River

The Bell at 3 AM

I was 8 when I first experienced a menu change: black olive enchiladas with the best cheese ever *Poof* off the menu, my little sister’s face crestfallen. The tone in my poor mom’s voice. It's sad to see a little joy slide away from your kids' childhood.  

I am 43.  

Whenever I tell this story: My kids, their “O” faces shocked. Proper Tamarian.  

Taco Bell was around back then?  

Yes, children. Gather round for the tales of wheel invention and loss of favorite meals. 

Being vegetarian. Sometimes quickly going from job to volunteer EMS to class. Then later ferrying two littles around, then later, doing it alone, then later ill and homeless. Being vegetarian, at times poor, overwhelmed, or both. Oh, how those cheap, easy, tasty, known selections were comfort embodied.  

I remember when they changed the cheese. Four times. Some of that cheese was…plastic. Basically rubber. Some were delightful.  

I remember when they didn’t take credit or debit cards.  

I remember when they didn’t give a discount for ordering with no meat but charged you for extra tomatoes.  

I remember when they introduced the seven-layer burrito. Not delicious.  

But it grew on me.  

My kids remember too.  

That seven-layer burrito was my daughter’s favorite. She ate it religiously. Celebrate? Seven-layer burrito. Sad? Seven-layer burrito. Hungry? Seven-layer burrito. Not hungry and say you don’t want anything but we both know later you’re going to eat mine even though I say order something anyway, because that’s what’s going to happen, and you say no it’s not? But it does. Order a seven-layer burrito ‘for me.’ She always eats it later.  

My kids remember.  

Somewhere near a base they tore down an old Taco Bell and built a new one right next to its older sibling’s bones still piled in that crumbled lot. Between a concrete field and a cramped building shoehorned into a bizarre, squished footprint, you’d wait in a defunct alley at a stop sign sharpied with penises. Wait for your turn to slide into a tiny aisle round back, to order that comfort food. That good ole reliable comfort food.  

You’d glide by a wood plank fence slowly peeling away from the posts owned by the dusty house next door. You’d stare at the lights of the  

McDonaldsArbysBurgerKingSonicsPizzaHutKFC

always being constructed and deconstructed across from the lane the Taco Bell drive-through spit you out from, at three in the morning, clutching that comfort food.  

“Check your orders, kids, make sure there's no meat.” Do it every single time because eventually someone is screwing up and none of us want a mouthful of meat.  

We all remember the combination TacoBellPizzaHut. I miss that one. Every time I say it I think of that TikTok of a nonbinary role model.  

{“Are you a boy or a girl?” TikTok hands wiggle towards each other at each line. I’m at the Pizza Hut, I’m at the Taco Bell. I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.}  

I didn’t have nonbinary role models growing up. Only people shoved into binary boxes no matter how they transgressed. I love that TikTok. I need that TikTok. I watch that TikTok till it’s threadbare. I need someone my age who'se made it, a combination Taco Bell and Pizza Hut like me.  

Oh, my kids remember little changes here and there too. The addition of that spicy sauce (god awful, my daughter says; I eat it anyway). The fiesta potatoes. My oldest is all about that bass.  

Those cheesy fiesta potatoes are when the gods got addicted to giveth and taketh away. And then giveth and taketh away. And then giveth and --STOP PLAYING WITH MY HEART.  

Then Covid came and the execs decided to smash it to pieces all at once. No more slow-rolling changes. Thinking they were 1984 Apple MacIntosh. The hubris. Robbed us of that Mexican pizza. Took away the tostadas. STABBED the seven-layer burrito IN. THE. BACK. Oh, my daughter’s crestfallen face. The only thing she can really eat anywhere. The absolute joy to her soul. The thing she craves when ill. She’s twenty last month and still spicy about it.  

It's sad to see a little joy slide away from your kids' childhood. But honestly, she’s perpetually salty about it so I’m perpetually kind of pissed.  

Yeah, we’ve tried the Bell since, a couple of times, with its washed-out white sign redesign. But it's not the same. They rolled us along successfully for thirty-two years, pickpocketing favorites here and there. And in two they broke it. And they keep breaking it.  

Reduced the hours but never brought them back. Brought back the Mexican pizza, but it's out all the time. Raise the hope and then crush it. What did I see yesterday in the story I’m about to tell you? They added eggs in a burrito wrap? Eggs? If I want scrambled shit, I’ll go to McDonalds. I don’t go to McDonalds.  

That yesterday story:  

I have to pick her up from school, she’s ill, fevered, probably Covid (spoiler: it was), and suffering from a spiraling concussion. Mommy, come get me, I can’t take care of myself.  

I’m exhausted, when I hop in the car, in pain, having run out of critical medication (fuck American healthcare), and not having eaten for hours. You bet my butt is in that driver’s seat so fast deer on a corncob cain’t rustle no possum jimmies, as more than one of my relatives would say. After I pick her up, after I’ve been driving more hours than I feel like counting, we give in, she and I, the two of us, most bitter of us all about the menu changes. Oh yes, us weak wanton pieces of exhaustion, we give in like the wet noodles we are.  

We barely make closing at midnight; I lament these new ridiculous hours as we wait in an offensively long line.  

I remember when the hours were first contracted, two years before. I remember driving forty-five minutes from north of the county to south trying to find an open Taco Bell for my oldest, at three in the morning. We drove so long we ended up at my old town. We drove past my old boyfriend's house. We drove past my old girlfriend's house. We drove past my old house. We ended up at my old high school, now the junior high. The back door was open, and I entered at 5 in the morning to ask whoever was there if I could give a tour to my oldest.  

The lone person in the building was a coach that graduated in 1985. I was relieved, I graduated in the late nineties; I did not want to run into anyone I knew. The look on his face reminded me it's a different era and you can’t just walk into a school nowadays at weird hours, recount some nostalgia and expect them to let you whisk through the building. The 21st century requires background checks and licenses, and you know…general safety things. He says to call during office hours and maybe someone can give us a tour during the day. I politely agree and apologize profusely for putting him out. I and my oldest both know we’re never coming back for a day tour. My ex-girlfriend is the only one I ever want to run into again from my high school days. In fact, I called her yesterday.  

Zip forward back to me driving my fevered daughter home, now clutching a brown paper bag full of Bell contraband. I pull over at a gas station to eat. I first dig into a vegetarian burrito thing. This is not tasty. Edible, but exceptionally disappointing. Some man is fairly agitated at the outdoor pay window. He bends out supplicating. Another man is gesticulating wildly. My daughter drifts in and out of sleep.  

The man goes back and forth to his car, holding rags and wallets and keys and I cannot figure out what is going on. I open a disc-shaped item. I bite into it. It's ok. It has potential. It would be decent if they hadn’t wrecked their entire menu. But it's not enough to hold my fractured loyalty.  

The man is gone, and a woman pulls up. Does she have…  

I stare from my dark seat to the brightly lit fueling area. No, that has to be a book in her pocket? I crunch again into the disc. A cell phone maybe?  

The second man is still there and is now talking to the woman animatedly. I lock the doors. Crunch some more. Crane my head.  

“I think that's a gun in her pocket,” I say.  

“What?” my daughter murmurs.  

“It's a handgun. It's definitely a handgun. She has a handgun tucked in her pocket.”  

“Then stop staring.”  

The woman drives off and the man is left alone again; the gun has stayed in her pocket the whole time, t-shirt tucked high up like curtains pulled back for a debutante, pistol butt out, proudly visible, but…untouched.  

The man talks to the woman behind the glass, his body flingy with a different type of agitation. I realize so far he’s talked to anyone who gets too close, who makes any eye contact.  

“Mommy, stop staring.”  

I look at the last fourth of the crunchy disc thing. I decide the cheese quesadilla, the only thing barely recognizable from the old menu, can be for my nephew. I dump that last fourth of the crunchy disc back in the bag, buckle up, drive thirty minutes down the highway to another gas station to finish it.  

“I mean, Ohio just made all carry legal. Ohio is the Florida of the Midwest and Florida is the Ohio of the south. So…I guess you get a handgun in a pocket at 3 am at gas stations and no one blinks an eye.” My daughter looks at me, both of us knowing that I have just announced the most obvious thing ever.  

She readjusts her pillow and then tells me a story about a guy that is interested in her, as I shove the last few inches of crunchy something into my face.  

He presumes too much because she won’t let him help her right now and he suggests that if she lets me, disabled and overwhelmed, drive four hours to get her then, what does it say about him that she won’t let him help her? She knows she’s got a problem with letting people do things for her, but she gets real aggro when she recounts his words. “There is a huge difference between my mom and some guy. Yeah, I’ve known him since grade school, but I know why you do what you do.” ‘Cause I love you. “’Cause you love me.”  

I feel energized for the last half hour of what is ultimately a six-hour drive for me. Nice to know I’m still top billing. Me and her siblings. We’re her seven-layer burrito. That nice young man is just going to have to work harder to join the cult.  

I pull back out on the road, and we agree, as we do every year, to never eat at Taco Bell again. The sense of betrayal combined with extremely untasty food feels like spending money on a gaslighting boyfriend who can’t find the clit.  

It's ok. I can say that now. Both my kids are in college. They’re adults. They agree, we’re at a different level. But the ace one asks me to pick a different reference. I’m still thinking about it. What metaphor can really demonstrate the disappointment in the complete failure to meet basic expectations, when you know it's going to happen but keep telling yourself this time will be different?  

We drive home in the dark. I drop her off and pick up the youngest from the oldest’s abode. Everyone is asleep and no one is picking up the phone. I call and text and call and text. I drive around the block. I get lost. A lot of guys are walking around in the dark at 3 am with no shirts.  

I can’t leave him there; he has to come home. So, I set off the car alarm because I don’t actually know which apartment to knock on. No one calls the police around here anyway. My oldest finally answers the phone. They stumble out, bleary, and deposit the youngest in the car. I slide the quesadilla towards him, wordless. He munches on it without speaking.  

I pull away from the curb and drive home.  

I remind myself to file an eviction notice; this restaurant’s been living rent-free in my head for too long. I know I won’t. I’ll be back in six months, having a booty call with that ex that I can’t seem to drop. A thousand other memories come flooding in of our past together.  

FML. I need therapy.  

Epilogue  

My youngest reads this over my shoulder for a second. From the kitchen he asks, “Have you considered your anger at Taco Bell is irrational?”  

I yell from the living room, “Yessssssss!!!” My daughter firmly punctuates out from quarantine in the back, “No.”  

You hear that execs? My daughter has Covid. My daughter has a concussion. My daughter can barely eat. She’s hurt. She needs comfort. All she asks for is some comfort food. Bring back the seven layer burrito.  

Bring. back. the. seven. layer. burrito. 

River is a poet in Ohio in the US. They like cats. And dogs. Some lizards. The occasional amphibian. They have very lovely kids and a penchant for succulents and mint. They’ve been published in Dipity Literary Magazine and just femme & dandy. https://www.chillsubs.com/ugh/user-River