Even the most well-meaning of laws can have unfortunate consequences; and few would argue the intent of legislation designed to feed the needy. In fact, the law itself was probably unnecessary; with so many hungry, throwing away food was more than illegal, it was just bad public relations. This is not to say, however, that the rule was universally popular. Every night, after the last paying customers had departed with their grease-stained packages of guilt and greed, the desperate and the simply opportunistic would gather behind closing fast food franchises, eager for the cold pucks of leftover burgers, cheese cementing them into a single texture, buns and meat indiscriminate; for French fries, shrunken into themselves like corpse fingers; and for the crystallized grit of ersatz milkshakes.
For some of the grill and counter workers at such establishments, it was the final burden in a day’s work that left them exhausted, humiliated, and carrying the stink of signature foodstuffs in their hair and on their clothes and skin. The recipients of these handouts were not grateful, for the most part; usually indifferent in their personal hygiene and bathroom habits; and occasionally (though more often in legend than fact) dangerous.
A law, however, is only as good as its details, and so, at one particular mid-western city outlet of a lackluster and struggling Burrito’n’Bun franchise, newly-promoted manager Bob Robertson (he encouraged his staff to call him Bob-two, or Bob-squared, but a nickname can seldom be conferred, and the things they called him behind his back were more likely to reflect his ill-humor or his weight), decided to see if the letter of the legislation could circumvent its intent.
The franchise owner had, at some optimistic point in the past, obtained a 30-quart commercial mixer from an online used-restaurant equipment outlet. Nicknamed “the Beast” for its hulking chrome-steeled weight as much as for the shark-jawed vegetable slicer that hung above the mixing bowl, the device had perhaps represented a dream of heavier customer volume than any of the Burrito’n’Bun stores had ever achieved, and had lurked ominously in a cluttered closet for years, slowly disappearing beneath the detritus of everyday business.
After a particularly difficult closing (which featured, among other horrors, an erstwhile recipient of leftover charity relieving his bowels both loudly and loosely in the parking lot), Bob ordered the Beast disinterred and readied for duty. The following evening, after the drive-through windows were shut and locked and the stuttering microphone on the order board clicked off, he turned to his assistant manager Su Yeung and, with an air of Trumpian command, pointed to the monstrous machine.
“Put the leftovers in there,” he said. “Mix ‘em up.”
“Everything?” she replied with a weary horror. “Even the fried pies?” Su was older than Bob, as delicate as he was gross. In her early thirties, she was the franchise’s most experienced employee, and had an immigrant’s willingness to work hard and follow orders tempered by the decency of someone who has seen real suffering rather than merely what passed for it in Bob’s world. She probably should have been promoted to manager herself, but her superiors had transferred Robertson in instead, with the casual and cautious discrimination typical of failing businesses.
“Every last scrap,” Bob said, with a fanatic’s gleam in his eye. “I think I’ll call it ‘Ambrosia.’”
There was some grumbling about the extra work, of course, but the chore was a new one, and that gave it some little appeal. How many fast-food workers does it take to assemble an industrial-scale mixer-chopper and bring it to life? The answer, of course, is all of them; confused by Bob’s barked commands of inspired leadership and guided by Su Yeung’s quiet nudges toward efficiency. Through the chopper and into the bowl went burgers and burritos, fried pies and stiffened pizza slices, fish sandwiches and fries. Poured atop them were clotted milkshakes in three flavors, milk past its expiration date, and the scrapings from the plastic condiment containers.
