Fast Food Jockey

I’m not sure if anyone ever really knew Eunice’s story. I know I didn’t—not until it was too late.

Before she came to work at Burger Heaven, Eunice had lived more life than most people ever will. My friend, Tammy, wanted the job, and trust me, I wanted Tammy to work there. She’s got the kind of looks that any 19-year-old guy—and a few of the girls—wouldn’t mind brushing past in the kitchen. Sadly though, in my job as assistant manager, I could fire people, but I didn’t get to make the hiring decisions. So instead of 18-year-old Tammy, we got 74-year-old Eunice.

I had no idea, that first day, just what an impact she would have on me, how my actions—and hers—would collide. I never knew her story because, frankly, I never cared to ask.

Eunice was born on Christmas night in 1935, in a barn in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her first crib was literally a manger, though it was anything but holy. Her mother, on the run after shooting her father, had gone into labor on the train from Pittsburgh and left Eunice in that barn before disappearing into the night. The farmer who found her the next morning was struggling through the Depression and couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, so he took her to the hospital, where she was nursed back to health before being sent to the county orphanage.

In 1936, only the prettiest and brightest kids at the orphanage found homes, and Eunice was neither. She spent nearly ten years there, bullied by the bigger kids who never missed a chance to tell her she was too ugly to be adopted. In 1946, during her tenth year, a man named John Tarrington came to the orphanage looking for a girl to help him keep house. He’d lost his right hand in the war, and his wife had recently died of polio. “Cinder-Eunice” (not affectionately) was the only girl old enough to keep house, so by default, she finally found a home. But the orphanage would prove to be heaven compared to what was waiting.

Tarrington wasn’t just an abusive drunk; he was a child molester, too. To him, it didn’t matter what Eunice looked like. All that mattered was that she was his. When she was 14, she became pregnant with his child. She hid it until her body gave her away. Her fears were well-founded: when John noticed her belly, he punched her in it with all his strength, causing her to hemorrhage and her unborn child to die. “I’m clumsy. I fell down the stairs,” she’d told the doctor. She dared not tell the truth. Tarrington had whispered the consequences in her ear if she “opened her ugly face hole.” She never told a soul—not even her god, whom she must have thought was dead.

At 18, Eunice, who had never been allowed to touch money, went to prison for tax evasion. Tarrington fingered her as his accomplice to lessen his time. She got five years. He got three. The first time she held money was the day she was released, when the guards put $85.75 in her hand, her prison earnings from five years of washing pots and pans. John picked her up from jail, took her money, calling it “rent,” and promptly took her home and raped her. He made it clear that if she ever tried to leave, he’d hunt her down and kill her. She believed him. So she never tried, though she often fantasized about killing him while he slept. But she never had the guts.

When she was 25, he took her to Texas, where nobody knew them, and claimed her as his wife, despite the lack of a marriage certificate. She tried to tell the police once, at 27, but they laughed her off and drove her home. In 1963, a woman with fresh bruises was commonplace, and “Mrs. Tarrington” was “just another bitchy women’s libber trying to get back at her man instead of learning the lesson he’d obviously tried to teach her.” They made it clear that “a woman who looked like her was lucky to have any man at all.” So she went home to her “husband” and did her best not to tick him off, though it rarely mattered. The next time she called the police, she was 39, and her “husband” was dead from a heart attack. Eunice Tarrington was, for the first time in her life, alone.

John Tarrington hadn’t owned a home, and she didn’t have a job. His life savings amounted to $473.42, barely enough to cover rent and bills past due. Eunice could have taken the money and skipped town (though she had nowhere to go), but she didn’t. She paid the bills and found a job cleaning houses, the only work she knew. When she ran out of food and money five days before her first paycheck, she didn’t ask for help, fearing it might anger her employers. She didn’t dare steal from them, either. What was theirs wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t right to take it. She just knew. She never complained. She simply worked until payday, and then, to celebrate, feasted on Top Ramen and wieners. The wieners, she thought, were extravagant, but she promised herself to work harder to “pay them off.” She worked hard for the next 14 years, never offered a raise, and never asking for one. She didn’t know her worth and felt lucky to be paid at all.

Eunice’s first time at McDonald’s was in her 53rd year. Her employer had died, and she was back looking for work. It never occurred to her that she could earn as much as “minimum wage” (something Eunice figured applied to other folks, but not her). McDonald’s was too much to hope for. They advertised 65 cents more per hour than her previous employer, plus they said you could eat a meal for free with every shift. Eunice didn’t trust the offer of food, figuring it was a test of her honesty, and she was certain she wasn’t qualified for such a lofty position. On a lark, she applied. When she was hired, she whooped for joy like she’d won the lottery and threw herself into the work. At first, she didn’t take the “free” meals, assuming they were meant for other sorts of people. Even when her boss insisted, she simply took a child’s-size hamburger and a small coffee with no cream or sugar. Sometimes she chose fries instead but never all together. She didn’t want to take advantage of her employer, didn’t want to put them out. Anytime she indulged in an apple pie or milkshake, usually only on her birthday, she made sure to leave 35 cents in the drawer when nobody was looking. Despite her early life, Eunice felt very lucky.

In her tenth year at McDonald’s, when Eunice was 63, she met Warren Thomas on the bus to work. Warren wasn’t handsome—not by a long shot. He worked at the zoo, picking up after visitors who couldn’t toss their garbage in the cans. While Eunice spent her days in her fast-food uniform wiping salt and ketchup from tables, Warren spent his days with a stick and a garbage sack. He’d done the same work for 38 years, earning a full $4.00 more than minimum wage. Once per year, on his birthday, he rewarded himself with a new green baseball cap emblazoned with the words “Gladys Porter Zoo.”

One day, after ten years of riding the same bus, Eunice finally noticed his latest hat and got up the nerve to speak.

“A new hat?” she asked, raising her eyes just enough so he’d know she meant him.

Warren’s smile broadened, his voice just as nervous. “It’s my birthday.”

“You had a new hat last year, too.”

“Yes,” he replied, his face turning a bit pink. “Some of the other fellas get them all the time. I’m not too fussy. Once per year is fine by me.”

Eunice understood. “Happy Birthday,” she said.

“I’ve made it 67 years. Who knew I’d still be kicking?” he said.

“I know the feeling,” Eunice replied.

From that point forward, they exchanged hellos and goodbyes, and now and again, a conversation. No one was more surprised than Eunice when Warren asked her on a date, and likewise, no one was more surprised than Eunice when she heard herself say, “Yes. I’d like that.”

That weekend, she wore makeup for the first time, just for the occasion, and a fancy dress she’d found for $1.00 at Goodwill. Warren wore a gray hound’s-tooth coat, a tie, and freshly shined loafers. He apologized for arriving without flowers, though it had never occurred to Eunice that he might.

On their seventh date, he kissed her, and on their eleventh, he proposed. They had a private wedding at the courthouse, dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant, and Eunice went on to her night shift. That night, Eunice Thomas, for the first time ever, went home to her husband, to a new apartment they’d chosen together, perfectly situated between the zoo and McDonald’s. She was, for the first time, happy. Warren was moody at times, but he seldom raised his voice and never hit her. Eunice began to heal, to understand that she was valuable, and even got up the nerve to ask her boss for a raise—twice, both times granted.

They spent seven good years together, until last spring when Eunice came home from work and found Warren sitting in his chair, unable to move or talk. It was a stroke.

She spent the next five months at the hospital or at home, caring for him whenever she wasn’t at work. When he died, she was lost. His life insurance helped her keep up with the bills, but eventually, it ran out. That’s how she ended up at Burger Heaven, working the early morning shifts.

I didn’t know any of this about her when she came to work. I didn’t care. I didn’t know how much that second job meant to her when I made up the story about her stealing to cover myself. I didn’t know what she’d gone through when I yelled at her or when I fired her yesterday—so Tammy could take her place. I didn’t know what it meant to Eunice to never go backward again. I didn’t know my actions had real consequences.

This morning, when she came for her last check, I was shocked when she opened her mouth and told me her story, begging for her job. “I’m sorry,” I lied. “The job’s already filled. Besides, give me a break, lady. It’s not my fault you put up with crap your whole life. We all have issues. Most of us have the sack to fight for what we want. Take your check and go. Don’t you get it? Nobody wants you here.”

Eunice didn’t go. She’d had enough. Instead, she pulled out a gun and emptied it into my head. Then, calm as anything, she reloaded and turned it on herself.

With death comes the wisdom we never had in life. It’s too late for me. Too late for Eunice.

By tonight, her name will be all over the news, forever synonymous with “monster.” People who never cared will know her name. They’ll wonder what kind of lunatic does such a thing. “And to such a nice boy” they’ll say of me. Now I know.