Enchilada Ed

20

"Ed's serving up enchilada realness?" Ed's dad said to someone Ed couldn't see, "what that hell is that even supposed to mean?"

Ed climbed down the stairs, toes first and then heels, so that his dad wouldn't hear his footsteps. He pressed his ear against the curtained French doors of his dad's study and listened.

"I'm looking at it right now," Ed's dad said, "I just don't understand how this could get almost a hundred thousand retweets."

Silence.

"Don't be ridiculous, Sara. You can't hold me responsible for the public's idiocy. He did get his good looks from you."

Ed quickly realized his dad spoke to his mom over the phone. They haven't started shouting at each other yet, he thought, Maybe my viral internet fame could repair a broken marriage-

"I never said that, you harlot-" Ed's dad growled.

Ed winced. Well, I can't expect a Disney movie miracle. He walked to the kitchen, made a piece of toast, and sliced open an avocado. As he pitted it with a teaspoon, his phone began to buzz in his sweatpants' pocket. A call from Piruz. Ed ignored it. He scooped the avocado fruit onto his toast. Before he could mash it, his phone rang again. Ed answered it this time.

"Such incredible luck," Piruz said before Ed could even speak, "My money senses are greater than even I thought."

"Hi Piruz," Ed smushed the back of the teaspoon into the avocado fruit.

"Truly astounding. Truly elite!" Piruz continued, "I am the most elite of money mediums. Who the hell is Suze Orman compared to me? I'm a marketing genius- Farbod's a marketing genius!"

"So this is about me being a meme?" Ed searched for a lime in the fridge.

"This is about you being Carlos."

"Is there a point to this call, then?" Ed inspected a browning lemon he found in the vegetable drawer.

"I need Carlos here, at El Gringo's, as soon as possible." Ed could hear Piruz smile, "There's a line, and it goes down the street."

***

There was a line, and it did go down the street. Ed couldn't help but gawk at it as he fed his parking meter. He assumed that if he approached wearing street clothes, the thirty or so tweenage girls standing on the sidewalk outside El Gringo's wouldn't recognize him.

He was wrong.

Instead, he was greeted with cooing and squealing and the chiming repetition of his name.

"ED! ED! ED! ED!"

Before Ed could reach El Gringo's front step, he was swarmed. Arms and hands and iPhones shot out all around. Friendship bracelets dangled before his eyes. A cloud of Bath and Bodyworks fragrances choked him.

"Can I get a picture with you, Ed?" asked a short, blue-haired girl.

"Sure?" Ed struggled to determine which iPhone camera to smile into as the blue-haired girl grabbed his waist.

"I want a picture too!" Another voice pleaded from somewhere in the crowd, "Let me have a picture, please-"

"Sure?" Ed stared at a freckled girl as she pressed her head into his chest and sobbed.

"I favorited all your tweets," the freckled girl cried, "We both like Star Wars and Sour Patch kids- we're soulmates."

"Oh," Ed tried to get a look at the freckled girl's wet face, "That's nice, but please don't cry?"

"I love you," the freckled girl wiped her tears on Ed's shirt.

Soon a veritable chorus of "I love yous" rose from the crowd.

"Thank you?" Ed mumbled, "You're welcome?"

A hand grabbed Ed by the neck and yanked him backwards. He stumbled against the front step and barely kept his balance. He looked behind him, startled.

"Stop making a scene out here!" Piruz hissed, "do you have any money sense at all?"

"I don't know," Ed smiled at another iPhone thrust in front of his nose, "they just started, uh-"

"Get inside, get inside!" Piruz waved his arm toward El Gringo's front dining room, "Stop giving away those pictures for free!"

"For free?"

"You're a downright money muggle!"

***

Ed sat in the backroom in his chili pepper costume, staring at the ceiling. Piruz bustled in a few minutes later, and tilted a chair up against the door behind him.

"It's madness out there," he said, shaking his gray head, "I had to contract more temps! Good thing Farbod wasn't arrested yesterday, we'll need as many hands as we can get."

"Farbod could have been arrested?" Ed lifted his brows, "what happened?"

"After one of the Skydance protestors threw a bottle of San Pellegrino at Kenneth Branagh's head, things spiraled," Piruz waved his hands in a rolling motion, "there was some, uh, violence."

"Doesn't San Pellegrino come in glass bottles?"

"Who cares? Nobody's talking about the gash in Kenneth Branagh's forehead. Everybody's talking about this face," Piruz pinched Ed's cheek, "Everybody loves this face."

"Can you not-" Ed squirmed in his chair.

"I want to copyright this face," Piruz released Ed's cheek, "I thought all these new customers were attracted by Farbod's genius commercial, but after seeing that display outside," Piruz pointed his thumb behind him, toward the front of the store, "I realize you don't even need to be in costume for the public to recognize you."

"Yeah?" Ed crossed his arms, "How could you tell that?"

"I can't even credit the anti-marketing marketing, this is more primal than that," Piruz gazed up toward the fluorescent overhead light, "I knew it when I saw you- my money senses knew it."

"Are you gonna give me a raise, then?"

Piruz's eyes darted down to Ed.

"I'm willing to renegotiate your contract after we settle the copyrighting of your face," Piruz smiled a broad, probably fake smile.

"That doesn't seem fair or legal-"

"We're wasting time," Piruz started for the door, "I need to go out and oversee the temps."

"Okay," Ed stood up, "Do I really have to wear this costume, since, you know, this is about my face?"

"You stay in here, understand me?" Piruz's eyes enlarged to a great size, "You go out there, get in the way, allow unpurchased pictures to be taken of you! I can't stand for that!"

"Unpurchased pictures?"

"That's right," Piruz explained, "If the customers order a jumbo enchilada platter, they get seven minutes in the backroom with you."

"Seven minutes?" Ed sputtered as he thought of his more intensely devoted fans, "Doesn't that sound kind of like- what do they think we're going to do in here for seven minutes?"

"Take authorized pictures, like a meet-and-greet."

"Can you explicitly state that it's for pictures?" Ed pleaded, "like tell them, this is a meet and greet FOR pictures-"

"I don't see what the difference is," Piruz furrowed his brows. He pulled a keyring from his pocket and removed the chair obstructing the door. Just before he left, he looked over his shoulder at Ed.

"If the kids can get a photo of you while you're at some tweeny-bopper movie, they won't buy my enchiladas. They don't buy my enchiladas, you don't get paid. So stay out of the public's view when you're off-duty, comprehendo?"

Ed blinked.

"I don't speak Spanish."

***