Chapter Three
After school, Quinn is midway through his peanut butter and jelly sandwich when the phone rings. His mom picks up the line. He can make out only fragments of the conversation, but he immediately understands: He’s being called in to cover a shift at Burger Hut.
Before hanging up, his mom says, “Okay, Gloria, but he has to be home by seven. Seriously, I need him back by seven sharp to keep an eye on George.”
A half hour later, Quinn snaps the hairnet over his head, puts on the Burger Hut paper cap, and grabs the drive-thru headset from Toby. It’s just after the shift change at the factory and the line is already snaking through the parking lot.
“Sorry you got called in,” Toby says. “It’s my first time working drive-thru.
Gloria panicked when I told her Pete didn’t show.
” Gloria, the owner of the franchise, is always somehow surprised that Pete, a guy who smells like he just left a Grateful Dead show, is unreliable.
She called Quinn in to save Toby from an angry mob.
Toby is looking at Quinn wide-eyed for instructions. He’s a freshman and his face hasn’t caught up to his nose. Quinn isn’t certain he’s even old enough to work legally, but Gloria knows the kid’s mom. They need the money, she explained when she asked Quinn to train him last week.
“You do the fountain drinks, just keep filling them up and line them here.” He points to the counter near the drive-thru window.
“Yes, sir,” Toby says, not an ounce of sarcasm to it.
Quinn quickly gets in the zone. He’s worked at Burger Hut for a year and has it down.
The place’s genius is its limited menu. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and fries.
That’s it. It is truly a hut with no seating area, just a small kitchen right at the drive-thru window.
It survives only because it’s a block from the factory and cheaper than McDonald’s.
Quinn simultaneously mans the drive-thru and cooks: entering orders into the register, then rotating to the grill to flip the burgers, then emptying the deep-fry basket, and back again.
Once Toby has an assembly line of fountain drinks—one for Coke, one for Diet Coke, the only options—he directs the kid to fill the tickets.
“Yes, sir!”
Quinn handles the disgruntled customers from the backed-up line one by one.
The anger in their faces dissipates when they see it’s Quinn working the window.
It’s probably the reason Gloria hired him: Everybody at the plant loved Quinn’s dad.
And Quinn’s a reminder that things can be worse than waiting too long for a burger and fries.
A fatal car accident at thirty-two, leaving behind a wife and two kids, one with a disability.
When things are finally under control, Toby lets out a breath. “Nice job, boss.”
“I’m not your—” Quinn stops himself. “You did good. It takes practice, keeping up with shift change.”
“I don’t know how you do it. You’re like,” Toby thinks about it, “like a machine.”
If only there was a future in being a sad burger-making machine.
“Just remember,” Quinn says, “these people work hard, don’t have much money, or they wouldn’t be getting dinner for their families here.
It’s important we do our best.” He says this because he doesn’t want Toby falling under the spell of their lazy co-worker, Pete.
Quinn’s dad always said that there’s no job worth doing if you don’t do it well.
Toby nods earnestly.
“If you get backed up, just explain that you’re new, learning the job. They’re good people, most of them.”
“Except Brad Paxton and his friends, they’re assholes.” The curse word sounds funny coming from Toby, for some reason.
“There’s always an exception to every rule.” Another Dad-ism.
“An exception that deserves spit in his burger. That’s what Pete says.”
“No,” Quinn says. “Gloria could get written up from the health department or worse. Guys like Brad, they aren’t worth the trouble.”
Toby nods again, like he’s taking it to heart.
In truth, Quinn wouldn’t care if Brad ate a spit-burger. But he tries to live by a code: What would Dad do? It’s hard sometimes, but it makes him feel more connected to his father, something he clings to as he fears he’s slowly losing the memories of their twelve years together.
Gloria finally arrives, looking flustered, disheveled. She owns three Burger Hut locations, one an hour away in Plattsmouth, another in South Omaha. She hugs Quinn, thanks him, calls him a “lifesaver.” He tells her it’s no problem. That he needs to run—Mom said seven sharp or it would be his ass.
On the walk home, Quinn checks the old Timex, another reminder of Dad.
He doesn’t need to rush, he decides, so he cracks the spine of his book and reads as he walks, transported to the Devon School in the summer of 1942, far, far away.
A particular passage speaks to him today: “I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpowering solid and deeply meaningful world around me.”