He was well thought of among burger flipping peoples where he grew up. Customers recognized Francis in polyester culinary slacks, white top with loops and stitched pen compartments. Our food industry professionals at the time knew who he was. That was a lot.
People taking classes in Erie one summer were taught to watch for people you can trust behind the grill, or with the multipurpose units. That's the part of the operation that screws up more often than anywhere else. You just can't break former tool and die workers of storage habits. Meat and cable reels are not the same goddam things. Francis was able to follow directions, and grasped the importance of the procedures that were emerging.
There were arts and sciences in the food places. Young hayseeds were easy in accepting a whole new way of life, managing a barn shaped burger joint. Portly retired men paid Francis a few earthy compliments, usually how lucky he was to be able to take the role of patty and cheese man. The former zipper town, formerly wholesome, formerly proud of the vacancy that used to bang out zippers, all sizes, but damn it to hell brass and agri-business hard fabric. They made zippers sewed into black leather biker coats the local motorccycle club members wore. Their zippers went up the sides of Beatle and Lawyer boots, sometimes called, in the day, Florsheims. Francis' alcoholic spouse beating father worked at the zipper factory for a lifetime.
The year was 1977. People were blowing their own brains out with antique double barrel shotguns their grandfathers bought mail order from a Sears catalog. Suicides passed those guns down for generations so everyone could extinguish grief the right way. No one in Meadville wanted to go on welfare. Death was way fucking better than that. We, us, what I was till I moved a hundred miles directly south, were suicidal former farmers who had to get jobs in some other line of work. Francis blew his brains out with his antique shotgun a few years after the food business failed. A lot of people felt that he had done the right the thing, since he no longer had a job. I decided a few years forward of that tragedy to move here. I deserve this motherfucking town. It's fabulous being dirt poor here. People are so fucking sophisticated.
