Delicious Tacos - Finally, Some Good News

One night Mark, the manager, called the whole warehouse to sit in a circle. They’d succeeded. So productive the company made third shift permanent. As such half of you will be let go in four weeks. Anyone talking about layoffs will be fired immediately. I know this is hard news. Also, second shift packed 5,000 unicorn votive stands with no bubble wrap. This product is genuine glass. Before we start on quota we’ll take them out and repack.

Violins began to play. Management chose an adult contemporary mix. Annie Lennox’s “No More I Love Yous” four times per night. Mark was watching as they scotch taped bubble wrap on the smiling cartoon unicorns and they couldn’t talk about getting fired. On break he’d told the foam peanut man he was taking Amtrak to Long Island. Visiting a girl from school. They’d taken acid together. Their souls were intertwined. They’d get married. Someone had to say something while Annie Lennox overenunciated IN SI-LENCE so the peanut man said: hey. Did you know this guy has to go 200 miles to meet a girl. Mister New York here.

Surprised it’s not the fuckin moon, said the convict.

They made fun of him all night. But he thought about her hair. Felt hope. After the layoff he moved his trip earlier. Couldn’t wait. When he got off the train she introduced her new boyfriend.

This time he was safe. Larry, Vice President, Global Sales, overheard him talk about telemarketing. So you have cold calling experience. They moved him up to sales. He took a girl to dinner to celebrate. She got a direct deposit every month for an old man to watch her take a bath, then half fuck her with a bunched up condom on. The amount was ten times his raise. The client’s money came from an instrumental role in developing the USB adapter. Half the time his dick felt like it went in upside down. On sales calls the voices felt like cigarette burns on his neck.

The office nervous. But not him. Now he was revenue, not cost, plus he planned to steal key data on government officials from the company’s database. Give it to terrorists. Marcy’s summer dress was white and her panties were striped like a candy cane. When she reached high to hang tiny American flags she showed 36 hours of armpit stubble. His mind became two micrometers tall and he wandered among the fat cut hairs like in a forest, feasting on her smell. He wanted to say don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to lose something we all hate. Why could I never speak to a girl like this. We’re both just mammals. How am I so beneath her.

Are you doing OK, he said. And she said: we’re not supposed to talk about it.

Larry left his office unlocked over lunch every day. Laptop open. He was afraid if he let his computer sleep Windows would install a software update, while he was presenting. He stuck in the USB drive. It was upside down. Had to take it out, flip it, push it back in hard before the laptop fan started whining. As instructed he left it in for a minute and then pulled it back out. Only one more step to go.

The new bomb punched a hole in the sky. Over the fireball the black cloud ceiling of seething H. R. Giger demon intestines broke open. You could see blue. The blast was up high. Miles and miles East. The sound came half a minute later with heat like a blow dryer too close to your neck. Then quiet. They’d come out of the tent barefoot in the mud, lower halves naked in the cool wet air, peering over the cinder block fence and squinting. Is it safe to look, she said.

If it wasn’t, we’re already fucked.

Will there be radiation?

I don’t think we can do anything. If we’re gonna die we’re gonna die. How do you feel?

I feel OK.

Me too.

Did you cum in me?

I did.

What if I get pregnant?

We’ll eat it.

She laughed.

Since the last strike was East they went West. Neither knew the roads. Their phones used to tell them. His had still been his pocket. She played Garage Band while they drove past caved in houses and cars, wet and slumped and coal black. She made a song with the vibraphone until the phone asking for money from a server it could no longer reach made it die. Filthy coyotes pulled at the tendons of dead children in the front yards. Scattered when the car came. He kept the revolver in his lap but it felt like it was alive and might shoot his nuts off. He held it out to her. Do you know how to use this, he said.

Do you?

Don’t be an asshole.

I used to go the gun range with Chad.

So you had cool dates together.

Are you jealous ?

Fuck… kind of.

How?

I don’t know how to feel.

Me neither.

Can you just shoot any adult males you see, please. I don’t trust anybody.

OK. If I miss, run them over.

I’m serious. Everyone we’ve seen is rapists.

I was surprised you weren’t.

Well the day is young.

You’re not like that, she said.

When they found the freeway it was just heaps of black metal. Thermonuclear war had occurred during business hours. But a minor economic uptick meant one per cent more cars on the roads, which doubled all drive times. Everything had burned and exploded. Right past the on ramp was a huge ashen hole filled with charred skeletons reaching desperately for the ledge. We have to walk, she said.

Not yet.

What are we gonna do? It will all be like this.

There are fire roads in the mountains, he said. No idea if it was true. He’d spent a thousand hours in the hills seeking woodpeckers. Never seen a fire road. But he aimed the car toward the hills at random and had a piece of good luck. The houses stopped. The pavement stopped. On the leeward side from the city there was sage and green grass from the rain. Dirt that hadn’t been on fire.

Oh my God, she said. Pull over.

A dirty creek ran down a slash in the hillside and green vines grew with white and purple flowers. Bees and hummingbirds floated over them. He cut the engine in the old black Benz and it rattled for half a minute more sucking diesel out. He’d have to start using the canola oil soon. He hoped it worked. It did on Mythbusters . Wild peas, she said.

She climbed out of the car and squatted by the bank where the water ran into a pipe under the road. Picked some and brought them back to him, with one little flower. A fabaceous herb, she said. Look– five petals. The banner, the wings and the keel.

This is amazing– you know about plants?

Yeah, I love botany.

Is there anything else we can eat in these hills?

No.

Well shit.

I’m shocked this is even here. They’re poisonous. If you eat too many they’ll paralyze you.

Jesus Christ–

It’s OK. There’s not enough to hurt us.

He took one. It was stringy and made his teeth hurt but it tasted like fresh cut grass smelled. Everything tasted like life itself now. Like the Earth. A rattlesnake looked on from the mud. He could swear it blinked. When he went for the rifle it was gone.

They came around a bend and there it was. A water tank high up in tall grass. Sides aluminum colored instead of black. Hills high enough and far enough outside town that things were sheltered. You could still read the signs. One of them said FIRE ROAD. I told you, he thought. A pipe ran down from it and it had leaked and tall black mustard weeds sprouted yellow flowers.

I can’t believe it, she said.

It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.

They parked the car and he took the Evian bottles to fill. I’m going to look for more peas, she said.

Don’t go too far. She shot him a look like you’re not my boss.

Take a gun.

It will be fine.

I don’t want to lose you.