NEW FICTION

(image c/o usatoday)

a short story by K. Wenclas

“ARE YOU SURE people won’t recognize us?” Taylor’s boyfriend– nicknamed Big T– said to her in whispered tones as they sat in a McDonald’s chowing down on Big Macs and vanilla shakes.

Neither had actually sat inside a Mickey D’s in over a decade. Even drive-thru orders were scary, especially for Taylor, who’d be mobbed by hordes of fans within minutes of word getting out that her customized Mercedes Viano MPV or her Ferrari 458 Italia V10 was in line.

Today they were both dressed in shabby plaid green-and-blue lumberjack shirts with grimy jeans, with gray woolen caps on their heads, and for some crazy reason, large sunglasses with white frames, Audrey Hepburn style.

Rather than incognito, they looked more like circus clowns. With backs turned, however, they were off-putting, especially Big T because of his size. 

Big T had an order of seven Big Macs and three large milk shakes in front of him. Making up for lost time.

Meanwhile, cashiers and workers behind the Mickey D counter whispered among themselves.

“That couldn’t possibly be. Could it be?”

“No way. Those two are bums.”

“I think that’s them,” a third worker said. “I’m texting my frens.” 

Big T was telling Taylor his frustrations at Too Much Fame.

“Too much publicity!” he said, his voice rising, Taylor beneath her giant sunglasses looking concerned. “And none of it for me! My play on the field in fact has gone to shit this season. I’m stumbling around because I’m getting no sleep, reporters and podcasters are everywhere and I can’t think of anything, babe, but YOU. On stage. Getting all the attention while we lose games, Kermit’s getting fat and all my hopes of being a first ballot Hall of Fame player have gone down the toilet. My play has become CRAP!”

With that he pounded the table they sat at, hard, milk shakes and hamburgers flying, three sleeping homeless people in the restaurant jolted awake.

Simultaneously a crowd gathered outside the McDonald’s, faces gaping at the window. “Is that Taylor? We want Taylor!”

Soon a chant began.

“WE WANT TAYLOR! WE WANT TAYLOR!!”

“Call the bodyguards!” Big T said, reaching in his pocket for his own phone which fell on the floor and slid away from him like a fumbled football, Taylor calmly touching buttons on her own.

“GOT IT!” Big T yelled, sprawling across the hard tiled floor while a phalanx of husky black-clad bodyguards in sunglasses charged toward the restaurant entrance from a waiting limousine, which hundreds of crazed fans had got hold of and began rocking side-to-side as if to overturn it.

While the McDonald’s employees paused what they were doing to watch, the first break they’d had in their slave wage assembly line job for hours.

-Karl Wenclas