Hamburger Dreams and McMelancholia

Oscar Barajas, NewsTaco

My friend Richard and I were sitting around McDonald’s restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. I had been playing with the same three fries over a pool of glazed ketchup, while a group of children ran around from table to table. They were part of a party that had spilled over from the playground. I smiled as I shoved the last remaining fries in my mouth, because it reminded me of the days of my youth.

My friend Richard regaled me about one of his birthdays and the concept seemed so foreign to me. He told me about one party where his parents rented out a clown. When I was a child, my parents would offer me two options. I could either go have cake at the park or at McDonald’s. I always opted for the latter. The only time I got to see a clown, it was a cutout at McDonald’s or when a drunken relative dropped by at the park to grab a slice of cake and throw a punch at the piñata.

Celebrating my birthday at McDonald’s felt like Disneyland. My mother would get together with her comadres, and they would select the most centralized one. Everyone would bring their children together. There would be seven of us in total. I had always been fat, and this place was Shangri-La. I was already putting away Big Mac meals before kindergarten, and this place catered to all of my bovine addictions. My mom and her comadres ordered the food as their offspring circled the ground for the most convenient seating.

The mothers would return with an ocean of Happy Meal boxes and my Big Mac meal would stick out like a sore thumb. The comadres sat there and watched me put away the burger like I was a boa constrictor going after Mickey and Minnie Mouse. After the carnage was over, the other children would surround me and sing a severed version of Happy Birthday. After that the Polaroid sessions would begin. My mother would threaten us to act right. Under her breath, she would threaten the children she wanted to hit, but knew she could not. I could feel her left hand tremble and then reach out for my elbow with a pinch, as I continued to make immature faces at the camera.

After the pictures, and the meal, the comadres were ready to top it off with a pie and coffee. They would then turn us loose on the playground. Society was never quite ready for us. The seven of us would run that playground. We would throw our shoes into the cubbies and take control. The playground was a den of lawsuits, but since it was the 1980’s no one let a little thing like negligence get in the way. The place was set up like a bad McDream. The slides were corporate characters and the other attractions were shaped like food. The jewel of the playground was the spinning hamburger.

That spinning hamburger was a bitter mistress. We would ride her deep into the night. We would always end up leaving our lunches, either there, in the car on the ride home, or in bed. The ride home was uncomfortable, simply because the management would look for the parents of those horrid children on the spinning hamburger and the comadres would play deaf. We were horrendous. We would take other kids’ shoes from the cubbies and throw them into the street. We would charge other kids money for the mere privilege of sitting next to us. The staff would receive complaints but dismiss them as fast as they got them. I figured it was because we were such loyal customers, and our mothers bought pies and coffee like they were going out of style. Every year we would end the same as the door would close behind my mother and we would end up running from the chancla while dodging the one that was already in the air identifying our heat signature. Alas, how can you possibly find a better way to say “Happy Birthday.”