Invaluable 99-Cent Tacos by Connor Sandrock
A lot of things can happen in that meager space between six industrial-sized deep fryers and a point-of-sale kiosk, cleverly positioned on the wall separating the kitchen so that wandering eyes can only speculate on what lies beyond. You’d rather not think about the personalities that spend their time slaving over stainless steel flattop grills, or how they callously scrape the resin of your two beef patties into a large drum affixed to the side of the Beast – yes, that’s what they call it – where it goes to corrode and decay in a goulash of blood, grease, and other organic components. You’d rather not think about that either.
You should.
Because a lot happens at your local diner.
It’s renowned for its availability: OPEN 24 HOURS. The curvaceous blonde manning the register greets her customers warmly as they enter, if perhaps with a little chagrin as she smells the reek of cheap Irish whiskey on their clothes. She bounces, just slightly, as they demand their greasy gourmet, nudging their direction a custom-decorated smoothie cup with the word “Tips” written in Sharpie, knowing full well the perk of her tits through that polyester green uniform incentivizes gentlemen and braggarts alike to spare some alms for the undercompensated staff. She’ll ring their order into an antiquated software the company has been using since its foundation, then heartily run back to the acne-ridden grill chef with their loot, squeezing those replete tits into the cranny of his back and squeal about how the men in her lobby are nowhere near as attractive or satisfying as he is. Lucky bastard.
And those drunkards, haphazardly fondling the soda fountain in a macabre recreation of “Frankenstein” – making amalgams out of the twelve drink choices, two of which contain no syrup left to blend, and one Hi-C Orange Crush option that ran out of stock years ago, but a container of it miraculously appears in every shipment the diner receives – those degenerates are blissfully unaware of the sullen shift manager currently leaning out the drive-thru windows on the opposite side of the soda dispenser, chain-smoking her sixth cigarette of the night. She cradles the stick delicately, aiming the sickly wisps of smoke so that its scent won’t linger on her grease-marred vest and tie, in the event that a Denver county health inspector should happen to make a surprise 2 A.M. visit.
It’s been three weeks since her last good fuck; before the two teenage shift workers replaced the garish, but exhilarating, Hispanic line cook who would do her dirty in the walk-in cooler, between the plastic bins of individually separated cheese slices and the thirty-pound boxes of liquid vanilla mix for the soft-serve ice cream machine. She’d let the frisky couple know early on in their career that she liked to take her lunch breaks, every day, from 4-4:30, when the point-of-sale terminals were down for maintenance and the restaurant was graced with a respite from the constant drone of starved customers. The couple’s first week she returned from her break to find the duo animatedly sweeping accumulations of shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and chopped onions off the walk-in floor. She worked overtime that night to prepare fresh produce.
The young chef is all too excited to attend to his duties while the women handle the customers. He’s not inclined towards interpersonal skills but finds the insistent sizzling of a grill top and the wild snapping of fryer oil to be all but appropriate for him. By far his favorite activity in the sweltering heat of the kitchen was preparing tacos. The process was succinct and transparent, which suited him excellently, considering the grease trap beneath the frying station had more collective brain cells than he, and only an amateur would fail at tossing a dozen batches of frozen corn tortillas and soy meat into a vat of oil, which, he discovered very quickly, was scalding hot and had a penchant for blasting loads further than he ever dreamed he could do himself. With blinding speed he compiles order after order of the heart-attack-inducing cuisine: eighty seconds of frying, two seconds to lay the cheese, four seconds of aimlessly dusting lettuce into the shell, and six seconds to ejaculate the secret sauce on top – he always liked to make that part just a little bit personal; no two tacos were ever made the same.
Together the trio loosely forms what is, by all appearances, a fully functioning team of specialists trained to offer you the perfect dining experience; an experience wherein your every need is met, and by the time that spritely 18-year-old arrives to ask you about the quality of your service, you’ve got fries fisted into so many orifices that you can’t even mutter how satisfied you are. You’re so engrossed in the lardaceous platter before you that you manage to drone out the rambunctious clamor of the rowdy drunkards baying from the booth nearby. You also fail to notice when the shift lead, normally somber-natured but now with a coy smirk conjured on her face, beckons the hostess to the back office - where the three nocturnal laborers can do rails of blow off the top of that exhausted 1950’s era safe, using the day’s earnings to ingest line after line. You’re ambivalent, feasting on your gluttonous gourmet: just as it should be. Your thoughts, desires, hopes, and wishes are compelled only by the quarter-pound of sloppy imitation meat cradled in your hands; each bite consuming more of your mindshare, threatening to become the only influence in your life that truly has impact or significance anymore.
But it keeps you from imagining that grimy, objectionable, repugnant slough slowly fortifying in those damnable grease traps.