CONTRIBUTED BY DAVID DRISCOLL (Chicago, IL)
Hector Burrito lost his temper and had an embolism so severe it busted through the doughy flesh of his La Preferida epidermis, spilling the beans. Everybody knew he was populated with microbials—La Enchilada Loco was always getting shut down for health code violations—but no one could have predicted that a cucaracha would crawl from his innards.
Could there be anything more embarrassing, Hector? I’m sure glad I’m not you. I honestly wouldn’t know what to do with myself. What did you do with you? What happened after you landed splat on the asphalt of the drive-thru? Did you get up, Hector? Did you straighten your sombrero, adjust your cintura and your pistoles, wrap up your gaping wound with your bandana and walk out of El Paso and into the sunset?
You could have gone to Spain, muchacho. They’d like your mustache there, I just know it. You would be a tex-mex sensation! Tapas, not tacos, are the order of the day there, but Europe is liberal. Pendejos can marry in Spain now. Plus you speak the language, caballero. La lingua es practialemente el mismo. You would be the talk of the town—Madrid, Granada, Sevilla, and Barcelona, where they speak with a lisp. You’d be a lost son returned from the colonies, a revenant from the empire that began to crumble almost before it began. That was five hundred years ago. You better brush up on your history, amigo.
Portland! That’s where you should have gone. Or Seattle. The Pacific Northwest is laid back. You could buy flannel shirts and start a Mariachi grunge band. Hector and Los Nirvanitos. Do you like coffee? You could get a job throwing fish. It rains all the time and everyone is lonely there but it will inspire your music. You’ve spent too much time confined to your genre, Hector. I hope you’ve expanded your horizons since your episode. Nothing like a little adversity to help us grow.
I guess what I’m saying is that life is short. You need to take more from life to offset those bad moments—those times when people discover the cockroach in you and think they know everything they need to know. It’s obvious you are more than a roach motel, Hector, more than a Mexican-American and more than just a burrito of beans, lettuce and rice wrapped up in a flour shell.
These names do not signify, do not encompass your totality. I know you’re just trying to get by, but aren’t we all? Life is tough, man. I don’t really know if it’s worth it, but if you’re going to live you better go for it. Go beans to the wall. I wish I could do more for you, but in this day and age we can’t expect much more from anyone than a little encouragement.
