The King

This guy is truly creepy. I used to work for him, way back in the day, thirty-something years ago. He’s been around for roughly twice that long, peddling burgers since 1953 when he started as Insta-Burger King in Jacksonville, Florida (the largest city, area-wise, in the continental United States).

Back in the day, I worked graveyard shift, seven to one weeknights, which likely did nothing to help my struggling grades during 11th grade. I went to work every day wearing that stupid brown and orange nylon fire-retardant pullover shirt that soaked up grease and picke juice like there was no get out, and on break Rick and I would go out behind the dumpsters and do a toke or two or seven and then go in and fix Whoppers and Steak Sandwiches and Filets-o-Fish (I’m still sorry about the mix-up on the “plain” steak sandwich, Carol, but I was moderately wrecked that day).

I miss the cool chain-link merry-go-round on which the frozen hamburger patties rode to achieve that flame-broiled taste, and I still have a respectable grease burn on my right palm from cleaning the oven hood too soon after close. And I’m quite certain there’s a mold colony the size of an alien mothership that has consumed most of the crawl space above the ceiling of the old BK site from where Rick left an open plastic jar of mayonnaise, in retaliation against Jerry the Store Manager for firing that hot Latvian chick when her cash drawer came up short one too many times.

Anyway, the burgers are still good, even though the fries now suck since they changed the deep-fryers to healthy oil after too many complaints from the world’s do-gooders.

And while some of you might refer to him as The King, he’s really not. There’s only one King, and unlike the grinning fellow up above, the real King is dead, having fallen off a toilet seat after one too many Happy Meals and one too many downers. Despite this, we still love you Elvis. You were only human after all.