A McDonald's Encounter

I always find people to talk to at McDonald’s. This is why I like to go alone. If I go with someone else, I can’t venture out as I want.

            The McDonald’s in West Los Angeles is as busy as ever. I sit at a little  table and sip diet Coke. Across from me is a Chicano eating a large breakfast. We smile at each other. Then, to my right I see a man sitting with a full cup of coffee and a folded newspaper.

            “Hello,” I say.

            “Hello.” Immediately I see he wants to talk.

            “What do you do?” I ask. The question pops out of my mouth. He’s as old as I am and must be retired.

            “I don’t know what to do,” he says.

            I understand what he means. One has to be involved to live life. Otherwise one lives non-life. “There are so many things to do,” I say.

            “Like what?’

            I think a moment. “You could go to school. Take a class.”

            “I’ve thought about that,” he says. He has already decided not to. Too many courses to choose from.

            “You could go into spirituality.”

            “I don’t know how to do that.”

            “It doesn’t take knowledge,” I say. “Just pray.”

            “Hmmmm.”

            “Well,” I say, “you can volunteer at a home and help people.”

            He looks directly into my eyes.

            “I don’t want to do that, either,” I say.

            “If I don’t know what to do, why would I go join a group that doesn’t know?”

            Not a good attitude, I think. “I know,” I say, “you can write something. Or do some kind of art like painting or singing.”

            “Yes,” he says. “I could.” He clearly won’t.

            There’s just so much to do,” I say. “But we don’t have to do anything if we don’t want to.”

            “I just don’t know what to do,” he says, his lips quivering.

            I see that he means this in a profound sense. He nor I nor anyone knows what to do. The thought unsettles me. We don’t have purpose like spoons do. We’re like running water. The action is what we do, like volume on the TV.

            Suddenly, I don’t want to help him. What he is looking for startles me. A little bit of me senses that if I talked to him too long, I would end up sitting beside him at the little table, asking the same question. What do I want to do?

            “Want” is the problem here. I’d rather just ask myself, “What are you doing?” Maybe even that’s too much at 70.

All Rights Reserved James P. White 2012 (No part of this work may be reproduced in any way, except for reviews and blog excerpts, without the express permission of the author)

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