Nacho

A few days ago I re-entered the world from an interesting place with a serious appetite. Nachos, I thought. I can't remember the last time I had them. They seem awfully good right now. I went out to that Mexican place in the decidedly un-Mexican town which was in close proximity to me and ordered myself some. They didn't have any jalapeños on them. There was no hot sauce to be found either. The meat was apparently seasoned for New England white folks - blandly. Oh well, that's why you avoid having expectations in the world.

Tonight I tried again somewhere else. The owners and the staff were Puerto Rican in this place. I ordered a Mezcal margarita with salt and the Nachos Locos. They too came without jalapeños. I had to ask for hot sauce (which wasn't at all hot and I'm a medium spice guy at best). But the nachos were pretty good. The meat - three different kinds - had real flavor. 

As soon as I started digging in, a man came up to the bar a couple of feet away from me. He wore his hat backwards and low and I could feel that he wasn't quite right. He commented on my nachos. We talked a bit. 

Turns out we grew up about 4 years apart in the same neighborhood. His sister died from alcoholism at age 30, the same age at which my father died from alcoholism. You're Irish too, right? I can tell cause we both still got all our hair.  He laughs and shakes my hand again soul-brother style. He tells me he just bought his fifth motorcycle - a Ducati. He wants me to be impressed. Maybe this will be the one that gets me, he said. He drinks a flaming alcoholic beverage of some kind before heading home to his shorty and her kids. 

He's got the gene. I can tell. The one that sets you on a course of self-destruction long before you even know what that means. But he's made it to 53 which is really defying the odds. Good for you. brother. He shakes my hand soul-brother style for the fifth time and brings it in for an awkward-Irish-American-all-by-myself-in-a-head-that-wants-me-dead sort of hug and then heads on out. He doesn't have the bike tonight.