Chilly Willy

I just realized I never posted this. The following occurred a little over two months ago.

My sister recently visited a doctor’s office in Charlotte. Being the only one with a working car at the time, I offered to drive her to her appointment. My mom was along, as well, and when Ariel went in and the practitioner said it would take a little while, we went out in search of brunch. Luckily, the McDonald’s up the road was still serving breakfast, even at 10:48AM. We each ordered a breakfast burrito.

“Sauce?”

“Yes, may I please have some syrup?”

The lady behind the counter looked simultaneously confused and incredulous, as though her face was trying to decide first whether to believe me, and second whether, had I been honest about wanting syrup, it was really a very delectable idea.

“I get that every time. Trust me, it’s good. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

I took our tray, my syrup, and proceeded to an empty table for two. Mom retrieved her coffee and I took my empty cup to fill it with sweet tea. Then I returned to our table and took my seat across from my mother.

I opened the wrapper around my burrito and began to peel back the cover on my syrup. She raised her eyebrows.

“What? Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it,” I insisted to the same expression I had just seen at the counter.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” she assured me. I wasn’t sure if I believed her, but I was hungry and didn’t care much.

A McDonald’s associate, who seemed to be a twenty-something Chicano woman, swept by us with her broom and dust-pan, smiling and gracefully cleaning the floor without disturbing anyone.

Enter Chilly Willy. I turned around to look in the direction the sweeping associate had gone and noticed that an old, unkempt man who looked to be in his late fifties had plopped down at a table for four, firmly planting his chicken nuggets and cup of soda on the surface. Not thirty seconds after opening his nugget-package, he addressed the hostess, “Do you have to do that now? Do you have to do that here, around me? You’re gettin’ all of your fucking dirt up on my food! They only give you four nuggets to start out with, what a rip-off…”

I raised an eyebrow at mom, mouthing the words, “What the HELL?” but she had no idea, either.

The old man with the gray, scraggly hair trailed off. He sported a few scattered (but curiously neat) braids in his shoulder-length storm-cloud gray hair. He was probably about six feet tall, but he seemed very relaxed in his McDonald’s chair, bent and sort of spilling over the table as though he was drunk.

Slowly the Mickey-Dee’s filled. Early lunchers showed up. Construction workers, painters, a dad and his little boy. The father and son took a seat in the booth behind us. As the old man raised his voice brashly berating the hostess, peppering his admonitions with expletives, we commented on his proximity to the toddler. We had no intention of engaging the old geezer in conversation.

“Thank God I got a mo-TEL room and three hundred bucks. Sweep your trash, I don’t give a shit! Just don’t sweep around me and mah food.” At first I was perplexed by his audacity, but now I was growing more and more certain that his righteous indignation came from one of two pools of ultimate self-confidence: insanity or a glass bottle.

The dad pulled his young son onto his lap and put him nearer the window, away from the old man.

The hostess swept around him, pretending not to notice, even as he stopped chiding her for a moment to say, “Ooh, you’re a pretty Mexican lady… cool cat! Chilly Willy, look out!” He had a southern drawl and an interesting cadence to his speech pattern. His voice was gruff, and it made for a really cool contrast. Not that I would want to emulate the guy in any way, shape, or form. But it does almost explain the compulsion to sit and listen to him go off like a misfiring AK-47 found in the dumpster.

Once she made it around the old man’s table and back to the front of the store, I watched as she exchanged a few words with a manager at the front. My guess was that she was complaining and the manager was debating whether or not to call the police. Since Chilly Willy stuck around, I figured they decided not to make the call.

We tried to ignore him and focus on our burritos – at first. I began preparing my breakfast, unwrapping my burrito to drizzle syrup over its contents, then reclosing the shell so I could enjoy my wonderful sweet-and-savory creation. Syrup, I assured my mother, would be delicious on the burrito. She finally caved, admitting that she will try almost anything once. Especially in food land. So she poured some into her first bite. The sweet syrup mixed with the egg and spicy sausage was familiar, but when the salsa mixed in, she’d had enough of that. She smiled and noted, “It was worth trying. I like syrup on my sausage – just not on my salsa.” I shrugged. To each, his own, as the saying goes. Then I licked my lips and dug back into my meal. Mmmmm.

The old man piped up. “Oh, yeah, three hundred bucks and a motel room!” he shouted happily. “Chilly Willy!!”

By then, we were sucked in as if it was a bad television show we couldn’t stop watching. “I wish we could surreptitiously get a picture of him,” mom thought out loud. I obligingly got out my cell phone and started angling for a photo of Chilly Willy. The father and son left. I couldn’t blame them, but since I don’t have a toddler, this was just too amusing for me to take off.

“I’m used to havin’ nothin’ – what the hell I need it for now? I don’t need SHIT. The more people do for you the worse it gets. Four frickin’ nuggets.” Chilly Willy ranted. What was this guy’s problem? I wondered. He bought nuggets at McDonald’s, telling the whole world exactly how much money he has and where he’s staying tonight, expecting to be treated like he was in a palace and he owned it. It made little to no sense and basically announced “HEY I’M NUTS!” but his boldness had everyone’s peripheral vision rapt.

A scruffy painter shuffled toward the booth behind us. He smiled at us and took his seat as Chilly Willy again shouted, “Chilleh Willeehhh!!!!” The painter nodded at him and began to open his lunch. Chilly Willy seemed to acknowledge the painter as a friendly equal, a comrade even. “Hey, buddy. I got a mo-TEL room! You’re welcome to stay in my mo-tel room. I may not be there, but you can sleep there! Oh, yeah, I am SET!”

“Is that a good shot?” asked mom as she patted me on the shoulder.
“It’s decent. Wish I could use my digital camera, but I think that would be somewhat… conspicuous. Anyway, I’ll get another shot in a minute. I’m trying to get this down.” I had been frantically writing down every direct quote I could from this guy. All I had on me at the time was a small blue Sharpie, and the only paper available was the sheet that McDonald’s uses to cover their eat-in trays. I must have looked rather silly, except that I was far from the center of attention thanks to everyone’s favorite hobo.

“I know where I’m goin’; I’m goin’ ta the crack house!” exclaimed Chilly Willy. “Oh, yeah, Chilleh WILLEHHH!” As I jotted down some more notes, he leaned over his table towards the painter. He was consistently loud enough that anyone in the store could hear him, but he may have wanted to assure the painter, Yes, I am talking to you. “Hey, buddy, you want a smoke? I got some smokes, now that I got some three hundred bucks. Never believe it! Cops wanted to put me somewhere, but some nice family got me a mo-tel room and three big ones. I am sittin’ pretty! Chilly Willy, indeed!” As he explained all of this, he was nodding emphatically and his five or six random braids shook over his face.

I took another picture with my cell, again not looking over my shoulder so as not to give myself away.

“Chilly Willy…” the painter agreed, cautiously nodding in feigned enthusiasm. Mom poked me again to get my attention. By this time I had two clear shots of Mr. Chilly Willy, a bunch of quotations and was well on my way to writing a song about him.
I went to use the restroom and left my mother with my Sharpie. By the time I came back out she had written down several lines of her own, also in verse. Needless to say, we were thoroughly amused and determined to write this song. She had also jotted down the words “Got my liquor bottle, got my money, got my room. What more I need? Nothin!” Turns out I was right; he was totally drunk. Go figure. I wish I hadn’t missed that one, though it doesn’t overwork my brain to imagine it. I looked over her shoulder, read the lines she had filled in, and quickly collapsed into my seat while stifling my laughter.

The painter walked outside with the old man, presumably to finally join him for that free cigarette. But alas, we could not sit around to see what would happen when Chilly Willy reentered the restaurant; my sister had called to say her appointment was over. Obligingly, we discarded our garbage, gathered our belongings and our writings, and headed to my car, laughing the whole way.

Pulling onto the street and into the turning lane, I watched with amusement as a police van labeled “Crime Scene Investigation” drove past us into the McDonald’s parking lot. Mom mused, “Wow. Guess they actually called the cops on Chilly Willy.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if the officer was just here for a drive-thru run?” I wondered aloud. “I mean, it’s quite possible that that’s the case.” I glanced at her while our light was still red, then past her to try to see the police van; it was out of view. So were Chilly Willy and his new, um, friend.

The words launched themselves out of mom’s mouth: “OKAY WE HAVE TO FIND OUT! TURN AROUND!”

I checked around me – there was no one else at the light trying to squeeze a right on red, and traffic was clear – and I turned right, and right again, back into the Mickey-Dee’s parking lot. Sure enough, the paddy wagon was sitting at the drive-thru menu, and the officer was leaning out his window calling out his order. Past him I could see the hostess and the manager discussing something in hushed urgency – again, probably Chilly Willy’s fate.

The kicker, though, was better than syrup on a breakfast burrito: Driving further along my circle around the building, we caught a glimpse of Chilly Willy and his buddy. They had been joined by two other random disheveled men between forty-five and sixty, and the group was strolling across the lot toward the back and away from the restaurant, in full rear view of the policeman, had he wanted to check his mirror.

Chilly Willy, indeed.