The Story of My Ex and His Cheeseburger

by The Beheld

I called him when I got out of the subway at Union Square, like I said I’d do. He picked up and told me he was at the McDonald’s on Sixth Avenue. We were not McDonald’s people; on all of our road trips, no matter how isolated or hungry we were, we never stopped at McDonald’s. Taco Bell, maybe, but not McDonald’s, for all of the reasons not-McDonald’s people avoid McDonald’s.

But I figured maybe he was using the bathroom, or had an irrepressible urge for fries, so I met him there. He was sitting at a two-person table by himself, eating a cheeseburger. He was a vegetarian.

“Why are you eating a cheeseburger?” He shrugged and grunted, and I could tell he was in one of his moods. One of his “artist moods,” as he called them. I didn’t push it.

A few months later we were farther up Sixth Avenue — we’d spent the day at MoMA — and I got one of my irrepressible urges for a Schlotzky’s turkey sandwich. The particular sodium-laden flavor of the turkey, the buttery blandness of the bread — I knew I could get a better meal from a street cart, but sometimes you want a particular taste, even if it’s not a terribly good one, and I’ve learned not to fight these urges.

“Schlotzsky’s?” He sighed. “Schlotzsky’s … it’s a place my parents would go. It’s a place for a mall.”

“I know, I know — but come on, it’ll be fun. And I want their turkey sandwich.”

“If you really want to go … fine … but I’m not going in there with you.”

“Wait. Remember when we met up at McDonald’s that night? That was McDonald’s. Why can you have McDonald’s and I can’t have my sandwich?”

He rolled his eyes. “Autumn, that was conceptual.”

Autumn Whitefield-Madrano writes The Beheld.

Illustration by Lisa Ferber.