Enchilada Ed

18

When Ed drove to work the next morning, all the DJs on all the radio stations rattled on about margaritas and nachos and Corona. Every functioning alcoholic and frat bro in America was waking up to another excuse to get wasted (and on a Saturday! What incredible luck!). Ed, on the other hand, was preparing for what he believed could be the worst day of his life. The only thing the other contenders had going for them (the day his parents told him about the divorce about a year ago, and the day his ancient mastiff died when he was nine) was that they interrupted periods of relative happiness in Ed's life. Since he was coming off Audra's unceremonious rejection, Ed felt that the humiliation of Carlos's public reveal couldn't actually bother him too badly. He was already at the lowest of all his low points.

Even still, when Ed saw the huge "Happy Cinco De Mayo: half off all Enchiladas" posters hanging outside El Gringo's storefront, he was shaken with a wave of nausea. When he finished changing into his costume in the bathroom, Ed threw up his breakfast into the toilet. When Farbod demonstrated Carlos's "required dance steps," Ed felt faint. And then, when the restaurant opened at eleven o'clock, Piruz shooed Ed out of the front door, with the express instructions not to return until he had given out a stack of menus to potential new customers (or PNCs). Piruz then set up a boom-box on the front step and blared mariachi music.

A car full of teenage wannabe-hood-rats rolled to a stop at a nearby red light. The two siting in the visible window seats gaped at Ed. One shook his head in sympathy, the other laughed and pointed at the polyester chili-point between Ed's legs. It wasn't long before a number of obscene hand gestures sprung out from each of that car's windows.

Ed decided he had been wrong. This was, in fact, the worst day of his life.

***

About ten minutes into his tenure as Carlos, Ed heard a thud from inside El Gringo's. He turned around. Piruz stood in the window, broom in hand, aggressively mouthing the words DANCE and ENGAGE THE PNCS.

Ed started to shimmy. Piruz returned to the front counter.

"Aye Papi! Let me see that ass!" shouted a sunburned man from a pick-up truck. Ed couldn't determine if this request was genuine or ironic.

"No thank you!" Ed called back stupidly, as the truck sped away.

***

By twelve-o-clock, the lunch time rush was well under way at El Gringo's. Ed thought there seemed to be an unusually high number of customers, though that bump in consumer interest probably had less to do with Carlos and more to do with the large posters advertising the day's promotion on half-off enchiladas and the public's susceptibility to seasonal menu items. Ed wasn't able to hand out even half of his menu stack. When he approached cars stopped at the corner traffic light, their passengers rolled up their windows and averted their eyes. When he attempted to engage passersby, they powerwalked around him. In the space of an hour, Carlos-as-a-marketing-scheme was only somewhat enthusiastically greeted by a gaggle of gawky fourteen-or-so year old girls.

"Tough job, huh?" said one of their number, a brunette wearing a Captain America crop top.

"It's easier than steelwork," Ed said, "would you guys be interested in taking a menu? My boss won't let me back in until I hand out the entire stack-"

"Your boss sounds like a dick," a curvy blonde said as she took a menu.

"I feel so bad for you," Captain America said, "I bet you're sweating under that."

"Of course you'd like to know whether he's sweating under that," a third, black-haired girl quipped, "that's so you."

"Shut-up, Roxanne," Captain America flushed, "I meant that the sun is hot today."