First Impressions

Step into the Mexican restaurant together, you beautiful protagonists. Shake the drops off your umbrellas.

Wouldn’t’ve guessed it from the Spanish-mission-style façade, but it’s a sprawling interior.

Though it looks like you’re the only patrons there tonight.

The white lights are hospital-bright.

There’s no mariachi music. No burble of conversation. No crunching of tortilla chips.

Just the weather outside.

A lank older woman with a chic black pixie cut asks if you two cutie pies have a seating preference?

Look at each other, at the expanse of empty tables, at each other again. Shrug.

Secretly, sure, you’d both prefer a booth. Cozy, private, off to the side. But you don’t want to assert such a trivial preference on a first date.

No, show that you’re low maintenance. Like it says in your dating profiles. You’ll take whatever.

She has a very special table for Mr. and Mrs. Follow her.

Ha, no, not Mrs., just Ms., you’ve really only just met and—

¡Ay, qué lindo! Young love. She was in love once, too.

Well, um, you’re not in love, ha, you just met on the apps, but—

Oh? Lust, then? Dios mio.

She makes the sign of the cross and seats you at a four-top high-top in the middle of the dining room, smack dab. Here are your menus—bam, bam—Rico’s your waiter, he’ll be with you shortly. Cuties.

She winks, walks back to the host stand.

Your table is directly beneath a papier-mâché catfish, dachshund-sized, with googly eyes and a wispy Fu Manchu that appears to be made of real hair? The thing is suspended by nylon fishing line looped over a ceiling hook.

Don’t say you hate it. Be positive. Smile at each other. Pick up the menus. Hear nothing but the muffled storm.

Would you like tequila?

Who said that?

Look around. Look up.

It’s the ugly catfish.

He seems bigger somehow. Not dachshund but maybe dalmatian-sized now?

His piscine countenance nevertheless betrays his impatience.

Would you like tequila please?

Look at each other. Hope the other will answer first.

Um, sure? Yeah. What does Rico recommend?

Rico recommends the Clase Azul Reposado.

Uh, that sounds good to you, you guess, right? Right. Not that either of you knows shit about tequila. You’ll take two shots of that, please.

Rico thanks you, closes his googly eyes and continues to hang overhead.

Look at each other. Wonder how this works. Like, is Rico going to go and get you the shots somehow or…?

A flash outside and then thunder.

And then, here inside, there’s a sound like something stretching. It seems to be coming from above. Look up. Rico seems to have ballooned to the size of a Rottweiler.

Look over at the host stand. Your hostess is just smiling out at the glass entrance doors, spackled and blurred with droplets.

The ceiling is starting to crack where the hook is anchored.

Scoot your chairs back a bit. You can guess what’s coming.

Boom!

Rico, now the size of a mastiff, has fallen onto your table in a shower of plaster.

You’ve inhaled some dust, gotten some in your eyes.

Cough it out, wave it away, wipe your eyes.

Rico is moaning as he flops and thrashes on the table. His wispy ‘stache is filled with bits of rubble and dust.

¡Ay, pinche…!

Wonder if he’s real enough to ask him if he’s okay, is there anything you two can do to help?

He continues to flop, to gasp, to swear in Spanish.

Look to the oblivious hostess again. Try to flag her down.

No luck.

Get up off your asses, walk over there, tap her on the shoulder.

Yes? Can she help you?

Hi, yes, um, Rico—

She looks over at where she’d seated you two cutie pies. Rico has flopped himself onto the floor now.

Ay, pinche pez.

For a moment, she closes her eyes, bites her lips. Then she crosses herself, opens her eyes.

There’s a tall stack of plastic red buckets by the host stand. She grabs the top two and hands one to each of you. Here, hold these, please. She pulls out a box of latex gloves, tugs one over each of her hands with a stretch and a rubbery slap. She takes a deep breath, grabs a colorful stick that’s leaning against the wall, and leads you back to your table.

The three of you stand around poor Rico as he coughs and struggles on the tile.

The hostess makes the sign of the cross again, raises the stick over her head, and then begins to smash it down on Rico’s bloated belly.

¡Deténgase, por favor!

But she continues. Bam, bam, bam.

¡No, señora, por favor!

She continues until the light goes out from Rico’s googly eyes and his side splits open and it’s quiet and still again, except for the storm outside.

Look on, both of you, in complicit horror as the deed is done. Look on at what you didn’t prevent. Look on at what—it could be argued—you have caused. Realize how tightly you’re holding the handles of your buckets.

The hostess kneels down on the hard floor, grabs each side of the gash in Rico’s flank.

Watch the muscles on her thin arms tense and contract beneath her loose skin as she tears Rico in two with a loud r-r-r-r-rip. Watch a hundred tiny paper fishes spill from his belly onto the floor and begin to flop around. It sounds a little like the rain.

And aren’t you supposed to be the protagonists? Aren’t you supposed to be driving the story instead of watching it? Why are you just standing there, holding those buckets as the hostess scoops up and dumps squirming handfuls of paper into them? Can your consciences hide behind the anonymity of plurality?

The hostess grumbles as her latex hands corral and capture the slippery paper fish.

Ay, so many. Go get her another couple of buckets, cuties. You saw where they’re stacked, yes?