the one with the limo driver
When I was about 20 (so this was circa 1985), I worked as an assistant manager at a restaurant known for its fast service and iconic sandwiches in Encino, a little town in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California, a few minutes North of Hollywood. Back then, Encino was considered to be kind of exclusive in that lots of movie stars and the like lived there, so seeing a limousine in the drive-thru was not so out of the ordinary. The rich and famous often visited our location, some were even regulars. Rob Lowe’s order was always the same: two plain hamburgers and a Large Diet Coke. It’s funny the details you remember, even 20+ years later.
We had a very European drive-thru, the back ‘booth’ was separate from the building and came up on the driver’s side, then when you drove around, if you had a passenger you were set. If not, it was awkward, you had to unroll your window and we had to leeeeean across to give you your order. Most of our customers already knew to expect this architectural insanity, especially the locals.
The booths were wired — to communicate from the back booth to the front all you had to do was pick up a phone and the other would instantly ring. Maria, my front booth person yelled for me, holding out the phone. “It’s Russell. He’s freaking out!” So I ran to the phone thinking the worst (that maybe he’d been robbed) and got on the line. I could see him from where I stood, he was jumping up and down. Russell may have only been 17 years old, but he stood at about 6′1. He was jumping up and down with all of his might, clearly overwhelmed, but I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying. I hung up the phone right away and ran outside to the booth, around a stretch limousine parked at the window, anxious to get to him. When I asked him what had happened, all I got was more of the unintelligible.
Me: “Are you okay? Did you get robbed?”
Still with the jumping up and down.
“Russell, calm down. What happened?”
He was exhausting himself from the jumping but couldn’t stop, he could hardly breathe. He was smiling from ear to ear and shaking his head in a Yes to the “Are you okay?” question and shaking it No to the “Did you get robbed?” question. Clearly he was alright, just overwhelmed. Whew. The last thing I wanted was one of the kids to get robbed. Finally, words I could understand:
“I. MET. HIM. MYLAaaaaaaa!! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!! I MET HIM. HIM. HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!!”
All he could do was point to the limousine.
Of course I was curious to see who it was that was the object of Russell’s such complete and total admiration, so I walked slowly up to the limousine and stood on the curbish divider thing between the drive through lane and the rest of the parking lot. I casually looked over to the driver, expecting to just see a limousine driver, I guess, but the driver was anything but — it was the man himself.
He wore a piece of notebook paper over his nose as a mask, but the eyes and the rest of his physique were unmistakeable. He smiled at me as if to say hello and nodded (I think to acknowledge what he did to Russell, as he had to have heard the exchange because his window was rolled down).
I distinctly remember the next moment of when who he was registered. All I could do was smile back at him and nod. When I looked up, I saw his sister, Janet, taking the order from the backseat on the passenger’s side. I went back inside, still a little in awe of who was in the limo.
And the driver?
Yep, you guessed it.
His name was Michael Jackson.
