Freewrite: Burgers

I was flipping burgers with the arm-length metal spatula, scooping them onto to warming grill to keep for just 2 minutes. I fried spicy and home-style chicken, six chickens to a basket, and then down into the greasy oils it went. Every hour, I placed new potatoes, wrapped in tin foil, into the industrial oven. I made six pans of bacon whenever we were running low, and helped put down fries and chicken nuggets when the fry-guy was getting slammed. No one needed to help me though; I had a system.

            That system entailed keeping the burgers on the heating grill for up to five times longer than regulation decreed, but it worked. I kept at least four junior and four single patties on the grill at all times—double that when the rush came in, and triple that when a sports team came through. But sometimes it was impossible to tell when I’d need more burgers. I’d be chilling out with my usual four-count of burgers around 2:30 (that middle time when no one comes for lunch or dinner), and some carful of teenage boys would come through the drive through and order 16 junior cheeseburgers. I didn’t like having to tell people to wait.

            When there weren’t any customers to serve or potatoes to bake or chickens to fry, I was supposed to throw water on all the grills and scrape the grease off them, but instead I just listened to people. Cassidy always seemed to have such a dramatic life for living out in the country. Once, I heard her yelling out the second drive-thru window at a customer and then ran back into the freezer bawling. Apparently someone had broken into her house and killed her dog.