Yelping with Cormac

Taco Bell

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

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

Two stars.

And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also in defiance of some order older than he. Older than tortillas. Than the ancient and twisted cedars. How could we know his mind? We are all of us unknowable. Blind strangers passing on a mountain road.

The man laid there in the village square for three days and nights and took no food and spoke to no visitor. The older villagers said that the man should not have eaten the taco and no sane man would do so and the price of such folly was known to all.

On the fourth day an old lady asked the man was he ill and did he need a doctor. The man told her he was indeed ill but that he wished to see a priest. And she crossed herself and left and in the sweltering afternoon sun a priest came down to the square to see the man.

The priest asked the man why he lay there in the square and if perhaps he could be convinced to leave. The man said he had eaten a thing which he should not have and he could not move because the world was revealed to him in its evil and in its beauty. That if he moved he might fall into the sky and never return. The priest assured him that it was not possible to fall into the sky and that an earthly cure of ginger and peppermint would surely calm his digestion. The man asked could God make a taco so terrible even He could not eat it. The priest considered this and said no this was not possible and to think so was a sin. The man was silent for some time. Then he said that he had eaten such a taco and that it tasted of bootblack and horsefeed. That if this taco was under God’s dominion then surely all other great evils must be as well. And then the man took the halfeaten and greaseblackened taco from his coatpocket and thrust it at the priest like a broken sword. Eat it, he said. Eat it or be damned.

2 Follow Up Reviews:

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

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

Forever 21

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

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

Two stars.

The first woman I been with was a gal named Mabel Rae down in Plano. She was the second prettiest woman I ever did see. I was eighteen years of age at the time and she was twenty one. She was a whore down on Gas Street. I suppose that may shock some folks. Layin down with a whore like I did. But I see these young things on the street everday wearing clothes would of made Mabel Rae blush. Dont seem like progress to me.

Ever time I rode through Plano I stopped by Gas Street to see Mabel Rae. Now dont misunderstand me. The nature of our acquaintance changed when I met Alice. These were social calls. Mabel Rae always wore the same dress and the same hair but the rest of her aged. Plano was a tough town and she took her licks like everbody else. Werent nothin glamorous about it.

When she was about 35 years of age she took to drink pretty good. Started just fallin apart. I aint proud to say I stopped callin. I caint tell you what happened to her. I’m not sure anybody knows.

I like to think of Mabel Rae when she was twenty one years of age. I reckon she’ll always be that age to me.

Whole Foods Market

Noe Valley - San Francisco, CA

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

Four stars.

The sheriff and the posse were now a block away and riding seven abreast rifles in hand and horses snorting and wildeyed. The outlaw dropped his pistol and stiffwalked into the parking lot of a grocery store. Around him young women in skintight sporting clothes stopped and stared.

The ground shook as the posse rode up on the parking lot entrance but the sheriff stopped his riders with a raised hand and sawed his palamino around sending the animal sidestepping like a showhorse into a newspaper box which fell over with a great cacophony. When the noise subsided the neighborhood and the parking lot were silent. The riders and the outlaw and the women frozen like actors in some gypsy roadshow.

A rider wearing an elaborate mustache and carrying a Winchester onehanded nudged his quarterhorse toward the sheriff. Hell he’s right there sheriff.

I know it. Im lookin at him same as you.

What are we waitin for then.

We caint touch him now deputy. They got their own way here.

The riders watched as the women left their station wagons and strollers and encircled the outlaw. As if some ancient instinct united them. Silent as wolves and staring intently at the broken man standing there. He saw his mistake and called out to the riders reaching toward them with his one good arm but was struck down with a savage blow from a rolled yoga mat.

That old boy done walked into the wrong parking lot, said the sheriff.

The posse sat their horses and stood silent witness as the women swarmed over the outlaw’s fallen form and soon they could not see him but for the flurry of spandex and ponytails.

McDonald’s

Reno, NV

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

Three stars.

He pulled another cold french fry from the greasestained Happy Meal box. He ate it slowly. The sun rising behind him over the limestone bluffs. The barren valley and the road winding through it still in morning’s blue shadow. He wiped his hand on his jacket and checked the breech of the big Weatherby. Bullet as long as man’s finger sitting there. He lay down on the blanket, the rifle’s barrel resting on the saddlebag, and glassed downcountry with the telescopic sight. The dusty road was empty. He waited.

Starbucks

Bismarck, ND

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

One Star.

Wallace and old man Tucker sat the horses and watched the cattle cropping the tallgrass on the rincon blazed amber by the shallow and palegold morning sun. The horses pricked their ears in unison and soon Madison pulled up in the battered Ford. He stepped out in new boots and carrying a small paper cup. He said good morning to the others. Wallace turned to look at him but Tucker kept his eyes on the cattle.

What’s that, said Wallace.

What.

The cup.

This here’s a latté.

A what?

A deluxe coffee, Wallace. Four dollars of brown gold.

Wallace leaned down and grabbed the cup from Madison’s hand and took a drink. He spat it out. Goddamn, he said. Tastes like a pregnant mare’s urine.

No it dont. Give it here.

Wallace wiped his face with his arm. Tastes like spent cartridges in a pickle jar.

Come on now. It aint that bad.

Wallace leaned and offered the cup to Tucker. You try it, he said.

Tucker let the bridlereins rest on the pommel and holding the cup two handed took a drink. He handed the cup back to Wallace and continued looking at the cattle and the shimmering grass and the mountains knifing into the blue canopy above. Wallace and Madison waited but the older man sat there for a while and said nothing.

Well go on, what’s it taste like, said Madison.

Tucker leaned from the saddle and spat in the tallgrass. Tastes like snake venom, he said.

How do you know?

Was a time I had to suck the venom from a person very dear to me who was snakebit. That’s how I come to taste it.

What happened to them.

Her, he said. The old man dug his heels into the bay and they headed upcountry toward the cattle rivering the meadow, the horse pluming great steaming breaths in the chill morning air and the younger men watching in silence.

Victoria’s Secret

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

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

Three stars.

Victoria bore a secret unutterable and incomprehensible as if she carried with her the dessicated corpse of some creature from beyond the borders of the earth which no language could describe. A secret hidden for a thousand years and of such proportions that it existed not among the mountains and the barren plains but resided in each stone and paperthin grassblade in that dead country. It could not be destroyed by fire or death or confession but was branded in time and would remain there always and Victoria struck mute and condemned would carry the secret to her death and under the ground in that pauper’s grave it would await its next tattered palanquin.

T. G. I. Friday’s

Fresno, CA

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

Two stars.

Watts strode into the restaurant smelling of horse and woodsmoke and all the patrons turned to watch him as if he had called out to them but he had made no sound save the whispering of his leathers and the jangle of his spurs. He sat at the bar. A bartender in a vaudevillian striped shirt approached smiling like a grifter. Can I help you cowboy, he said.

Double rye.

I’m afraid we dont have rye.

Dont have rye.

Sorry.

Well what do you have?

The bartender slid a glossy menu toward the him. He regarded it with great suspicion. Held it at arms length. He sighed heavily.

I reckon I’ll have a Blue Razzberry Mojito Freezer.

The Apple Store

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

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

Two stars.

Given the way my uncle died havin a drink directly after his funeral just didnt seem right so I went for a walk instead. One of them downtowns where all there is is stores. Came across a store was a big cube. Two stories tall and all silver. There was folks outside just standin there. Line stretchin round the block. Maybe a hundred people. I saw a man who’d brought his own chair. He had a shirt on with the same logo as the one on the store. I figured he worked there so I asked him what the line was all about. What were all these people waitin for. He told me it was for a apple phone or some such. I said dont these folks have telephones already? He told me they all had apple phones but it was the older one. I asked him what would happen to the old apple phones. He told me about a fella named Craig had a list and everbody sold their old telephones on it. A telephone sellin list.

Well I told him that all made about as much sense as a horse with two heads and he laughed like that was the funniest thing he ever did hear. Said he was goin to twinkle it. I left before he said anythin else that didnt make no sense and I went to the nearest bar and ordered a double whiskey and sat there drinkin it. I guess I sat there for a long time. Wonderin if when Rome was fallin all the Romans was standin in line waitin to get that new chariot or the like. The barbarians at the gates and them just standin there waitin.

Duboce Dog Park

Castro - San Francisco, CA

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

Five stars.

The Chickenhawk tucked in her wings, folded her tail and dropped from the sky silent as falling snow. Hooked beak sighted on the park below as if the bird could pierce the crust of the earth and add to her dominion the world beneath. A heartbeat from striking the ground she spread her broad wings, talons scything toward the grass her beak still closed and silent and from the park she plucked a black and tan Chihuahua. The dog yelped as the talons snapped shut around its bony frame, the dog’s master nearby but intent on a small computer phone. The hawk hovered for a moment laboring with her reeling prize and then with great wing beats she climbed skyward. Past the trees and rooftops to a kingdom ruled by laws not of man but of blood alone. The two figures receded toward the noon sun, an unknowable hieroglyph in silhouette, journeying to that hot orb or another destination beyond the pale.

The dog at last relaxed in the clawed embrace. For the first time feeling nature’s caress.

Chez Panisse

Gourmet Ghetto - Berkeley, CA

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

Two stars.

He forked another helping of seared Muscovy duck breast with foraged chanterelle succotash into his mouth and chewed it mechanically and without joy. On his tongue the rusty tang of revenge sought and achieved. His eyes fixed beyond the warm glow of the restaurant to a middle distance known only to him, to a home on a wasted prairie and those men and the outrage he’d born witness to and his promise to them on that day and the years that followed hunting and waiting and one by one he delivered his promise to each of them and with their money he bought this food and this wine and he could taste none of it.