Mom and I stopped at McDonald’s like we used to with Dad. He always ordered the plain hamburger — no cheese, no sauces — and a small fry. So that’s what Mom and I had too.
Even though Dad died eight days ago, it didn’t quite feel real. We were driving to the house they’d lived in for the last 25 years, except for the past year or so when Mom moved to a small home near Dad's assisted living facility. It was about an hour's drive.
We were taking the same roads we’d traveled with him dozens of times — and she’d traveled with him many more — going to the same fast food stop. I was driving the car he drove for years.
About midway through the drive, we pulled off the small, two-lane highway into a McDonald's for a late lunch.
"How many times have you stopped here?" I asked Mom as we sat at a table with our hamburgers.
"I don't know," she said. "Close to every time we came through, your dad and I. Many, many times."
I’ve had some good experiences with Dad at fast food places. Especially after I moved out, when he was on the road a lot. He drove an hour and a half to and from work during his last few working years, after he and Mom moved out of St. Louis. Even after retiring, he still had family and business there, so he’d head up fairly often. When I visited, he’d sometimes pick me up at the airport. I have no idea how many times we stopped for a plain McDonald’s hamburger.
Looking back, one of the funniest things that happened during my childhood at a fast food place was during a move. One of my sisters and I were helping Dad pack up and move the last things from our old house. On the drive to the new one, we stopped at a Jack in the Box drive-thru. I don’t know why, but Dad got really frustrated after ordering and paying. My sister and I were probably barking about milkshakes. Anyway, he paid, then drove off without the food.
He realised his mistake as my sister and I yelled at him. He slammed on the brakes before leaving the lot. We were all a mess after packing things all day, and we were all hungry -- it was a very late lunch. Dad said, "Matt, go back and get our food." I was 12, sweaty and self-conscious in dirty sweatpants, and refused, mainly because there was a chance that a girl I had a crush on was inside the Jack in the Box at that moment and what if she saw me?
"You're the one who drove off," I said. "You should go get it."
As we argued, someone from the restaurant very graciously walked out and handed us the food at our truck, saving us all the embarrassment of going inside in our filthy clothes.
Penthouse
I’d brought a few CDs for the ride — ones I used to leave behind after visits, mostly albums I loved in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Penthouse by Luna was one of them. I loved that album, which was about 19 years old on this day.
I first heard it in New York, a year or so after it was released. I was doing a university internship and had no money. I’d hang around HMV and Virgin Records, where you could sample albums at headphone stations. That’s where I discovered Penthouse, especially the track “23 Minutes in Brussels,” a mini-epic that reminded me of the Velvet Underground. (I later learned Tom Verlaine of Television played guitar on that track. In 2020, Luna covered Television’s “Marquee Moon,” and it’s just perfect.)
The album cover — a photo of the Chrysler Building at dusk — cemented its New York-ness in my mind. Years later, when I could finally afford to buy CDs, I picked it up at the suggestion of a pen-pal. “You’ll love it,” she wrote. “It’s better than the songs I sent on those old mix tapes.” She was right.
I’ve played the album countless times since.
On the Road
The first track, “Chinatown,” remains one of my favorites. Written and sung by the band’s frontman, Dean Wareham, the song is about meeting with friends — especially one who elusively zips around Manhattan, drinking cocktails, catching cabs, disappearing into clubs. The same friend has apparently ditched the narrator and their circle.
At the time, that struck me as a sort of elegant problem: to be in your 20s or 30s and not be able to keep up with fast-moving friends.
But the lyric I’ve always loved is:
You run around, chasin' girlies
You're late to work
and you go home earlies
“Girlies” is a perfect rhyme for the non-word “earlies.” It makes me chuckle every time.
As we pulled out of the McDonald's parking lot and onto the quiet two-lane highway, I put Penthouse in the CD player. It was an overcast November afternoon. The first loping notes of “Chinatown” came through the speakers.
A few seconds in, Mom said, “I like this song.”
“It’s good,” I said. “There’s a funny lyric coming up — I’ll let you know.”
I pointed toward the dashboard as the line approached. And when Wareham sang about being late to work and going home “earlies,” Mom — who’s always loved puzzles and wordplay — let out a laugh.
She shook her head, still smiling. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “But it works.”
The song rolled on — loose, wry, bemused. Toward the end, as it drifted into its outro, Wareham began singing in a falsetto that sounded exactly like “meow,” like the jingle from the Meow Mix commercials. Mom’s eyebrows rose.
“Did he just say ‘meow’?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Multiple times. That’s the end of the song.”
She laughed again, and then we were quiet. Trees blurred by. The CD spun. We both stared ahead.
In the space between tracks, I found myself wondering how many times we’d driven this same stretch — her with Dad, me with both of them, and now just the two of us. A few years earlier, when my son was two, my wife and I had visited Prague. As I stood on the Charles Bridge, I wondered if it would be the last time we were there together.
Now, as Mom and I rolled down this familiar road, I wondered if this would be the last time we took it together. It probably wouldn’t be.
As the second song on the album, “Sideshow By the Seashore,” began, Mom reached out and turned the volume up just slightly.
“Let’s keep listening,” she said.
