Around four o’clock on a sweltering Monday afternoon, July 18, 1984, James Huberty walked into a McDonald’s on San Ysidro Boulevard, a suburban stretch near the US-Mexico border. That ordinary fast-food joint, with its bright-red facade and yellow arches promising cheap burgers and fries, was about to become the setting for one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history up to that point.

Huberty entered quietly at first, as if he were any other hungry customer looking for a Big Mac. But what followed would be anything but ordinary. Within minutes, he pulled out a cache of firearms and began opening fire on the stunned staff and patrons. The hours that followed became a nightmarish hostage crisis, ending only when police stormed the restaurant, killing Huberty. In total, twenty-one innocent people lost their lives and nearly as many were wounded.

If you’ve heard of this tragedy before, it’s likely because it’s been burned into the collective memory for decades, referenced in documentaries and crime retrospectives. Michael Douglas in Falling Down. It’s a moment when the veneer of suburban safety cracked wide open, exposing the raw, ugly truth beneath.

But beyond the grim statistics and media portrayals, there’s another story. One that intersects with mine in an odd, peripheral way, because I was there, too. Sort of.

By 1984, we had moved out of our cramped apartment in Los Angeles and into a modest house in San Clemente, about halfway between LA and San Diego. Anyone familiar with California geography will know that this strip of coast, running from Orange County down toward the border, is dotted with military bases representing nearly every branch of service: Marines in Camp Pendleton, Navy at Coronado, the Coast Guard, and more. It’s a patchwork of discipline, drills, and constant preparation for conflict. An odd contrast to the sunny beaches and laid-back surfer vibe the area tries to sell.

Dad was stationed at one of these bases on that day, entrenched in his military consulting role, whatever that meant. Details were always fuzzy, like he was sworn to secrecy or just wanted to keep us at arm’s length from the messiness of his real work.

Meanwhile, my mother decided it was the perfect day to take me to the zoo – my first trip. The bright smiles and animal enclosures captured in the few surviving photos are a stark contrast to the carnage that would unfold mere miles away, unknown to us at the time. According to family lore, the Hubert family was at the zoo around the same time, an eerie coincidence that only added another layer of surrealism to the day.

After our visit to the zoo, my mom says, we had to stop in Imperial Beach to pick up an order. By then, I was cranky and irritable, the kind of toddler tantrum that makes parents desperate for a quick fix. Feeding me and getting me to nap in the car was priority number one. So she got on Interstate 5 heading south, trying to find a safe spot for me to calm down.

Now, here’s where the memory gets fuzzy, as memories of that kind always do. Mom says she got on the freeway going the wrong way briefly, realized it, and pulled off to turn around before hitting the border clusterfuck of customs and immigration.

And then she stopped at a McDonald’s to grab some fries for me. Because nothing calms a toddler faster than greasy carbs.

If you look today, there’s only one McDonald’s south of Imperial Beach just before you hit the border: San Ysidro. It’s moved from its original 1984 location into a newer, beige-toned building down the street, the kind that tries desperately to erase any trace of the past. But back then, it was the same place where James Huberty would later unleash his deadly rage.

So, while I was chomping down on fries and maybe playing with the ketchup packets, history was about to unfold just yards away.

The Huberty case has a darker layer beyond the senseless slaughter. It highlights the mental health crises that remain a festering wound in our society.

Huberty reportedly recognized that something was wrong in his head. He reached out to a mental health clinic for help. But his call was never returned.

This detail haunts me more than the shooting itself.

Because here’s a man, isolated and desperate, asking for help, and the system lets him slip through the cracks. It’s a story repeated millions of times over in America. People drowning in silence, unable to access care or support, their pleas unheard.

And when the help doesn’t come, sometimes the suffering turns outward in tragedy.

Huberty also had a history of abuse and trauma. Agencies were notified but failed to act decisively. In a country that boasts about opportunity and safety, the gaps remain wide and deadly.

I don’t excuse what he did. Twenty-one people died and many more were injured. The lives lost, the families shattered – no explanation or sympathy can make that right.

But I can’t help but see the tragedy as symptomatic of a larger sickness.

The US is a land of too many stressors and too few options. We glorify toughness, independence, and self-reliance – but then stigmatize vulnerability, depression, and mental illness. We build systems that demand people bear the unbearable and then blame them when they break.

If you ask me, we owe it to every James Huberty out there and every one of their victims to do better.

My mother’s story about that day always lingers with me.

There we were, a baby, a mother, and a father caught up in the military-industrial rhythms of Southern California life.

Unaware, oblivious, just a few feet from a nightmare.

And I still think about those fries – the small, greasy symbol of innocence in a day stained with blood and loss.

How could something so ordinary be so close to something so catastrophic?

Years later, I’d revisit the photos, the news clippings, the documentaries. I’d try to piece together the day, the people, the pain. And in all that revisiting, I’d find a strange kind of kinship with the day’s contradictions.

The cruelty and the mundane, tangled together.

The innocent and the violent, side by side.

That’s my life in a nutshell. A bystander to history’s worst moments, clutching a box of fries and wondering what the hell just happened.