JAMES SULLIVAN is the author of Harboring (ELJ Editions). His stories and essays have appeared in Cimarron Review, New Ohio Review, Third Coast, Fourth Genre, The Normal School, and Fourteen Hills among other publications. Originally from South Dakota, he split his adult life between Japan and the American Midwest and now resides in South Carolina. Connect on socials @jfsullivan4th.

2021 was the Year of Burgers.

In 2021, I rose to eat burgers, and burgers kept me going.

Hamburgers. Cheeseburgers. Bacon cheeseburgers. The Whopper. The Big Mac. White Castle. The Butter Burger. Smash burgers. Hamburg steak. Juicy Lucy. Patty melts. Just to stick it to the CDC, once in a while, when I was sure the beef was fresh and I’d dulled my qualms with enough liquor, I’d bend the definition of a burger and feast on a cannibal sandwich. There’s nothing else like that cold, fatty beef taste with the crisp bite of raw onion! On days I had enough go-get-’em to wash my hair and get playful, I might even try a ramen burger or a Luther burger on a Dunkin’ Donut. One cloudy day, I drove to an A&W to float my mood with a Papa Burger. They had the whole Burger Family represented in cartoon mascots on the side of the highway. Per my instructions, the kind workers whipped-up the Canada-exclusive Teen Burger. God bless!

I read once that fast food chains refer in internal memos to frequent customers as “heavy users.” I was the heaviest user of all.

“Mobile order for Viv!” I’d say to the intercom. Pull up to the second window, they’d tell me, and I loved the perplexed look you’d sometimes see on the face of the register worker on window one as I slid by. Sometimes, they’d try to stop me as if I were trying to drive-and-dash. Silly part-timer—don’t you know it’s me, Vivian, the heavy user? The Burger Queen of 2021?

It wasn’t all fast food, though. Delicious as those breakfast menus can be, they were not burgers, and you couldn’t bank on them serving you a proper one before 11 a.m.

With part of my stimulus check, I bought a stovetop griddle big enough to fry a boogie board. I got it so I could maintain my burger regimen even first thing in the morning when Ronald and The King were serving only biscuit and muffin sandwiches. Sometimes, standing in front of that vast culinary canvas, I felt like I’d become a line cook. Funny to have become so employed, considering I’d done everything I could to get online gigs and avoid any in-person work. Viral loads and plastic guards and surgical masks forcing my breath against me. Much better to start the morning with a fist full of thawed ground beef slapped on a hot sheet of steel. And the grease on my fingers was one more reason to disregard the Microsoft Outlook email chime and just veg out.

When I got burgers to go, I’d eat the standard side fries. For home cooking, I took my time selecting a variety of ingredients and balancing my beefy diet with a side salad or at least oven-baked potato wedges with cayenne pepper. You had to mix it up, or you’d go a little crazy. I’d dart around the supermarket grabbing burger supplies, ignoring the directional arrows stickered on the floor to herd customers like cattle. If a butcher was working, sometimes I’d have them mix in different types and quantities of fat. They seemed to enjoy the change of pace, though sometimes customers—lingering about six feet back—would get impatient.

“Virus ass bitch,” a man cursed me once, on account of my straight, black hair and, I suppose, the eyes above my surgical mask. I half expected him to spit. If only he could taste the burger I would cook for dinner, I thought, he wouldn’t blame me! My parents worked factory jobs in the Midwest and had yanked me out of the PRC when I was a kid. Granted, they had no love for burgers themselves, but I was all about Fourth of July grill cuisine. “No MSG, sir. It’s a free country,” is all I said before whipping past him to the specialty cheeses that would soon melt over my latest solitary hamburger masterpiece.

In my fridge, in addition to tomato, lettuce, half-used onion, and a cornucopia of sauces I’d blend, I had packs and wedges of every kind of cheese you might want on a burger. Still, it was hard to beat those Kraft singles, their “cheese product” phosphorescent orange an object of mockery for the sophisticates of Europe and the American coasts, yet their magic unparalleled. They waited like delicious ruins of a cheesy civilization to melt over my beef.

I’d sizzle these burgers up, grease stinging my arms and speckling the whole countertop. Anything for just the right crispy sear. Some days, talking to myself for fun, I’d curse local politicians and authorities as I slapped the patties down and smashed them into the heat. “To Gitmo with you, Governor W! How’s this for a lab specimen, Dr. Y!?” You really start saying these things out loud to yourself when you spend so much time alone indoors. Who’d a thunk!

Then, I’d set a place for myself at my little coffee table. Pour a glass of tea. Savor my intricately crafted burger. It’s a shame how many people eat burgers in their cars, barely noticing what they’re stuffing in their mouths. A nice, quiet meal where you can focus on the umami flavors, hear the crunch of vegetables, taste the culinary waltz of juices and sauce. That's where it’s at. If the silence was too much to bear, I’d put on a podcast or YouTube on the Roku. Otherwise, I’d start to imagine visitors. Like maybe Simon would swing by, having journeyed across states, wanting to reverse our amicable breakup. Or an old college friend might look me up out of the blue, a sympathy pop-in for a collapsed career. Well, maybe next year, next career. Then I’d get a feeling like my mother might swing by to scold me for putting on weight. “You’re like a cow,” she’d say in my mind, pinching the slightest excess on my hip. When we’d moved to the little town where they still lived, there was a big cow statue painted in red, white, and blue. Its placard said, “Cow Capital of the USA!” The cào capital? “The Fuck Capital of the USA!” My parents never understood why I cackled like a maniac on that road. But maybe now, with everything turned on its head, they’d get the pun, show up at my door with smiles and no judgments, and we’d savor three perfect American burgers together.

But nobody ever showed up at my front door. So, why not let the juices run down my chin?


All through the “Winter of Death'' and into Spring and Summer, I chomped away at burgers. It felt like a tiny rebellion. A secret opulence all my own. I’d fantasize about authoritarian agents coming to seize my ingredients: “It looks like you’re fattening up nicely, comrade Lin. Where’s the beef?!” Maybe I’d better prepare enough for a SWAT team, I’d think. Then I’d mash a whole 5-lb tube of ground beef into the shape of a boogie board and flip it like pizza dough. Slap the surfer patty on the griddle, sprinkle kosher salt like that Salt Dude in the meme. Breathe in those wafting beefy aromas as if they might purify my soul. As if this frying burger were not just a meal but a funeral pyre, mourning the days of 2021. 


When the phone rang, I was staring at my ceiling, spaced out in a podcast I didn’t care about. A text? A notification? But the buzzing continued: a call. Something I hadn’t heard in so long I was sure it had to be on the TV. That happened all the time—you could almost feel the vibration in your own pocket. 
 But there it was. A call on my IRL phone vibrating absolutely against my IRL table. Whenever I did get a call, it was almost certainly spam, so I rarely picked up. But the tone of this vibration felt different somehow, more urgent. I found myself phone in hand, answering in silence.

“Um, hello? Is this Vivian?” male voice said.

“Ah, yes.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you’d heard from Simon. I can’t get in touch with him.”

“We actually broke up. Start of 2020. Haven’t spoken since.” It was actually New Year’s Eve 2019. Short sentences and time-saving truth fuzzing. My voice didn’t sound like mine, but it was the one I’d adopted when I had to talk these days. Scarecrow Vivian. Flock off, birds!

“Yeah, I heard,” he said. “Sorry, I just thought you were close. Maybe you’d heard something.”

“We actually weren’t that close.” He’d been my best friend. It’s just that neither of us, once we got up to the line, had a long-distance struggle in us. We didn’t know then that my new job would be immediately axed once the virus was loose. And once it was, it was as if the way back had collapsed behind us. Maybe I couldn't stomach moving back in with my parents. There’d be no burger freedom there. Maybe it was just pride. It was as if that previous story of the two of us had simply been an entirely different production. We, the actors of our lives, had taken new roles. That love was never even us.

“I see…” he said, sounding a little skeptical.

“I’m sorry, but I’m cooking a burger right now,” I said and heard immediately more strain in my voice than I’d intended to convey. Nobody sounded that emotional over a burger.

“Excuse me?”

“The burger. It’s kind of a delicate operation. Undercook and you might get E. Coli,” I said, imaginary flame igniting under my huge skillet, imaginary beef splatting down hot, imaginary seasoning sprinkling over the non-existent patty. “Or Mad Cow.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but don’t you remember me?”

“Overcook and then it’s like chewing a boogie board.” I had the vague sense I knew this guy’s voice from somewhere. A friend of Simon’s, clearly, maybe one we’d double-dated with or, is it possible? Maybe we’d gotten fast food and eaten in the park one sunny summer day. A scene out of an earlier film, though, his role a forgettable one.

“You’re just making burgers? At home? For yourself?”

“Aside from restaurants, I make more burgers than anyone on earth.”

He chewed on that boogie board for a while as I waited for my imaginary burger to cook through.

“Look, close or not, I’m worried about Simon. This is my fault, but I got him into some drugs, help get through these weird days. I just haven’t heard from him in a while, and I don’t know how he’s doing.”

“Drugs?” I tried to picture Simon stoned out alone. Paranoid and snarfing Cheetos. But before long, the image was crowded out by visions of burgers.

“Just some cannabis derivatives. Unregulated. Not that bad but you know, you lean on something like that too long, it can make your head spin. You lean, but then you fall in, and the thing holding you up swallows you.”

“Maybe you can call back another time. I really can’t talk right now. The burger will be ruined.”

“He’s not at the address I know, and nobody answers at his number.”

“If only I weren’t just at medium rare,” I said, my voice trailing as if I were going to finish a thought, say something sensible or offer a clue. I feel bad, looking back on this call. But I was very hungry even if the burger was a lie. No matter how hungry I felt, no matter how badly it hurt, for some reason I can’t explain, it seemed very important that I hold onto that hunger. I couldn’t go letting other people get tangled up in it and spoil my appetite, even if it meant suffering alone.

“All right,” he said after a minute. “Bye. I hope the burger is good.” 

“Bye,” I said, and just before hitting the red button, I decided to add, “Let me know if you hear something.”

When I hung up the phone, the podcast had ended, and YouTube auto-played the next one. Some guy in a funeral-black suit talking in monotone about AI and transhuman evolution. My appetite for burgers gone—for the moment—I lay down again and resumed my trance.


I never heard back from Simon and our supporting actor. That film indeed was a wrap. I regretted a little not being more forthright with him, but the truth was embarrassing. I really didn’t know how to contact Simon. His social media had gone silent months and months ago. For all I knew, he was dead, another one of those ODs you kept hearing about. Or maybe he’d gotten married, had a baby girl, deleted social media apps from his phone and become a happy, resilient person who’d emerge from this pandemic cocoon stronger and better without me and my burgers.

Once, on a rare occasion when the burgers didn’t fill me as much as I craved, I drunk-texted his old number. New phone, who’s this? No Simon here and a shrug emoji were all I got back.

Did you know you can get McDonald’s delivered now? Even drunk and beside yourself, you can get a Happy Meal. Cheeseburger, a little paper bag of fries, sugary Coca-Cola. A smile on the box and Pokémon cards inside.


  

Volume 15.2  ✧  Summer 25

James Sullivan

The Year Of Burgers

After Haruki Murakami

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