Delicious Tacos - Finally, Some Good News

You’re being glib but perhaps you haven’t thought about building an enterprise. Providing goods and services that people want and need. An employee who won’t lie, won’t steal, won’t cheat you out of his time. I’m telling you it’s worth more than gold.

You think we’ll find a McDonald’s out here?

Listen, said Kent. Let me tell you a story. My old Air Force buddy Kevin was training to be an F-16 pilot. The trainees have to stock the squadron snack bar. One day Kevin headed to the operations desk for his mission takeoff. And the commanding officer said “where’s the creamer.” Kent paused.

Where was it–

Kevin hadn’t stocked the creamer. Kevin said he’d get it later. Kevin’s name was wiped off the mission board that day because if you can’t trust a man with your snacks, why would you trust him with a 35 million dollar plane.

OK.

That was the most important lesson of his life. Kevin became one of the premier pilots of his time. Missions over Somalia you’ll never hear about. Top Gun.

Are you Kevin?

No– you’re not listening. Senior grill crew– this speaks to excellence. Your potential.

He couldn’t help but feel flattered.

This is what we need. You make fun of McDonald’s but details matter. If you didn’t find your life to be such a joke you would see that this matters . I need people who get the creamer.

For what?

Because we have to organize against what’s out there. We have to win. And we have to build again.

Kent, what are we building again exactly? McDonald’s is fucking horseshit. And the way they built it– two guys made the restaurant and then some fucking salesman stole it from them. From the people that did the actual work–

And he turned it into an enterprise that made a billion people satisfied–

Jesus Christ– I’m glad it’s gone–

I find your attitude so disappointing. You’re throwing away the greatest lesson life has ever taught you. We need good people to make this world work again. If you’re going to stay you’re going to understand that I run this show. And I do things right –

Who said anything about staying–

Look around out there, said Kent. This place can take a bomb. This place can be defended. Have you had to do any killing since this tragedy?

We don’t know, said Marcy. There was a guy, he shot him with an arrow but we let him go–

Marcy didn’t know he’d brained Larry, Vice President, Global sales with a fire extinguisher.

So someone died in agony because you didn’t have the guts to finish the job.

He might be alive–

If you think someone is living in this with so much as a hangnail– listen. I have water . I won’t force you to do anything. But if you want to live you’re going to work. We’ll find a radio. There are people out there. The police, the military. This is the United States of America. You could be my right hand, if you would correct your attitude.

There was a long silence as the cubed carrots roiled in the camping pot. Almost done.

Marcy, can we talk about this alone for a minute, he said. Climbing the ladder took a very long time.

It was night now. The sky clear in places. A giant moon with an odd cold color leered through the clouds, huge and brilliant. It’s beautiful, he said.

It’s a blue moon.

I didn’t know they were really blue.

Well no, this one looks blue. Which is rare– only in times of atmospheric catastrophe, like a volcano. The dust bends the red light. Or a nuclear war apparently. But it’s also a blue moon - two full moons in one season. It’s rare. “Once in a blue moon-” like a second chance.

You know about astronomy too–

Why don’t you just do what he says

I can’t believe you’re asking me that.

I want to stay alive.

We’ll be fucking fine–

No we won’t. Are you kidding me? I don’t like him either but he’s right, we have to stay together, we have to get organized–

That’s not alive.

What is your problem? He has food, water- he’s going to have electricity! Why don’t you compromise ? You can stay in the tent– we can figure it out –

I’m not going to do this anymore. We lived, Marcy. We had a second chance. I’m not going back. I’m not going to just make shit the same as it was. And I can’t fucking believe that you would –

I’m not leaving.

Get fucked, you dumb bitch– I should just take you.

Like you have the balls.

Don’t test me, he said. Then knew she had. And he’d failed.

I’m staying, she said. You can go. I’m staying.

She meant it. He walked back into the hills alone. The face in the moon seemed to laugh.

She won’t come with me. She doesn’t care about me. The world ended. I’m still the lesser option.

God let her have everything I want, he prayed. Let her be desired and loved. Interesting and important to somebody. Let her have happiness, let her not be alone, feel alone. Praying as he’d been taught. No one heard.

Out in the desolate hills, a mile past the water tank. Only the high passes were burned. On the lower slopes the fall grass was coming up. It had rained early.

He set up the tent. A fine product. It required no tools. He’d bought it for a trip to Montana. Saw bighorns in tall weeds in the hills outside Lincoln. Woodpeckers big as chickens. Two of them together on a collapsed pine. Man and wife. Birds always found each other.

When he heard a sound like outboard motor on a lake he crawled on his belly to a hilltop. The sky was brown-black and full of thin clouds that moved like worms. But in the brilliant blue moon everything was lit. From here he could see the freeway. The black twisted cars. The crater. And something moving. A semi truck. No trailer. Black diesel smoke poured out the tall chrome exhaust pipes. It looked like Optimus Prime. Dirt bikes behind it screaming. Ahead a procession of tween girls naked in chains, marching, faces down. An honor guard. Brutes in masks whipping at their backs. He saw three Lord Humungus’, one Reddit Unicorn, one Fluttershy. These men were dentists once. Or not even– not the jobs animals had in Richard Scarry’s Busytown. A worm driving an apple who did something children had heard of. They were Regional Brand Managers, Hispanic . Blockchain Business Development Account Executives. Executive dangled in the want ads with the understanding you’d say it to women. Now they were living the dream.

It had been five days.

He watched them steer around the cars. Stop at the crater. The truck had been a bad idea. But then they could just get another one. Where were they trying to get to. The big burned hole in the ground and now what. Move up into the hills. They’d find the grass. The snow peas. The water tank.

Or maybe not. None of his business now.

With Marcy gone he could fold her blankets under his sleeping bag. Less bothered by rocks grinding in his hipbones. The hot wind made a pfoom sound on the nylon tent cover. At the gas station ruins where the Slim Jims were poking out from charred concrete there’d been a few magazines flapping around on the pavement. They hadn’t thought to pick them up. Now he would have liked an Us Weekly . Something. Inside Ashton Kutcher’s $20 Million Bachelor Pad. Stars, they’re dead. Just like us.

He lay awake in the pfoom sound. Played with a flashlight on the ceiling. The light would make the tent visible to cannibals. But his life was over. There was nothing to steal.

He was in a church talking to his mother. He was saying I’m sorry and she said it’s OK, it’s OK. Nothing you can do now. He reached out to touch her hair and she seemed put off. It wasn’t OK after all. Are you alive, he said.