The cracking voice of some adolescent kid blared from the speaker: “Welcome to Jack in the Box. May I take your order?” “Cheeseburger and a Coke.” “Would you like fries with that?” Hooley figured he’d joke with the kid a little. “You got calf fries?” There was a pause. “Sir?” “Mountain Oysters!” “Uh … Sir?” Disappointed, he could tell the boy had neither a sense of humor, nor an understanding of what calf fries even were. “Never mind. No fries.” “Okay, drive up to the window.” He stopped at the sliding glass portal to what he considered a greasy hell. There, he paid an overweight kid who gave him his change and a drink sealed in a waxed paper cup with a plastic lid. The kid then shut the window on him. Hooley waited. He tasted the drink. Coca-Cola. He hated Coca-Cola. According to Hooley’s West Texas upbringing, the word coke was synonymous with “soda pop” or “soft drink” or whatever people said in other parts of the country when they referred to a store-bought carbonated drink.
