His first words were "...bad chorizo..." which, given the legacy…looking back…well, it was quite a turning point in his life. I mean, without chorizo, why he…
But, wait…my thought processes have grown like weeds – here,
there…often randomly out of the cracks in my head, so I get ahead of myself, and have grown so used to having a
personal dialogue, well... I sometimes get involved to the point that I have
them out loud. People hear, and they wonder...
My Apologies. Let me clear this up:
Bill would eat a can of stew at lunch each day, same stew,
everyday, except for Fridays, when he’d slip away (sometimes the Springs, sometimes the Track...) Same blue can, with yellow
circle…’Betty’?…’Susie-something-stew'?…’Ann’ something?
He cooked right there in his old pan on a hotplate, then eat sitting at his cluttered desk, soda cracker crumbs and gravy-stained blotter....you could tell if Bill signed your check at lunch, as he often did, because there'd be ‘smears’. He didn’t mind the mess, and he wanted you to appreciate his thrift. He was ‘a grunt’ just like you, slavin' through lunch.
He cooked right there in his old pan on a hotplate, then eat sitting at his cluttered desk, soda cracker crumbs and gravy-stained blotter....you could tell if Bill signed your check at lunch, as he often did, because there'd be ‘smears’. He didn’t mind the mess, and he wanted you to appreciate his thrift. He was ‘a grunt’ just like you, slavin' through lunch.
Of course us boys didn’t drive the same class of car, have a
house on the lake, or a member in the Club...and none of us boys kept a
little tootsie on the side, in a bungalow 4 miles from the studio, but Bill
did. We knew. It wasn't the best kept, nor the worst sort of secret out there,
and remember, it was his studio that employed us and half the town so who were
we to cast stones at the mistress’s windows, or look down our noses at her
talents?
She was a working girl and DID serve a stint as an ‘office temp’ but as
short as that employ was, she was now his ‘bedroom steady’ on a regular schedule and payroll.
As Bill attended to his distractions, his attention, grew lacking, back at the lot. The work
had grown mundane and tired..bored for his attention...and 'characters' became mere characterizations of
themselves, with no personalities, no quirks, no surprises...bad jokes...
Hell, we all got tired… formulized… fat... and lazy…the work included.
Hell, we all got tired… formulized… fat... and lazy…the work included.
That’s when Bill, in the midst of his excesses, took ill.
He’d grown bored with it all - lost interest in his business, his wife, his children, even the mistress...in other words, the "all inclusive" of his Life. Found himself, aimless and stumbling under the load, and just decided to unburden himself.
He wandered. Restless.
His first taste of Mexican sausage coinciding with a recent heat for Latin women, up in the neighborhoods, discovered in a small dark barrio bar. ‘Tamales’ he called them, and this was back then when you didn't mix...not in that section. But he devoured both like chips & guacamole. Never had Tequila or a burrito before, until the 'combo plato' colluded that fateful night with a bacterial infection - "salmon-something" - that sent him to the Emergency.
I mean, we almost lost him right there...the coma came and went for weeks, and we worried about our jobs by that point. He'd have ‘the sweats’ and would mumble, babble in a heated argument, express an occasional gasp of excitement, or a bout of raucous laughter, as if he were sitting in the screening room of hallucination, as projected on the cranial wall.
That was ‘the miracle that was’ - born of the malaise from whence the iconic “Chizo, the Mad Squirrel” became the star of the New Empire and made us all a bunch of dough.
He’d grown bored with it all - lost interest in his business, his wife, his children, even the mistress...in other words, the "all inclusive" of his Life. Found himself, aimless and stumbling under the load, and just decided to unburden himself.
He wandered. Restless.
His first taste of Mexican sausage coinciding with a recent heat for Latin women, up in the neighborhoods, discovered in a small dark barrio bar. ‘Tamales’ he called them, and this was back then when you didn't mix...not in that section. But he devoured both like chips & guacamole. Never had Tequila or a burrito before, until the 'combo plato' colluded that fateful night with a bacterial infection - "salmon-something" - that sent him to the Emergency.
I mean, we almost lost him right there...the coma came and went for weeks, and we worried about our jobs by that point. He'd have ‘the sweats’ and would mumble, babble in a heated argument, express an occasional gasp of excitement, or a bout of raucous laughter, as if he were sitting in the screening room of hallucination, as projected on the cranial wall.
That was ‘the miracle that was’ - born of the malaise from whence the iconic “Chizo, the Mad Squirrel” became the star of the New Empire and made us all a bunch of dough.
Yessir, ...bad sausage, and hot tamales.
And he never went back to the stew.
And he never went back to the stew.
V
