Having lost a Super Bowl bet in early February last year, I was forced to buy 100 tacos for a few of my buddies to have a feast with while they watched the Pro Bowl. Since I was really low on cash I decided to go to this secret, underground taco shop called Taco Cow down on 5th and Lincoln. I hate going to these sorts of places, it is always so depressing and demoralizing. For me, the worst thing about a discount taco shop is the people in line with you. Everyone looks so beaten; they are older and sick; or they are younger and alcoholic, with weathered, pink leather faces—they can’t quite get it together. They can hold a low-paying job but that’s about it. They are getting by, yes, but barely; their little illusions of stability and making it in this world are so easily shattered by the most minute, unexpected thing and here they are, long-faced and with a few dimes in their hands, starving so badly they are willing to eat the disgusting tacos that this place sells. They are waiting to give their last pennies to some bland, cardboard cut-out of a person who offers their pubic hairs to sell as food. Yes, you heard right—Taco Cow puts hairs, including pubic hairs, in their tacos as substitute for beef. Adding to the embarrassment of eating at this place is that all the pube-donating losers working there wear “cow caps,” ball caps with little stuffed, cartoon cow heads on them; and when you open the door a recording goes “Moooooooo!” throughout the place.
I was waiting in line behind some short, hunchbacked guy in a worn, black leather jacket. He had large, buggy dark eyes and thinning hair slicked back and tied into a pony-tail. I looked down at his ass, saw a red handkerchief sticking out of a blue-jean pocket. Awwwww, I thought, poor little guy needed some hairy tacos to feed his family, and I thought about his personal snot and boogers smeared on that handkerchief. I thought about his ass when bare-- and when no one is looking the crack of that sorry ass must sing a sad, country song of destitution. He probably worked at a local factory. Maybe he had a used pick-up truck. I was certain that nobody cared and for some reason I knew they weren’t going to give him any hairy tacos for the measly two pennies he had in his grubby hand. There was just something about the guy. About the way he smelled; about the way he stared from side to side while he waited in line; about the way he tapped his boot nervously upon the floor.
At one point, at about the same time, he and I both looked at this sign on the wall which read: “You must have a home phone that is in working order to receive tacos from us.” This is when I saw fear cascaded over the guy’s face; this was the beast that would break his already humped back, I could tell. Taco Cow required that you show proof of ID and residence; that you don’t have enough money to pay for fresh, wholesome tacos at an FDA-approved place so they would know you were desperate enough that you wouldn’t complain or tell on them when you found hairs in your food; and they also required a home number so they could have their telemarketers know when they were having special deals.
Sure enough this dumbass went through all the preliminary paperwork with the clerk at the counter; he presented his ID; bank statement; proof of residence, everything, knowing his phone had been disconnected because he hadn’t paid his bill and he wouldn’t get any tacos, anyway, with the measly two cents he held in his hand. That’s something I’ve noticed about the fucked up and the chronically indebted—they tend to think some sort of unknown, supernatural force or something is going to “magically” fix their problems. Like when the clerk called this guy’s home phone number to verify it was in working order, it’s somehow going to magically have a dial-tone all of a sudden!
Sure enough, the clerk says to the guy, “I’m sorry, sir, but it says your phone has been disconnected. You won’t be able to get any tacos from us today.”
“B-But,” the guy squealed. “I’m gonna pay the phone company as soon as I get a job. I need some tacos to get my strength back so I can get back on the construction site.”
The clerk just shook his head and looked around the guy, at me, as if to say, “Next”. That’s when I heard a “snap,” like a neck breaking or a stick being stepped on. Someone opened the entrance behind me and the “Mooooo!” sound filled the room. A cold breeze drifted through the place as all the poor, hungry people shivered. The smell of hairy tacos filled the air and I looked at who entered; it was just some fat guy in a flannel shirt wanting a few hairy tacos, but somewhere I heard the spirit of a future pubic-hair donor breaking; a soul screaming “I want to shave off all my dick hairs now; I have been too long resisting”. It sounded like a crawdad whispering into a little girl’s ear, “I have my claws in your hairy vagina. I will take out a pearl even though it is filled with your blood and shit and all you have to do is lick my taco shell.”
“Dude! I need a damn bag of tacos!” the hunchback squealed again, refusing to leave the counter. “I ain’t got any fucking food at home, man, and I’ve got five kids. Everyone knows you put fucking dick hairs in them instead of meat, so why are there so many damn rules for getting them, anyway?”
That’s when I saw the place’s manager step up, and I recognized him. It was Wally, a disgusting cocksucker and pube freak with rotting teeth and short blonde hair that had bangs across his flat, stupid forehead. He wore glasses, had a pot belly, and used to always hang out at the porn store where I work. He was constantly loitering, looking for a dick to suck or for someone to let him shave their pubes, and one day I told him to get into a booth and start dropping tokens. He went off on me, saying I was singling him out from all the other loitering dick suckers and masturbators, so I told him he was banned from the store forever then. I can only ban him from my shift so he probably still comes into the porn store at other times—but it was nice not having to see him again until now.
