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Some customers pour beer into clear McCafé plastic cups and drink it right in the open. A man called Shamrock swills straight vodka from a Dasani water bottle at a table near the entrance. The other day, a man headed straight for the bathroom, pausing only to open his backpack and grab a bag of heroin, known as “dog food.” Another day, a couple shared a McDonald’s vanilla shake at a side table and swallowed “sticks,” the anti-anxiety prescription drug Xanax, and “pins,” the anti-anxiety pill Klonopin. On a recent Wednesday, an ambulance showed up to carry away a regular who had been stabbed in an adjacent doorway, leaving blood all over the sidewalk.

Other types of regulars, the so-called normals, frequent this McDonald’s, like the TV newsman in a suit who goes there only because it is near the office. And the nun of 70 years who sometimes sits in the back, where she likes to watch the scene unfold like a Broadway show.

“I get an ice cream cone for a dollar,” said the nun, Elaine Goodell, 89, who lives in a nearby convent and works as a hospital chaplain. “Then I will usually buy a medium French fries. I love the salt and the sweet. And that’s what you get here too — the salt and sweet of humanity.”