Dying For a Burger in the Mostly United States of America, or Possibly, Hell
Photo credit: Paras Kapoor | Unsplash
The doctor’s voice is the first thing I hear. “Welcome back, sleeping beauty. You’ve been out a long time.”
When my eyelids manage to open, I don’t register the person I see as a doctor. He wears a graffitied t-shirt, baggy white windbreaker pants, and high-top sneakers. His ID badge hangs on a shiny silver chain around his neck.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Yo, you got laid out by a delivery truck! How could you forget? Those drivers don’t play with that rapid delivery upgrade.”
I vaguely remember headlights, a horn maybe. I look down, trying to think back, but grow distracted by my own hands. My nails, usually bitten down to the quick, are ridiculously long. And my hair. I’ve kept it shoulder-length for years, but now it ripples down my hospital gown, nearly to my waist.
“Was I in a coma?”
“Something like that,” the doctor replies. “I won’t worry you with the deets.” He winks and smiles like he is doing me a massive favor.
The doctor assures me I’ve been kept in peak condition and am approved for all physical activities. He winks again.
“It’s your mind that will need to adjust,” he says. “I’m droppin’ you a scrip for one round of women’s lit. You can pick it up in the dispensary downstairs.”
So many questions, but then the doctor snaps his fingers, “Oh, you’ll want to grab something to eat soon,” he says. “The food processor at the hospital’s been down a few days, so we’ve just been giving everyone vitamins and shit.”
Before my mind can process the hospital food processor, the doctor is gone, his windbreaker pants swishing down the hallway. The nurse scans the code on my hospital bracelet and tells me I am officially discharged.
I find the room downstairs labeled DISPENSARY. When I walk in, I realize it’s a library. Perfect. A little research and maybe I can make some sense out of all this. The woman at the information desk scans my hospital bracelet. “Women’s lit,” she says without inflection. “First row on your right.”
I’m confused, but I’ve always been afflicted with rule-following, so I proceed to the right. I scan the titles in the Women’s Lit section:
Keep Clean and Vacuum On
Look Hot without Trying
500 Meals under 200 Calories
How to Please a Man
Arrived: One Woman’s Journey to her First Botox Appointment
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly, backtracking to the information desk. “Is this the women’s literature section?” My finger dangles questioningly to the right.
Without looking up from her screen, the woman says, “The rest of the anti-aging titles are across the aisle, near child-rearing, if that’s what you need.”
I touch the space between my brows, smooth my “11” lines.
“Uh, no. Thanks anyway.”
I sprint from the library, wondering if I’ve actually died and landed freshly in hell. The world looks different in a way I can’t place, neither past nor progress.
“Thank God,” I mutter when I spot an M’s Burger Joint across the parking lot. My stomach turns itself over to take inventory, reports back with a squiggly sound: I’m starving.
I fumble through my jean pockets and find a ten-dollar bill, the kind that’s been forgotten and washed a few times. Maybe not hell after all.
I dart through the double doors and beeline to the register.
“I’ll take a Double Beef Bacon Burger with onion rings and a fruit punch, please.”
The cashier’s bubblegum pink nails tap away on the register. “Ok, that’ll be 300 sit-ups, 200 squats, and 50 tricep dips.”
I let out a laugh. “I think I’ll just use cash,” I say, pulling the ten-dollar bill from my pocket.
The cashier gets squirmy. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but you can’t pay with cash here. We only accept gym receipts unless you have a purchasing male.”
“Gym receipts?”
“You know, the little slip of paper the gym prints after your workout? To prove you’ve worked off the calories for your meal?”
“What happened to money?”
The cashier looks at me with an expression that says, I feel so sorry for you. It looks like she’s trying to press pennies between her molars.
“Because,” she says, voice dropping to a whisper, “you’re a woman. You need to have a gym receipt or be accompanied by a purchasing male.”
“Purchasing male?” I have never had to work so hard for a burger in my life.
My eyes scan the restaurant. The only other customer—a large, greasy man—sits in a booth by the windows, his pale belly spilling out from under his shirt. The table is littered with crumpled wrappers.
I lean forward, trying to stay quiet. “Are you telling me that guy over there did 300 sit-ups for his meal?”
The cashier laughs nervously. “Of course not, he’s a man.” She leans even closer to me, as if she is about to reveal the secret of life. “You do remember that heart disease is the number one killer of women. The law was made to protect us.”
“The law,” I repeat, with a tone that says go on.
“Any food consumed by a woman outside of the home must be pre-qualified by a gym receipt or accompanying purchasing male.”
“And…a purchasing male…is just a man buying stuff?”
She stares at me—frozen—like a fawn blinking into the face of a big, bad, Double-Beef-Bacon-Burger-eating wolf. Then, finally, “Yes.”
“Okay, okay,” I mutter, rubbing my hands over my face.
I march over to the big man in the window booth. “Excuse me, would you mind standing with me at the register? I seem to have left my purchasing male at home today.” I flash the shiniest smile I can muster to cover the sharp edges inside me.
The man wipes his mouth with his fingers. “Did you lose your gym receipt?” he asks.
“Uh, yes, I lost my gym receipt.”
WTF, ticker-tapes across my mind.
“I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t. Heart disease is the number one killer of women, you know.”
I look at the wrappers on the table, at his belly hiding the top of his pants. As far as I can tell, I am not on Candid Camera. I huff and stuff the ten dollars back into my pocket.
I return to the register slowly, so I don’t spook the fawn of a girl behind it.
“I think I’m a little lost here,” I say to her. “Can you tell me what year it is?”
“It is the seventh year of Our Lord Ted,” she replies.
“Our Lord Ted?” At this point, I’m just repeating everything I hear as a question. It’s all I can think to do.
“The Sovereign Lord of the Mostly United States of America.”
“The Mostly United States?”
The cashier’s starting to get a little antsy. “Well, I haven’t checked the feeds today, but I’m assuming the majority are still united. We ended yesterday at 43, I think. Though I’m not sure about New York. They’ve been a little flaky lately—I’ll have to see what they post today.”
“The feeds…right.” I try to play along. I don’t want her triggering some secret, under-the-counter panic button in this burger joint in, quite possibly, hell. “Remind me again,” I say, as casually as I can, “which states have dropped out?”
“Are you feeling okay, ma’am? Is there someone I can ping for you? A husband, or your father?” Her voice is a forced hush, like she’s annoyed but still trying to protect me from trouble.
“Uh, I’m not sure. I’m sorry. Please help me. I just got out of the hospital today. I’m a little confused. Jog my memory. Which states have dropped out?” I don’t know why I need to know. My mind is desperately grasping for some shred of reality.
“Well,” she speaks very slowly now, as people tend to do when they doubt the intellect of the person listening. “Montana and Wyoming haven’t checked in lately, so Ted just assumes they’re out. I think the Dakotas have been out since last week. Hawaii’s been flooded for about a year, and everyone kind of forgets about Alaska.” She stops to think. “Oh, and California, of course. They were the first to go—always a little extra—but Ted says not to worry about them because the ocean will eventually swallow them just like it did Hawaii.”
“Because sea levels are rising?” I need to clarify. My mind pictures a strange version of Pinocchio in which California gets swallowed for being a naughty girl.
“Sea levels aren’t rising. Ted says the ocean is just getting hungry. He gave a Ted Talk about it.”
My stomach snarls at the word “hungry.” I’m suddenly lightheaded and clutch the counter for stability.
“Ma’am, you don’t look so good.” The cashier grabs my arm. “Ma’am?”
“I think I just need some food. Can I please order something? I’m about to pass out.”
“But…the gym receipt.”
I lower my head onto the counter, convinced that I am about to double-die of starvation on the floor of an M’s Burger Joint in the Mostly United States of America in the seventh year of Our Lord Ted, which is maybe-definitely also hell.
“How much for just the burger?” I mutter.
“Three hundred sit-ups.”
“Can I just skip the gym and do them here?” I take a breath to shake black spots off my vision.
“Um… sure,” the cashier replies without confidence. At this point, she’s aching to be rid of me and has conceded that this may be the fastest option. “As long as the customer doesn’t mind.” She gestures to the man in the booth, crumpling up his last wrapper and tossing it on the pile.
“Oh, no, I don’t mind,” he says, stretching his arms across the back of the booth. “I’m all for women’s health.” His body relaxes against the backrest, eyes fix on me.
I pull my jeans up off my hip bones as I lower myself to the floor. How much weight did I lose in the hospital? I flatten my back, bend my knees, take a breath.
“One…” I begin to count as I force my body upward. “Two…”
Each curl takes every effort. I stop several times to breathe, the black spots floating through my vision like bats flapping across my retinas. When I reach eleven, the room starts to spin. I click my heels, wish myself to California.
The man in the window booth giggles, “C’mon now, sweetie, you’ve got to work for it,” but he is small and far away, the tail end of a dream.
Heat drains from my limbs into the slick tile under me. My vision circles a single square of ceiling, then sinks toward deep dark.
The man speaks again. His voice arrives as if through a distant pipeline.
“Hey, honey, why the long face? Gimme a little smile. It’ll make you feel better.”
If he says more, I don’t hear. My ears have resigned, gone somewhere beyond sound, beyond body maybe, except—smell. Smell is last to surrender, and, for a second, I am an island of ground beef and disinfectant.
The brain begs—signal help!—but the processor is not processing. The processor is swimming out of this body, abandoning ship, diving toward the hungry mouth of something not unlike the sea.
Editor’s Note
*This is the author’s first story publication.
Jennifer Gann’s “Dying For a Burger in the Mostly United States of America, or Possibly, Hell” has a great voice. The dark humor and sarcasm come to life in the interiority of the narrator–a good example of how to reveal character traits without simply stating them. Lines like “I’m confused, but I’ve always been afflicted with rule-following” and “My stomach turns itself over to take inventory, reports back with a squiggly sound: I’m starving” show us the character’s personality by way of her thoughts.
If done well, interiority can teach us all about a character without the author ever needing to (over)explain. By the end of Gann’s story, we have a pretty good idea of how this character thinks and how she might react in other situations. That’s the power of interiority and voice.
Josh Boldt, Editor
Story Track
If Jennifer Gann’s “Dying For a Burger in the Mostly United States of America, or Possibly, Hell” were a short film I could hear Pomplamoose’s cover of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” playing as the credits roll. Something about the tongue-in-cheek description of humanity’s breakdown accompanied by the song’s polished melody makes it an apt soundtrack for Gann’s dystopic landscape. Some day soon, when you’re doing sit-ups in a fast food restaurant to earn the right to eat a hamburger, take a second to look around, to wonder how we got here, and then ask yourself do you feel…fine?