(
This is a little story I wrote before my mission. I loved it so I decided to put it up here for everyone to enjoy... it's my baby that I never, never want to kill)
Some days are great, some days are fine, and some days make you think “what in Heaven’s name was I thinking when I got out of bed this morning?” Today was one of those days. Between four assignments due for my various classes and the two tests that I completely failed; I just wished that the ground would open up and the world would swallow me. On top of that the Mets lost their home game and I managed to split my toe open while rushing to class in flip-flops.
The nightmare of classes finally over and my last test finally finished, I checked my watch, ten fifty. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday night, three bowls of macaroni and salsa, the perfect recipe for a time starved college student like myself. Unfortunately it was not the most filling and my box of Triscuits had mysteriously gone missing three days ago. There was nothing left but to go out and eat.
Three blocks out of the way and I found nothing that fit my mood or my budget. I turned down another street; something had to be open. I wandered through my regular haunts, pacing the streets looking for a place that was open, but all I found were long lines and high prices that I could not even try to pay for this week after my housing and tuition were paid for. The rich smells coming from the restaurants did nothing but to intensify my hunger.
In desperation I slipped into a smaller side street that I had never traversed before. The streetlights were casting a sallow glow on the sidewalk, and an odd haze was settled in around the street.
The street was lined with old decrepit shops for odd curiosities and antiquities. All the windows were boarded up or broken, but more commonly both. Only one place was open
ed. A dingy sign that had more dust on it than paint said ‘Apocalíptico’, and a green neon sign that was flickering more than a strobe light and dimmer than a glow worm had the words ‘open.’I wondered how the ‘Apocalíptico’ got its name. I looked at the framed menu on the exterior of the brick wall,the meal looked cheap enough. Warily I entered through the door. To my dismay, it covered my black shirt with a fine powder of dust.
Absently I wiped off the dust and found that some of the grease spots from yesterday’s meal had taken a liking to the dust from the door. So much so that my previously black shirt was now a grey spotted shirt. So much for the theory that black shirts never get dirty.
The lighting in the restaurant was almost worse than the lamps outside. The lighting fixtures on the bar shone halfheartedly through the smoke that was coming from the kitchen. I sat at one of the stools at the bar, gripping the bar to balance myself as it threatened to topple on its three legs. I wondered what had happened to the third; it looked as though some one had chewed it off. I hoped that it wasn’t any sign of their service.
“What you like?” A small Chinese man stared at me from the counter. His cleanliness seemed out of place in this decrepit diner. His hair was whiter than chalk and his wrinkles had wrinkles. His silken shirt was a royal purple and immaculately tucked into perfectly black trousers. He could have said he was a Ming Dynasty emperor and I would not have been surprised. A Spanish name and a Chinese chef, this meal was going to be interesting, I thought.
“I’ll just have a taco.” He nodded once and disappeared behind the kitchen door.
“Hey do I know you?” A man that I had mistaken for a rather
misshapen shadow came into the lights. He was slightly balding and wore a tattered t-shirt that once may have said something, but now was a miscellaneous bunch of gibberish.
“I don’t think so. . .” I quickly gave my best glare, but he sat down next to me anyways.
“That’s a spotted shirt.” He brushed at one of the dust spots on my shirt. I brushed his hands aside, they were gnarled and the jagged fingernails tore into my hand where our hands brushed.
“Yep.” I poured every ounce of sarcasm that I could at him, but every ounce of sarcasm that I gave him he returned threefold with interest.
“It’s not sequins, but more of a sequiny material.” I looked at my shirt again, sure enough the grease and the dust had given the shirt a certain luminescence, but I doubted that the shirt would be considered ‘sequiny’ in any other lighting.
“Yeah, sure it is.” The windowpanes of the restaurant were filthy, but his breath was worse. He lit up a cigarette and pushed it to the corner of his mouth.
“I wouldn’t imagine that a guy like you would be caught dead in a shirt that shimmered so much.” He punched me in the shoulder, I winced and saw the new spot t
h
at he had left for me on my shirt that was now in desperate need of laundering.
“It’s not my fault.” I said through clenched teeth.
“Of course it isn’t” he winked, “But that is what the government wants you to think. It’s a conspiracy.”
“My shirt is a threat to national security?” The man smiled and nodded.
“They want us to believe that all guys who wear sequined shirts are gays or lesbians, so the conservatives will kill them all.” He closed his eyes and thought for a moment “Personally I think they just think that sequined shirts should be burned. Ruins their little radio cameras they have posted on the streets.” We both looked vainly out the dingy window of the restaurant to find the cameras on the street.
“I don’t think they are worried about this street.” I said, tapping my fingers on the bar impatiently.
“But this is the street where they caught Al Capone. It’s a very important street for illegal activities.” He smiled and I counted three holes where teeth should have been and about four other teeth that were threatening to vacate his mouth if he sneezed too hard.
“I doubt that Al Capone was ever in LA.” He took a long drag on the stick as he listened.
“Al the same. . .” he stopped and held up his hand allowing a steady stream of smoke to exhale through his nostrils.
The old Chinese man came back with a taco; a greasy mess of cheese and meat that not only made chopped liver look delectable but also made
last night’s
salsa mac and cheese
look
like gourmet cooking. The guy sitting next to me grabbed it and started into it.
“How can you eat that?”
“I open my mouth and . . .” He shoved another mouthful in and the old Chinese man watched his every move with waiting eyes. It was like he was waiting for the man to fall over dead.
“It’s disgusting. . .”
“The food here sucks, but it’s cheaper here than anywhere else . . .” He lowered his voice “Personally I think that the day it tastes good will be the day of Apocalypse.” Disgusted the old man disappeared behind the yellow kitchen doors
.
“Goodbye forever.” He said through the taco, his voice now thick with grease.
“Does he have a deadly disease or something?” I noticed that he still had the cigarette balance precariously on his lower lip.
“Why would you say something like that?” He wiped his face with his arm.
“You said ‘goodbye forever’.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I could die today, you never know.” He took another bite of taco, I watched more grease flow down his chin in
filthy
rivulets.
“It is possible.” I conceded, backing away from the man slowly. My stool wobbled around precariously and I had to return to my original position next to him.
“I’d like a meteor to hit my car.” He wiped some of the grease from his arm on his shirt, oddly enough it didn’t look any worse than before…
“What?” I was surprised that the man even owned a vehicle.
“It would be a cool way to die. One second you’re driving along, the next you are gone.” He thought for a moment, “I would be even cooler if it was a rogue meteor. Just hitting me, nothing else, you know?”
“It would be . . . memorable.” Some dust from the ceiling drifted onto his head and formed a sort of eerie halo around his head. I looked for the Chinese man, but he was still hidden in the confines of the kitchen.
“Think of the chances, of all the places in the world, of all the meteors in the sky, it hit me.” He smiled, and I spotted bits of taco meet intermingling with his cavities.
“Quite improbable.” I looked away at the wall, trying to purge the image from my head by counting the shreds of wallpaper peeling off the wooden walls.
“How would you like to die?”
“How would I like to die?”
“I mean a wasting disease, a car accident, poisoning, what?”
“I’ve never really thought about it.” I watched the kitchen door hoping that the ancient man would come out with my food.
“You’re mortal, you have to have thought about it at some point.”
“I don’t like to dwell on my mortality.” I was now praying for the man to come out with my taco or for a meteor to come and hit me now before I had to figure out something else that he was saying.
“Ahh, so you’re one of those spiritual types.”
“And that has to do with your question how?”
“People who are religious are more concerned with the next life, they tend to be apathetic about this one. It’s like they’re Hindus and believe in reincarnation or something.” He looked at me one more time.“ I’d like to hope for reincarnation. I’d want to be a wolf in the next life.” I smiled, trying, and failing miserably, to envision a balding wolf with yellow teeth and grease dripping down its face.
“What would you like to be?”
“I really don’t know.” And don’t care, I silently added.
“You’d be a cat.” I recoiled; I loathed cats almost more than I loathed homework.
“Do I look like a cat to you?”
“I don’t look like a wolf. You’d like it, lazing around in the sun all day, partying out all night with all your cat friends. . .” He took another look at me and smiled. “You’d make a fine cat.”
“Well you wouldn’t make a fine wolf . . .”
“I know; being a vegetarian would definitely hurt my chances at survival.”
“You’re a vegetarian?” I looked at the taco and its meat incredulously.
“Taco meat here is so processed that I doubt there is any meat in there.” He poked the remnants of the taco, “Besides, every one deserves to cheat on something every once and a while. It adds spice to life. And personally I like being part of the Bible.”
“Part of the Bible.” I had read the book once or twice and I didn’t recall anything remotely resembling this guy anywhere within the text.
“That’s right I am proudly helping the day of Armageddon come a few hours earlier with every moment I live.” With all that smoking he was more likely to add to the cause of global warming.
We sat in silence for a few moments as he cleaned his plate taking the time to lick the grease off.
“I’m trying to cut that time down for all of you regular people.” He lit another cigarette and replaced the butt.
“That’s thoughtful of you.” I blinked through the smoke.
“Just doing what I can as a good citizen.” He took another drag. We both watched the kitchen door. They opened and the ancient Chinese man placed my taco on the table.
I had forgotten how hungry I was. The tangy salsa and the yellow cheese tasted sharp and refreshing in my mouth.
I looked at the taco surprised, the thin layer of meat, the crisp green lettuce, the perfectly diced tomatoes, and the neat dollop of sour cream topped with a thin coating of cheese and salsa. It was perfect, better than the best taco I could possibly imagine.
“Beware the day of judgment. The old man has made a masterpiece.” He picked up one of perfect strands of lettuce and popped it into his mouth. He looked at the old Chinese man suspiciously. “Chang
,
why don’t you make tacos like that for me?”
“I make taco like that and you never leave.” Chang wiped his hands on a dishtowel in his back pocket. “I make taco like that and maybe she come back more often.”
“I’m hurt, I’m one of your best customers.” Where his hands were the dust came back on the table.
“You also keep the other customers away.” Angrily Chang wiped up where the man had touched, but his rag left no dent in the dust and old wood. He took the man’s plate and stared at it in disgust. “You finished, now leave.”
The man nodded curtly and took his hat and coat from off the rack next to the door. He began to leave but turned to me and smiled, showing all his teeth.
“I’m Mortimer by the way.” He offered a gnarled hand and I took it, mentally remembering that I needed to take a shower before I went to bed tonight.
“Daniel
.
” He grasped my hand between both of his. I winced as his dry skin pressed against mine. A rushing came to my ears and I felt my vision begin to cave in.
“The end is near.” I took my hand back and wiped off on my soiled shirt.
“How can you tell when the end of the world will be?” I looked at it, there were marks from where his hand had touched mine, like lesions.
“End of the world? I was talking about me leaving to go home.” He released a steady stream of smoke. “The end of our conversation.”
“We’ve just introduced ourselves.”
“I know, we almost said ‘hello,’ that would be the real end.” He chuckled to himself like it was a fine joke.
“Wouldn’t that be a beginning?”
“Aren’t all ends just beginnings in disguise?” Mortimer put on his coat and disappeared out of the door. The clouds of dust in the room settled, and I saw the lights outside dim as he walked past. Inside it was brighter; I looked back in the room and was amazed to find a well-kept restaurant decorated in brilliant colored posters and strings of lights. It was a different place.
“You finish your taco now. The world won’t end tonight.” Chang patted me on the shoulder and I noticed that my shirt’s greasy sheen had been cleaned.
I took a bite of my taco and watched Mortimer vanish in the mist of the night. No, I thought. The world hasn’t ended tonight . . .It has barely begun.
