Nation Burger

Sometimes during the week I miss Autumn pretty bad. Usually I don't get out of work until hours after she is long asleep. It is boring, loafing around her apartment trying to kill time until I'm sleepy enough to hop in bed with her so I've started killing time at night when I drive over to see her. I hang out at Nation Burger. It's on the corner of Central and San Pablo. It's cool because it's a twenty four hour burger joint that doesn't force patrons into a drive-thru only lane. You can show up there at two or three in the morning and go inside. In my part of the bay area, we don't have anything like that. So I dig it.

Typically, I pull into Nation Burger's parking lot after midnight. Walking up to the front door you pass a gauntlet of newspaper racks. I buy a paper at random. Doesn't matter which one, they're all full of fresh lies. The place is so busy most of the time when I get there that I have to stand in a line which frequently is long enough that it trails out through the building's double doors onto the sidewalk. The food is good enough that it's worth the wait. I think it's good enough anyway, Autumn doesn't really care for it.

At Nation Burger you can grub down in style. I like to get a behemoth of a cheeseburger and chilli fries finished off with a slice of pie. Their pie menu is robust. Sometimes I get a key lime pie, other times my fancy is a berry pie. I always avoid coconut pie. Hate that shit like it's poison. After making an order at the front counter it's tough to find an open table. Swarms of rapmaster thugs and UC college kids stake out most of the territory. Eventually I score a booth, then I proceed to kick back while intermittantly reading a shoddy newspaper mixed with a little people-watching. Kills the time effectively.

Around three in the morning, waves of taxi cabs begin to cruise through the parking lot to stop near Nation Burger's entrance. Homeless looking bum-types always emerge from the cab's doors to stagger out into night air and damp pavement. I've heard when local establishments have problems with a bum, they call a cab and pay the fare to drop them off at this place. It's sorta fucked up. Street people like that aren't much fun to have around, they always wreck the bathroom inside Nation Burger with puke or worse. But, it adds to the overall people-watching chaos. Every time I'm there eating dinner either a hip-hop funklord or a stinky homeless person will bug me for the Sports Section of my newspaper. I'm happy to give it away. To me, sports and everything associated with spectator sports are useless.

When I'm too tired or too bored to handle the Nation Burger crowd anymore, I drive to Autumn's apartment and crash out for the night.