Truesday: But If You Try Sometimes, You Get What You Need

Five minutes earlier, it was a normal afternoon of local retail shoppers, lining up like day labor to trade wages for processed pseudo Texican fare. Fools were excited, and deep inside their minds they danced a silly dance to thoughts of shredded yellow cheese, caulk guns packed full with guacamole, and pebbly salted meat bits. Everyone knew to eat it quick, before the tortilla hardened to an industrial building material. Before the sour cream’s cream was overcome by its sour. Before the carriage returned to pumpkin.

It was the man at the head of the line. His caked workboots: the source of the clods which would soon dot the burrito’s immediate vicinity, helping it to understand part of the path which led to its abandoned limpness. Getting more rigid by the second.

That man, a full head above average and twice the red beard of normal, still wearing a padded protective hat which when strapped to a man’s head indoors says big shit falls on me every day. He leans into the register, sleeveless and frayed flannel tucked into a beltless pair of chaw-ringed Wranglers. He belches under his breath twice during the delivery of his order, and never bothers to remove his Oakley wrap-arounds. The man is hungry, and feels that his hunger warrants some free expression on the subject. He has “waited too goddamn long in this fuckin’ line” to place his order at its end. But he does so anyway. And included in that order is one of the few items from Bell's catalog (at that time) which contained just about every menu ingredient offered in the place.

The seven-layer burrito. Like the ever-increasing multi-bladed face razor market, it exists as a testament to the perception of continued innovation through simple addition.

Four minutes passes, and the man, leaning against a nearby wall, waiting with a tapped toe and after two brimming refills of Mountain Dew, decides that too many people have received their food orders before he has had the opportunity to dine himself. Butting into the front of the line, he voices stern dismay.

“Hey, shithead. I ordered my goddamn food ten minutes before that lady right there did.” He points toward no one, and no “lady” steps forward to vouch. He removes his Oakleys in a menacing fashion, delicately slipping one ear-rest down the lip of his athletic shirt’s neck. He continues.

“And I been settin’ over there, waitin’ like a goddamn two-bit whore for Friday night. Am I not as good as them other people? Huh?”

The register jockey has no words for the man, the poor girl. Delicate with wetted eyes and living on the young side of high school, she is either in shock over his careless use of profanity, confused about his wandering grammatical choices, or is enchanted by his impressive tufts of nose hair which seem to sway like floor-tethered ocean kelp in the currents of his breath.

“I’m sorry sir, but-“

“WHERE IN THE GODDAMN HELL IS MY SEVEN LAYER BURRITO?” Two fists pound down on the counter, sending an empty tray rattling to the floor.

Drawn to the noise, a manager approaches from somewhere beyond the machines of food preparation. Mid twenties, in a tie, inoffensive goatee and ghost-rimmed gold glasses. His hair has a professional Supercut quality which subtly exclaims with pride, I’m coming up in this world, no matter the hand I was dealt. His nametag boldly displays his name engraved in brass-painted plastic, though no one ever bothers to read it.

“Sir, is there a problem here?”

“Yeah, man, there’s a goddamn problem over here.”

“Sir, please tone down the profanity, and please refrain from speaking to my employees that way or I will be forced to ask you to leave the premises.”

“You’ll ask me to WHAT?!!!”

“Leave the premises.”

“WHAT?!”

“You’ll have to leave the premises.”

“What?”

“Premises. The grounds. You’ll have to leave this Taco Bell.”

“Like hell I will. I ordered my fuckin’ burrito twenty minutes ago and this girl here’s been serving all high to goddamn hell and who knows who else before I got my food that I paid for.”

“I’m sorry to hear that sir, but I think you’re overreacting. I’ll make your burrito immediately, but then I’m going to have to ask you to leave the… this place.” He makes his way to behind the metal prep tables and begins throwing ingredients onto waxed paper. “Is there anything else I can do for you in the meantime?”

“Yeah, goddamnit, there is. You’re the manager. She intentionally skipped my order just to piss me off.”

“And?”

“Fire the bitch.”

After fleeing the scene earlier on the verge of tears, she is no longer present to hear his call for her head. The entire line takes a coordinated two steps toward the exit, sensing a managerial meltdown and potential brewing of some ‘crime of passion’. At Taco Bell.

For ten eternities everyone waits as the manager fiddles and folds and crinkles waxed paper until he emerges from the depths of the taco line and stands fully erect behind the register with a perfectly formed, seven-ingredient taut-tube of reasonably priced stomach filler. It slides across the counter toward the expectant pot-belly of the folded-arm man.

“You can’t even hand it to me?”

“You need to leave.” The manager folds his arms to mirror burrito man. The crowd waits for the reaction, not knowing how far either man is willing to take things. As the burrito slumbers on the counter, all that is heard over the intercom’s whistling of More Than Words is its wrapper beginning to come undone, threatening to unravel and bring the entire situation to a violent head. But before it actually does so-

“Well shit, compadre. I don’t think I want this goddamn burrito anymore.”

And with that, he picks up the burrito, positions it to backhand, and savagely slaps the manager’s face, sending his glasses clacking off toward the employee restrooms.

SMACK! [clackity-clack-clack-clack]

Bankrupting horror fills every un-mopped corner of the convenience eatery. As the exhausted burrito is abandoned to the floor like a print-less, post-hit handgun, everyone’s eyes trail upward to close, wondering if an appropriate reaction to the situation exists.

The manager's face, aimed at the register buttons. “This shit just isn’t worth it to me anymore.”

And the workboots, after stopping briefly for another Mountain Dew refill, clod off and out into the parking lot.