Nobody ever tells you how to prepare for seeing your first Nazi, and you never expect to see one in your hometown. Just down the road, close enough to be a cause for concern. There I was, escaping my minimum-wage job, getting lunch at another person’s minimum-wage job, on my thirty-minute lunch break. My gritty hands grabbed the bag from the girl’s oil-stained palms, and I walked back to my booth. My friend and I were sitting at a waxy table with food that would cost us both another two hours of hauling boxes and loading box trucks. We stacked a pile of McNuggets between us after slipping the thin veil of paper from our straws. 

And then we saw him: a Nazi with a swastika peeking out of his gray tank top. The two of us kept looking to each other to confirm we weren't going crazy, that we did, in fact, have a Nazi in our presence. He was exhausted, like us, swaying side to side in line, waiting for his meal. Beads of sweat were dotted around the four lines that hiked back in on themselves on his right shoulder. It’s one of those symbols that you never expect to see in the fluorescent gleam of a gas station McDonald’s. You have to look twice just to make sure you are in the right place, but when you double-take for the third time, you start to look closer. His ink was sunburned and fading into a deep caramel color. His skin had dried up like prunes from hours in the sun and folded over on itself from the stretch and pull of hard labor. He stood next to his daughter, holding out his hand when they stepped toward the counter together. They ordered in Spanish.

I swear you could hear his calluses scratch against the texture of the serving trays when he set his meal down on the table adjacent to ours. I knew he worked construction when he laid his palms flat on the table, so his blisters didn’t have to touch. He let his knuckles cool on the slick McDonald’s tabletops the same way I did after feeling my own calluses start to give way. Between glances, I saw him take bites out of a Big Mac and sip Coke out of his plastic cup. He slid his daughter a sprout of his fries; her hands cupped around a pony toy from her Happy Meal.