All tyrants exercise their power as soon, and as often as possible. The manager at the McDonald’s Malcolm was eating at was no different.

Malcolm Steadman will buy a gun in 63 days.

Twenty minutes had passed since the man who was obviously homeless had sat down for his cup of coffee. Exactly twenty minutes. The moment twenty minutes had passed the manager, a sad king with a polo shirt atop a greasy hill, ushered the homeless man out, decreeing the authority that the sign on the wall had given him. These were filthy portents, how long would it be before Malcolm was escorted out?

Malcolm Steadman has been homeless for a full month now, though it felt like a year. This no longer felt like a “transitory period” in his life. Nor would it be anyways, once Malcolm completed his plan.

He was not the only homeless person left in the fast food restaurant now that one of them had been escorted out. No, there was one other. Neither he nor Malcolm looked the part however. Both men wore suits, both had jobs, neither had a place to sleep. There was a third one like them, a man with a gym pass. He no longer showed up here. Either he is no longer homeless, or dead, Malcolm isn’t sure if either is a bad thing.

The clean-cut homeless men are safe in their camouflage… for now.

Malcolm wishes that he were dead. This sounds worse than it is. If he were dead, at least he would be resting. Malcolm has not slept more than four hours the past three days. Sleep is a luxury that he has not been able to afford, and the lack of it has been pure torture. He regarded his breakfast burrito as if it were a foreign object. He remembers buying it, he remembers needing it, but at this moment, with the complete lack of rest burdening his mind, he just can’t seem to figure out what he should do with it. When one has been without sleep for this long, the qualities of reality take on a surreal feel that one can get drunk on. In that regard? Malcolm is wasted.

There is no one reason for why Malcolm has not been sleeping, save for the fact that he is homeless. Everything else is just a subcategory of that. It had been raining, and the overpass had become crowded with other homeless people, and seeing that Garry was one of them Malcolm could not be seen there. So long as it rained, Malcolm had to stand under a foyer and not get wet. Standing means no sleep. The next day was as wet as the first, so Malcolm opted to drink coffee in a cafe’ where it was dry. Five cups of coffee means no sleep. The third day he could not sleep because he had gone so long without it that he was unable to, a phenomenon that he was not excited to learn about.

So, Malcolm sat in the McDonald’s, so far safe from being ejected because of how he looked, doing his best to force feed himself a burrito.

Life was good.

Malcolm took a bite of his breakfast, and did not experience the minute endorphin rush that usually accompanies such large quantities of fat and salt. He was simply too tired to feel anything. Once he was done chewing he briefly nodded out, almost succumbing to the beckoning of Morpheus. This otherwise had been a welcoming gift, but Malcolm jerked himself awake, not daring to fall asleep in a McDonald’s. He had to be at work in an hour anyways. Sleep was not something he could afford yet. He forced another bite into the burrito, and the process began again. He nodded, then jerked, then ate and nodded…

He had seen Garry do the same thing while on heroin once. This revelation amused him very little.

After finishing half of his breakfast, Malcolm regarded the restaurant around him. It felt so far away, so distant in his exhaustion. He could not remember how long ago the homeless man was removed, but he knew that he himself had been there for more than twenty minutes. Yet he was safe, safe from the polo wearing tyrant. He was safe because he didn’t look homeless. How unfair was that? It was good for him but the only difference between the man who was ejected and himself was the clothing. Both men slept outdoors. Both men were crazy. Both men were homeless.

The problem here is identity, thought Malcolm. Perceived identity had labeled two men with equal qualities differently. I look like I should be here, so I get to stay, but who decided on these qualities? He nodded away for a moment, but his train of thought was not broken. Nothing could turn off Malcolm’s ponderous mind. It was his biggest curse.

How much of that identity is assigned by external agents observing us, and how much of it is assigned by the ourselves? He took a bite of his burrito. Am I homeless because I lack a socially accepted and defined place to sleep, or because I consider myself to be homeless? He did not have enough salsa. If the external agents do not perceive me as being homeless because of my appearance, and if I don’t consider myself to be homeless because of an arbitrary social definition, does that mean then that I can be rid of the identity even without ridding myself of the definition? Greasy cheese oozed out of his cheap tortilla. If I showed up to this place tomorrow with a polo shirt, and considered myself a fascist could I become the fast-food tyrant?

Malcolm briefly fantasized about robbing the place now, scrapping his plan for Garry and instead using the gun he planned on buying to take the polo shirt from the manager, then work his way up the corporate ladder. This thought may have frightened Malcolm before, but now… What was it that folk singer that Malcolm could totally steal the identity of and become him completely had once said? The times they are a changing? Yes. Things had changed.

Malcolm nodded off completely. His consciousness turned off. He fell asleep.

***

Malcolm was rudely awakened and thrust back into the conscious world by the man in the polo shirt. “I’m sorry sir, you’ve just been here too long” he said, then pointed at the sign on the wall. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

Malcolm obliged, dazed and confused. Vague shame swam in his heart as he gathered his things and ate the last bite of his burrito. He stood up, and without making eye contact marched towards the exit. It had finally happened. His camouflage had only taken him so far, if the manager only kicked out the homeless, as Malcolm had always suspected, well, now he was officially homeless. At least by the far-reaching corporate standards of one the largest businesses in the world.

This was not the end of his woes.

Malcolm checked the time, and found, to his horror, that he was two hours late to work.

63 days.

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