Yelping with Cormac

P. F. Chang’s China Bistro

Emeryville, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

You think that I am petty. You think that I am self important. I am nothing. I am a vessel. I am a crucible in which truth resides for a brief instant. I hear the stillsmall voice of God and I bow before it in ecstasy and He speaks not in the obscenity of man’s tongue but in stars torn from heaven. One star. Four stars. And I keep a reckoning. So that others may know and heed the voice. Know that God has been here. And that we fail Him. Time and time again. The ambiance. The speed and courtesy of the waitstaff. The soap in the men’s bathroom. You wish to plead with me, to bargain. You cannot. Try to offer a free dessert to the universe, to truth. You will fail. So take these stars and know they are heavensent. I will not be returning.

Chili’s Grill & Bar

Natomas - Sacramento, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

I am going to remove a star, he said.

Please don’t mister.

Don’t move. It’s better if you don’t move.

Please.

It’s important you know why. Do you understand why this is happening?

Oh God.

It is because I clearly shared with you my condition. I cannot countenance gluten. And yet I see croutons here. Do you see them as well?

Yes. I’m sorry.

Do you understand that sorry does not remove the croutons?

Yes. Oh God.

Good. Then we can agree your action has changed the course of the universe in some infinitesimal but irrevocable way. To remove the croutons would not remove the action. You see?

The waiter closed his eyes.

Look at me. Look at me. If you look away I will remove two stars.

Urban Outfitters

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

And they come there in great numbers shuffling into that mausoleum that was built for them like some monument to the slow death of their world and among those tokens and talismans of that faded empire they forage like scavengers their faces frozen in a rictus of worldweary their clothes preworn in some tropical factory and they shop and they hunt with dullbrown eyes through that cavalcade of false trinkets and those shrinkwrapped mockeries laying there in silent indictment and they reach out to touch those trite things and their faces are slack but in their gullets a scream lies stillborn for they are the kings and the queens reigning over the death of their people and the world is not theirs and never was and the suffering and the horrors are not their doing but the work of their bankrupt forbears and before them stretches an abyss beyond man’s imagining and within their lifetime the promise of a coming reckoning measured in blood and in pestilence and they shuffle through that store near paralytic and finally they take a metal thing with a feather on it and they buy that thing.

Olive Garden

Walnut Creek, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

And so. The day came. The alguacil asked the boy what did he wish for a last meal. The boy asked for a bowl of pasta from Olive Garden. The alguacil considered this and finally agreed saying there was indeed an Olive Garden in the next town.

That evening a mozo came back into town leading a procession of men and burros. Panniers on the animals steaming like ungulate engines. The cloying aroma of pasta sauce. The loamy musk of breadsticks. The algaucil came to them. What was he to think of this?

And a man from the restaurant came forward and said they had brought pasta for the boy and that in the tradition of their restaurant the boy’s bowl would never be allowed to empty nor would he be want for breadsticks until such time as he was sated.

The algaucil was very angry. He shouted at the men and the burros and the mozo and all cowered but none would leave. For they knew as well as the algaucil of the law of that land. That the last meal could not be denied. And so the boy was served in his cell the unending pasta bowl. Attendants from the restaurant refilling the dish as it neared empty. A train of burros plodding from restaurant to jail and back to restaurant.

The boy’s day of execution came and went. A week passed. Then another. The algaucil fuming in his shabby office. The boy grew fat eating the pasta and the breadsticks.

On the hundredth day the alguacil walked to the jail and told the jailers to leave. And then he entered the cell where the boy lay eating and he unholstered his pistol and he told the boy he would shoot him if he ate any more pasta or breadsticks. And the boy lay there lacquered in sauce and bursting from his prison rags and closed his eyes as if to consider this ultimatum. He belched thunderously and was still. And so. The boy escaped the noose.

Trader Joe’s

Santa Rosa, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

A sweltering breeze hissed among the grape vines soldiering in rows up the hillside. The earth and the grass baked and golden and high above the white orb of the sun left the farmer spotlit and shadowless as the riders approached. They came from several directions winding among the vines insouciant and lordly with their rifles and before them like some conquering general rode a man in spotless denim and wearing a ten dollar stetson. He pushed his black thoroughbred forward till the farmer could smell the hay on the animal’s breath. The rider stood the horse there and watched the farmer for a long time. Do you know who I am, said the rider.

Yessir.

My offer is more than fair.

Yes.

So sell.

I caint. This is all I got.

That is not true.

Sir.

You also have a family.

Yessir I do. I do have that.

The rider took a cigar from his breast pocket and smelled it. He looked to the West the coastal range serrating the horizon like some sunburnt palisade and beyond it a sea of fog formless and seething. He put the cigar away. Do you know what this country will look like in a hundred years, he said.

The farmer shook his head.

It will be houses packed together like sardines in a tin. And the folks who live here will all be drinking my wine. They will be drinking Two Dime Chuck like water and you and your kind will be long forgot. The rider sawed the thoroughbred around and rode away. The men remained in that dusty and cropped field intent upon the farmer their rifles gleaming blueblack their eyes shaded and unknowable and the only sound to break the metallic silence was the air shimmering and whispering, en route to the sea or some other oblivion.

Westfield Shopping Mall

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

Tucked in the far corner of the food court next to a sushi bar he saw a blue hieroglyph beckoning. The bathroom. He walked quickly and stiffly toward the door.

A boy and his father walked out just as Bragg entered the bathroom. He paused and held his breath listening. No one. He found the handicapped stall and bolted the door closed. He let the bag fall to the floor and gingerly pulled his hands away from his side. A growing black stain marked the wound. He carefully unbuttoned his shirt. Pearls of sweat on his upper lip. The arrow head was clean through and protruding from his abdomen like a costume gag. You aint dyin in no shopping mall bathroom, he said.

He bent at the knees so he could reach in the bag and pulled out the garden shears and holding them with a whiteknuckled hand eased the blades of the shears around the short length of arrow shaft near the wound.

The Taco Trilogy

Set in the gray villages of a desertbound country, The Taco Trilogy is a taut, brooding Yelp review epic about a fateful taco and a mysterious wanderer who is consumed by a quixotic quest for truth.

Taco Bell, Review I

Taco Bell, Review II

Taco Bell, Review III

Advanced praise for The Taco Trilogy:

“The world must see this, and revere it.” —Bit Bucket, Tumblr

“…the writing tends to bloat as you go…” —Matt Peckham, Time.com

“JESUS CHRIST I LOVE THIS BLOG” —Serious Delirium, Tumblr

“I got through as much of the 2nd Taco Bell review as I did Suttree. :(” —mullacc, MetaFilter

About the author:

Cormac M. is an Elite Yelp reviewer and novelist.

Taco Bell, 3rd Review

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

One star.

They left him there in the cell. Delirious. Speaking of crazy things. Wild things. The guards would not touch him. As if his blaspheme would taint all in his presence.

We do not know how many days passed. The villagers assumed that the man had been shot. Many claimed to have seen his corpse. But finally a visitor came. He was a man from the restaurant. The guard introduced him as assistant manager Marty. Marty spoke to the prisoner with friendly words. Of a terrible misunderstanding. Of regret. For the taco. For his experience at the restaurant. That perhaps some reckoning could be made. Some settling of accounts. Perhaps a ten dollar gift certificate.

And the man who ate the taco rose for the first time in days. Unsteady on his ruined leg. What could he say? After what had occurred. The struggle and the lives lost and the villages left smoldering and glowing as if the earth’s integument was torn and hell laid bare.

He told Marty that his parlay was with no man or restaurant chain but with God. That no ten dollar gift certificate could recompense for an abomination that left mankind orphaned and Godless and wandering in a barren and eternal wasteland. That the taco could no more be unmade than time stopped. Than the deserts flooded with water.

Marty said nothing and turned to leave but the man stopped him. He asked Marty what had become of the taco. And the assistant manager said that it had been burned and the ashes spread at night. The man who ate the taco laughed at this. He laughed and would not stop even when the priest came. And they took him to the yard and there he was shot and at last he stopped laughing.

The villagers heard a bell tolling. Even though the church had been burned and the bell melted. And for years they would hear this bell ringing. This clarion call. And it came to be known as the bell of the taco.

2 Previous Reviews:

11/3/2011 We do not hear from the man who ate the taco until November of that year, when he… Read more »

10/26/2011 And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also… Read more »

Jamba Juice

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

I’ll have another, he said.

The clerk wiped down the counter and would not look at him. We’re not supposed to give customers more than three guarana boosts, he said.

I aint askin.

The clerk poured another shot of what looked to be hog lagoon effluent and pushed the glass across the counter.

The man took the brimming glass with a calloused hand and stared into the murk and staring back were wolf eyes golden and immutable. He tossed the shot back. As if in consuming the vision he could consume the memory as well. The scar sickled across his face throbbing.

Taco Bell, 2nd Review

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

We do not hear from the man who ate the taco until November of that year, when he returned to the town on the back of a mule. The villagers gathered in the square reverently as if before them rode some great emissary. Staring with coalblack eyes at the man in his rags and on a crude cedarwood pike the halfeaten taco moldering. He dismounted and stood before them. And in a quiet voice he began to speak. The villagers overcame their fears and ancient taboos and approached him. To listen and to assure their eyes that he was of flesh and of blood.

The man spoke of his trials with the taco so terrible even God could not eat it. That it had cleansed not only his gut but also his soul. And a veil had been lifted and he could see the truth. And the villagers leaned in crossing themselves and gasping as he told them that God held no dominion over this land anymore and neither did the men from the capital. And in his blaspheme the villagers heard the truth. What began among them as a murmur nearly inaudible rose to a chorus of shouts. For even the elders could not deny the man who ate the taco spoke for them. And in his veins coursed the blood of their people and the downtrodden throughout those ashen hills.

And so. This is how the uprising began. How in the towns of that country under the cobalt vault of the sky impassive and immutable the villagers took to arms under the banner of the halfeaten taco. What was to come was not man’s doing but of some celestial machinery. Who are we to ask why? For once the taco was eaten it could not be uneaten nor could the tragedy looming be diverted or waylaid.

1 Previous Review: 10/26/2011 And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also… Read more »

1 Follow Up Review: 11/10/2011 They left him there in the cell. Delirious. Speaking of crazy things. Wild things. The guards would not… Read more »