My Little Taco House
My Little Taco House:
It’s South Side, as in, no, you can’t say it like that, it’s got to be “South-side,” like that. Got it? You are just so white sometimes. I swear.
To suggest it’s a throwback is difficult, after all, this is starting the next decade of this century, and therefore, the next millennia as well. It’s not throwback and hardly retro-chic, either. It’s more neighborly. Stuck in a time and place, like an insect frozen in amber.
Wasn’t the only white boy in the place, as a man clearly older than me seemed to be greeted as a regular, in a neighborhood way. Like he lived “round here.”
One corner had an elevated TV shelf with small, cathode-ray-tube TV, set-top box, blasting a soccer game with Spanish commentary. Along the wall, as a back splash for the booths, an out-of-date outdoor sign, maybe two feet tall and perhaps fifteen feet long, bright, faded colors painted on some kind of sign backing, advertising a name that didn’t seem to fit; however, in reflection, the same name as a famous disco, from the late 1970’s? Not the same, just similar name.
Breakfast was good, cheap, too, but that’s more about the location and the seemingly random decor that included an autographed promo still of a Tejano star I never heard of, numerous Selena posters, and a scant sprinkling of various Jesus, Sacred Heart, Crown of Thorns, and Blessing the Children. No crucifix, no rosary, though.
Sawing my way through surprisingly tender machacado, my favorite breakfast, a young girl, age, be a guess here, but between 8 and 12, not quite at the puberty thing, but that’s a guess, big brown eyes, rail thin, hand-me-down clothes, she crawls up on the booth under the TV and turns the volume off on the game. One patron was watching. The girl then turns on a karaoke machine and limbers up with the microphone. She proceeded to serenade the restaurant with – my Spanish is weak, at best – ballads about love and loss, life along the border, and love gone awry. Sounded like ballads to me.
After the second song, the girl punched a button or control surface on the front of the machine, the waitress, our server, complimented the kid, “Very good Jasmine.”
The waitress, server, probably not as old as me, but had the wear of years; however, she was carefully dressed, a plastic yellow flower in her hair tie, a plastic yellow flower sprouting from her order pen, a yellow tank top that was tight without being taut, again, strategically tucked into jeans that were fastened with a yellow patent leather belt, again, with hearts, and on her feet? Yellow sandals. Brown eyes, little make-up, if any, straight, brown hair. Makes guessing age impossible. Sister, mother, grandmother. Can’t tell.
Best guess, from the jocular familiarity, it was her husband cooking, in the kitchen, and guessing again, the family business was always restaurants as I counted at least two more signs for different (implied) restaurant names.
There were, besides us, maybe a half-dozen people in there. After the third tune from the little girl, there was a scattered round of applause. I clapped enthusiastically.
The plaster wall, on the side street, outside the restaurant, one of the emblems is a huge mural-style depiction of the Virgen of Guadalupe.