Delicious Tacos - Finally, Some Good News

Inside he gestured to sit. Murmured something to Joy in dialect. Telling her go somewhere for tea. She obeyed.

You are afraid of our guns, he said. They are necessary here. For many years, trouble.

Are you–

Am I ISIS? I am a Muslim, sir. But all people are my brothers and sisters. We are in your country too. The states .

Yes sir. California.

And you are here for tourism.

That’s right

Where have you seen.

Manila… Pampanga

For the women.

I was visiting a friend.

A man wants a woman. It is a part of nature.

It’s not why I’m here.

For what then.

He paused. The girls were near the airport that took you to the island with the rare Philippine cockatoo. He still hadn’t seen it. Nature, he said.

My daughter says you don’t like your work.

Why are you asking me this? Can you just tell me what you want– I’ll cooperate–

I have told you, you are a guest. I will not kill you. I want to know what you want from this place.

I wanted to retire, he said. Maybe here.

Not America.

No, it’s not– it’s not a good place.

Why? You told her you earn five million peso–

Yes but it’s not like you think. It’s not worth as much.

Oh?

They take it from you. If you make more the rent goes up. You work hard and you do what they fucking tell you. And the women look at you like a worm.

The old man was laughing.

I mean it– I have to work to pay to work to get a woman’s attention so she can reject me. Love is impossible. A house, a wife– a second date, impossible. Normal things. I’ll never hold my first child. Those things just ended. Yes, I hate my work. And I’m afraid of losing it . They get angry if you’re not thankful for it. That’s a bad attitude. You have to lie every day, every minute, and say you love the thing that’s killing you. It’s Satanic. What do we have, better toilets? The men are all liars. The women are barely people anymore. I’m barely a person anymore. I’m starting to like it . I’m starting to feel proud when I close a deal. To sell branded entertainment. To sell Verizon to fucking moms – it’s all like this. Everything exists just to sell you shit and you have to sell shit too just to live and they make you fucking smile about it . I’ll get old like this. Alone. Nothing but my career– I wish you would kill me. Please– is that what I’m here for? To cut my head off? Trust me, no one gives a shit–

The old man laughed again. And you sell information, he said. For this job.

Yes.

I know your firm . I have seen your Linkedin profile . He spoke the words like binding a demon.

OK.

We are at work on something here, he said. A project. When we are finished, perhaps things will be better.

OK–

But first we need information.

I can’t–

You think I am a terrorist. But I speak to the Westerners here. Like you. Some will not tell the truth. But they know it. When the sun is covered in darkness, when the stars fall, scattering; when the mountains are annihilated and what you possessed is in flames, when the beasts draw together in their hordes– your soul will know then. What you made with your life. They know. That is terror. You know.

He did know.

When you go back, you can speak with Joy. Via Skype. We will only need a little from you. And when you are finished you can come back for her.

He waited to say yes. It took a second to sink in, that the old man hadn’t asked. Hadn’t had to.

He stayed three more days. Kissing Joy under the waterfalls. Her eyes full of love, like his dream. High in the trees the birds cried, mostly out of sight. Just flashes of white feathers. Red streaks like their guts were slashed. Then it was time to go. Back to work.

In the morning they were going to move north. It had rained again. At 1AM maybe. The water tapping hesitantly at first on the tent roof and then walls of it making rivers of ashes, crawling cold in the dirt under the nylon floor. Hissing over the dying trees and ripping the gray grass out of the mud like a cancer patient’s hair coming out in clumps. Snaking into holes in the blown out Sherman Oaks roofs around them. Waking up mold spores in wrecked sectional couches and pianos and entertainment centers. Fattening up the burned out corpses of TV writers on hiatus who’d moved over the Cahuenga pass seeking highly rated schools. The scorched ribs of the pit bull mixes they’d rescued . It had taken months to get one. The shelters were bristling with volunteers and their alimony money. They interviewed you like Harvard. They wanted credentials. Certificates of education about rattlesnakes, coyotes. You had to try and try. You had to know somebody. Nothing left alive to soak up the sounds and the air made white noise like a jet engine next to you. She had second shift to listen for killers but when he woke up her cheek was nestled in his armpit. Her hair on his neck still wet, smelling like campfire smoke and swimming pool. The rain calmed down to a tap tap tap on a detached gutter pipe somewhere and a gray light was picking up. Her fingers on his collarbones and her eyes were opening and she was pulling down the zipper in his 25 degree rated sleeping bag and kissing him. Her mouth stank like Slim Jim debris caught between teeth for sixteen hours but he got used to it. She pulled open his cocoon and the cold air hit his belly. Slipped off her toothpaste color underwear and crawled on top of him and he felt like he was easing into a warm bath in winter. Moving slow with her hot palms on his chest and he looked in her eyes, seeing a child outside time that he wanted to hold and protect. When he came the world went white and he could see her black bones.

Marcy Pendergrass was putting up the Fourth of July decorations. The one hot girl in the office.

She made no small talk. Her heart not in it. The CEO gave a speech, remotely. You may have read about merger talks. Nothing has been determined. As you know in this competitive landscape we can and must do more with less. In the coming weeks, departments may be evaluated. I expect with your competitive drive and your love for a challenge we’ll emerge from this process stronger than before. Applause over the conference room speaker phone.

The summer after freshman year of college he worked nights in a candle factory. They’d fire you for going near the trash. If they let you take broken candles you might break candles you wanted. He worked the shipping line. It was called Plymouth Rock Candle but they barely made anything there. Just assembled it. Product came from overseas. You’d open a crate and an oxblood color bug the size of a men’s loafer would crawl out dying. Second shift once startled a cobra sleeping in a case of votive holders shaped like Christ. The candles were sold by women at parties. They were a loss leader. Revenue came from selling women the idea of selling candles to friends and neighbors. Seminars and training materials. The women sold women who sold women and so on.

The shipping warehouse was biblical. A million cubits high. So big there was haze in the distance. He was a temp. Third shift was an experiment. Keep working 24 hours. 9PM to 5AM he stuck UPS labels on boxes packed with Yankee Bayberry Everflame™ Jar Style his coworkers picked from scaffolding racks that leaned over and gave you vertigo. You could feel the electricity that ran the conveyor belt in the nerves of your arms. Next to him a man pulled a lever over and over that dropped styrofoam peanuts from a hanging bag the size of a high school gym. Labels were a cake job except one or two hours a night, when a guy up the line screamed CANADA and you had to start reading the tiny address as the box rushed by. Three provinces need an extra sticker. Housewives sell each other candles in places like Yellowknife where babies die from blackflies. If he fucked up and forgot the sticker one more time one of the guys on truck said he’d kill him. He’d done 20 years for murder. Six dollars an hour.