Neighborhood Scene, America

A very short vignette. Overheard in McDonalds.

Neighborhood Scene, America, 2004


A man in his late 50s with neck length grey and
black hair is holding a baby and talking to a
young girl in her early 20s. The girl is very overweight. She is his daughter. He tells her he
has $20 until Saturday. Today is Tuesday.

He is talking about his loss of visitation rights in his recent divorce. She is telling him she is broke, and that her "old man" has no money. It is
snowing. The father wants to help her, he ex-plains, but cannot.

As he laughs, playing with the baby, he suddenly catches himself, and his mouth turns down in a kind of sadness as though he were thinking to himself,"I have 'L-O-S-E-R'" stamped on
my forehead." As she drinks from her third chocolate milkshake, he almost frowns at her and says: "You know you are overweight...".

"Stop!" she says to him. "I'm trying to diet..."
She is shouting loudly now. Her father's eyes well with tears as he pats the blanketed baby. Overhead an old Herb Alpert song plays, "What Now My Love." When they rise, he hands her the baby.

The hard, plastic lemon-yellow seats of McDonald's reflect a cold, sparse daylight. They walk out. It is snowing
harder and harder.

After they leave, a young, black, teenaged bus boy silently sips the mother's unfinished milkshake.