By Moisés Delgado
Taco is taco, but what is bell?
We didn’t know kidneys. We didn’t know pomegranates. We didn’t know skyscrapers. We didn’t know mourning. Weird was on the edge of our tongues, as were liver and spine. But boiling was further back in the mouth. And guilt was even further, between the lungs. Electrical socket was below the heart. Highway in the stomach, jogging in the knees, and vultures all the way down at the soles of our feet. Meaning we had once seen vultures in a cowboy movie, but it was long ago. The sound of vultures was gone. Vultures… vultures… vultures. Ruby and I would try and fall into a trance, to see if the word would come to either of us. Vultures. Like birds. Like pájaros that eat the dead. We knew death: muerte. But we couldn’t find roadkill. If we could recall roadkill, then maybe we could trace it back to vultures picking at bones, huesos, and if we could say vultures then maybe we’d find the vast blue sky, but vast wouldn’t come to us. Only big, which didn’t feel right. Grande. Grande were our fears. Our miedos—we still knew that word. It was behind our eyes, and disappointment in our ears. Ruby and I would quiz each other in our backyard. What is worm? Gusano. What is dirt? Tierra. What is hose? Don’t know. We’d quiz each other in the neighbor’s creepy basement because she was losing her Spanish too. And what is dust? Polvo. And what about water pipes? Agua something. And porcelain dolls? Muñecas de we don’t know porcelain. We’d quiz each other at Taco Bell. Anywhere our mom couldn’t hear us because we had forgotten the word for shame, but whatever it was, we felt it. Our tongues were failing us. Quick: what is tongue? Lengua. What is booth? Don’t know. What is cashier? Cajero. What is hard shell taco? Something something taco. What is flour? Is it harina? What is corn? Elote. What is guacamole? Guacamole. And quesadilla? Quesadilla. And Burrito Boss? Jefe Burrito. And Gordita Crunch Cult? Culto de la Gordita Crunch. And soon was pronto. And invasion we didn’t know. But we’d often end like this, half-Spanish and half-English, imagining, imaginando, the imminent end of the world. The Burrito Boss brainwashing, lavando cerebros, and burritofying all of humanity. And we’d laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and pretend that you couldn’t hear all we were losing in our laughter.
Moisés R. Delgado (he/him) is a Latino writer from Nebraska. He holds an MFA from the University of Arizona, and is currently a prose editor for Adroit Journal. His words appears in Fugue, SmokeLong Quarterly, Gigantic Sequins, Split Lip, and elsewhere.
Taco Bell Quarterly 