac in the restaurant was still playing, but someone had turned it down as far as it would go to keep it from drowning out the piano.
I watched for a while as the piano player shifted to stomping roadhouse blues. The guitar player smiled and shook his head, unable to keep up. He tapped his foot to learn the new time and waited. Occasionally he’d pick up on a theme and join in for a few bars, but the piano player was driving the music.
I wanted to ask the musicians some questions – how they managed to lug a grand piano in and out of a McDonald’s for one – but they were wrapped up in the music and I didn’t want to interrupt them. It would be like waking someone from a dream.
The workers at the counter weren’t paying any attention to them. The guy at the fry station cracked jokes with a woman as she filled sodas. A downcast young man mumbled to himself and mopped the floor. The women at the registers surveyed the oncoming customers with disdain. The music might as well have been coming from the other side of a dark lake.
While I was waiting for my food, I asked one of woman at the counter about the musicians.
“Who. Them?” she asked dismissively. “The piano player, he’s here every few nights. That other guy, he just comes in on Mondays.” After she spoke she eyed me suspiciously, as if it suddenly occurred to her that telling me this might get someone into trouble. “We don’t pay them or nothing. They just come,” she clarified, then went back to looking at her nails.
I took my hamburgers and sat down to eat. The teenagers behind me were yelling at each other. The Ice Man asked a construction worker for 40 cents to catch a subway. The piano player thundered on the keys. The fat kids scratched at their algebra. Ronald McDonald stood sentry at the door, white faced, inscrutable.
A few nights later I went back to the same McDonald’s. The piano player wasn’t there, but the piano was. Somebody had put a few potted plants on it to serve as camouflage and propped a sign on the music stand that read: “Please Don’t Touch”.
When I saw the sign and the plants I suddenly realized that I'd seen the piano there a number of times over the years. It had actually been there every time I had come in for lunch, I'd just never really processed it. It was so unlikely to see a piano in a McDonalds my mind had ignored it. But it was there in the corner by the men's room where it had always been, dead and meaningless.
The dinner crowd surged at the counter, dull lowing conversation floated around the room. I ordered two cheeseburgers and sat down to eat, filled with regrets.
