A Time Remembered

When I worked at a McDonald's in high school, there was this one customer that always got in my line when I was cashiering. I remember that customer over ten years later because for the three years that I worked there at McDonald's he would come in everyday around the same time, just before ten a.m. He would order the same thing, a small coffee and a breakfast platter; scrambled eggs, a sausage patty and three hotcakes. He would pay with the little money that he would earn from pan-handling out in front of the federal and state buildings in downtown Oakland, California. When his order was ready I would place the items on to a tray, with four packs of sugar and two creamers for his coffee. I would look around the seating area of the restaurant to see where he was waiting and walk his food over to him, I'd place it on the table and ask Brian if he needed any thing else.

Brian would reply in a slightly slurred voice, 'nafins'.

I understood what he said; my grandmother spoke in the same way after her first stroke. I kind of felt bad because I had forgot that since Brian was in a wheel chair and had only one foot, probably lost to diabetes, that he could not reach the napkin dispenser, but, I remembered the sugar and cream. Brian would always come to my line, so many years later the only explanation as to why that I can think of is that I treated him not like a disabled person, but as a person.

A few years ago I was driving through downtown Oakland with my wife I thought I saw Brian at a bus stop. I slowed down and as we passed by I realized that it was not him. I told my wife this same story I have written; that McDonald's I used to work at had closed a six months after I moved on. Once in a while something will jog a memory from the time that I worked there, I often wonder what happened to my old coworkers and customers.