Heartbreak Burrito
By: Donald J. Volk
There it sat, a plain tortilla, lightly dusted with flour to prevent it from sticking to the pan in which it sat. At first, Glen took no notice of the tortilla as he gathered the other ingredients for a beef and beans burrito, but when he returned to his designated food preparation area, something was different. The tortilla seemed to have a richer texture than before; it now looked like a quality food item instead of one of the low grade ingredients that usually pass through his station. Out of the corner of his eye, Glen noticed Ted, the pot bellied manager of Taco Loco, leaning against the wall, his eyes on the tortilla.
“Glen!” he shouted, making his rather large mustache quiver, “Get back to work!”
Glen wanted to make a smart remark, but instead mumbled a meek “Yes, Sir.”, and went to check on the meat he needed for his burrito.
He walked around rows of brushed steel tables towards the industrial stove, where Hank stood waiting for him.
“Just cooked up a fresh batch for ya Glen.” Hank grinned as he handed Glen a five pound pan of lubricated beef.
Glen smiled back and with a quick thank-you, was on his way back to the tortilla which seemed to call his name even as he wandered back through the kitchen. He set down the pan of meat, and forcing himself to focus on his work, scooped some beef right onto the tortilla that seemed to shine in the dingy kitchen.
The meat also looked different to him, not at all like the grease-lacquered slop that was left in the pan. This struck Glen as peculiar, the fact that the grease was pooling in the pan while the meat on the tortilla seemed to be almost grease free. As Glen pondered the meaning of this distinctively odd occurrence, Sheila yelled to him from underneath the massive plastic menu display at the front counter.
“Glen!” She spoke loudly, but her tone was playful. “Hurry up with that burrito, I don’t want to have to come back there and make it myself!” She turned back to face the line of customers, and Glen smiled to himself as he plopped refried beans on top of the somehow greaseless meat and the seemingly perfect tortilla. He grabbed a burrito wrapper, and with a deft flick of the wrist and a quick fold, had the burrito wrapped and nearly ready to go. He grabbed a sticker and slapped it on the burrito to seal the wrapper shut. He walked up to the front counter to hand Sheila the burrito, and noticed that the burrito was pleasantly warm pressed against his palm, even through the sanitary latex gloves he wore while he prepared food.
The burrito slid gently out of Glen’s hand and onto the counter, its wrapper slightly brighter than the wrappers of the other assorted Tex-Mex meals. Customers filed by as the intercom turned Sheila’s amplified voice into a toneless drone.
“Order two-forty-one is now ready for pickup.” An obviously bitter man sauntered forward, sneered, and made one of the usual comments that dissatisfied customers do.
“It sure did take you long enough.” The man snatched up the burrito, hastily slapping it onto one of the grubby yellow trays that Taco Loco provides to its customers. The man, who had to have been at least seventy, set the tray on the table and sat down to eat. He rose from the plastic booth and walked over to the drink machine to fill his cup. As he did, a pasty-skinned teenager with long hair walked past the old man’s table and discreetly slipped the burrito into the large pocket on the front of his dark hoodie. As the waxy burrito wrapper slid smoothly against the fabric and into the waiting pocket, the teenager’s skin seemed to flush with color. He now looked like he had actually spent some time in the summer sun that currently bathed the restaurant in a warm glow. As he stepped outside, the adolescent shielded his eyes from the glare off the windshields of the cars glinting in the parking lot. A restaurant worker stepped outside and scanned the parking lot, as though he were looking for something. The darkly clad teen ducked out of sight when he saw this, but still feared that he may have been spotted. As he crouched between the gleaming automobiles, he decided not to take any risks, and disposed of the burrito in the most convenient way possible. He jammed the burrito into the nearest tailpipe as far as he could, until only one bright red corner of the wrapper was visible from the outside. When he stood up, he saw that the worker he had thought to be looking for him was merely taking a smoking break, and he scolded himself for his paranoia. Only slightly disappointed, he began to walk towards the burger joint at the end of the block, to try his luck once more.
The burrito sat in the tailpipe of an obscenely large pickup truck, and the tiny red corner of paper gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight, occasionally catching the eye of a passing pedestrian. As the day began to cool, and sun began to sink, the parking lot was lit by the fluorescent lights, casting such sharp shadows that they made the streamlined figures of cars seem like sharp edged blades cutting into the asphalt. The burrito was as comfortable as a burrito can be when wedged into an exhaust pipe, and the pleasantly warm evening temperature made the night more bearable for both people and fast food entrees alike. Late that night, a large leather workboot strode past the tailpipe in which the burrito was confined, and the truck shifted on its springs as the apparently hefty driver climbed into the cab. As the key was turned, and the spark plug did its job, exhaust began to build up behind the burrito, causing a surprising amount of pressure in a very short time. With an extremely large bang, the burrito was sent soaring through the air at high velocity, and the truck driver jumped in his seat, having been startled by what sounded like a gunshot. It soared through the air with a slight left hand twist, and its wrapper fluttered as the burrito skipped off of the hood of an old sedan, pirouetting through the half open window of a faded blue Honda. The burrito bounced twice on the cheap vinyl upholstery of the back seat, and came to rest on the edge of the seat where the wrapper snagged on the corner of a CD case. Sometime later that night, the rear door of the car was jerked open and a grease-stained yellow apron was tossed roughly into the back seat, upsetting the burrito’s precarious perch, and it dropped to the floor with barely a sound. The door of the car slammed shut and a slender young man with close-cropped black hair wrenched the car door open and flopped down into the driver’s seat with an air of frustration.
After the slow afternoon trickle of customers, the dinner rush started and caught Glen completely off guard. Instead of making a couple dozen of burritos like he usually did in preparation for the dinner rush, Glen had been engaged in a lively conversation With Sheila. When she had asked Glen if he had anything to do, it didn’t even occur to him that he needed to be preparing for the stampede of customers that would arrive later. That was the effect that Sheila had on him, when he was talking to her, their conversation seemed to be the only thing that mattered. They talked about what music and movies they liked, they gave nicknames to the different customers that shuffled through the door, and most importantly, they just talked. This happy chatter was, of course, too good to be true, and was rudely interrupted by a middle-aged couple with six grumpy children. This wouldn’t have been a problem, save the fact that all eight people in the family wanted burritos. Glen dashed to his station and prepared eight burritos as fast as he could, but he was too slow to appease the hungry demon children. Glen knew that it was unfair to label them as demon children, but he couldn’t imagine such a horrible screeching sound coming from anything that wasn’t pure evil. Even as the howling children reached a decibel level that threatened to make his eardrums burst, Glen brought the eight burritos to the pickup counter with amazing speed, nearly losing his balance on a wayward packet of hot sauce. He managed to stay standing, although the sauce packet burst and sent its contents hurtling through the air towards the family of eight. Glen watched in horror as the exceedingly red sauce was brought to a sudden stop by the plain white shirt that was currently being worn by the father of the six demon children. The man’s face began to flush a deep magenta, quickly surpassing the brightness of the hot sauce that by now had surely stained his shirt. The kids were howling again, although this time it was howls of laughter, not howls of disappointment that pervaded Glen’s inner ear.
As Glen relived these moments in his mind, he put the car in drive and began to make his way home, completely unaware of the burrito that was now halfway under his seat. Streetlight after streetlight bathed his thoughtful face in an orange glow, and Glen tried to push the bad day out of his mind. After the incident with the splattered sauce packet, Ted had scolded Glen, making it quite obvious that Glen would lose his job if he screwed up again. Glen tried not to worry, but he couldn’t shake the thought from his mind. If he lost his job now, he would hardly ever see Sheila unless he became a regular customer at Taco Loco. He fretted over this, but his thoughts were interrupted as he pulled up to his apartment building, which was painted red and blue by the police cars and fire trucks that now sat in the parking lot. Glen parked his car, and got out to examine the building, looking for damage. It was hard to see much of anything with the emergency vehicles flashing their lights, but as far as he could tell, there were no external signs of fire. Glen walked over to a seemingly idle cop who was eating out of a takeout box from the Chinese restaurant in the plaza next to the apartments. The officer of the law saw Glen coming and took a break from his Asian dinner to wave his hand in greeting.
“The name’s Grant.” He spoke with a mouth half full of food, but Glen didn’t particularly care about manners at this point in time. “If you want to know what’s going on, talk to one of the firefighters.”
One of the firefighters overheard this and smiled at Glen, seemingly mocking him with his devilish grin. “Well buddy, it’s sort of an interesting story, but I’m more than happy to explain.”
Glen listened carefully for the next half hour about why the firefighters were called, and was shocked at what he was told. Apparently, there was a rabid cat in the basement, and the landlord was trying to coax it up the stairs. When the landlord approached the cat with a broom in one hand and a net in the other, the cat jumped backwards, directly onto some exposed wiring. The wire that it landed on was a direct line from the circuit board, and due to the amount of electricity flowing through it, the cat immediately burst into flames. Unfortunately, the basement was a storage room for janitorial supplies, and most of them were highly flammable chemicals. Instead of summoning the fire department, the landlord then tried his hardest to beat out the flames with the broom before they reached the cleaning supplies. This resulted in the broom catching fire, and the startled landlord let go of the broom mid swing. The now flaming broom happened to land on a cardboard box of double-ply quilted toilet paper, smack dab in the middle of the previously mentioned cleaning supplies. Luckily, the land lord had the sense to call the fire department after he had lost both of his eyebrows in the resulting chemical fireball.
