El
Buitre; or The
Vulture
There he was, bald, middle-aged,
underpaid, divorced, and overweight. He
fit all the stereotypes. Bob was what
the merciless call a “muffin-top”. He
was not round, just misshapen, wearing his belt too tight midway between his
tucked in collared shirt and pleated trousers, so that his waist folded over
the top and pushed out under the bottom.
Bob was lonely and his life had taken a rare form as well, he had an
addiction, a hunger.
It was 3:00 a.m., Bob knew the burrito
shop was open, it was one block south of Broadway and he was only three blocks
away. He knew exactly what he was going
to get, he would get The Marty. Bob
wasn’t sure what made up The Marty burrito.
It had a strange but beefy taste.
It tended to be real greasy, a thick lumpy muck, almost as if the meat
was cooled and the fat was gelatinous and clumpy. But in fact the meat was always hot, almost
too hot. It always burnt the top of his
mouth, but he would never slow down when he ate a Marty, he swallowed each
chunk in gigantic bites.
Anyway, there Bob was a hundred yards away
from the only thing he had been able to think about for hours. The sweet meat at Rosa’s Burrito Shop, a
couple miles away from the bar he was sitting at, only a hundred yards, a
football field, a few basketball courts, a hop skip and a jump away. Bob knew what he was up against when he got
there too. The timing was
everything. Marty’s were only served at
3:17 a.m., on the dot, no more, no less.
Bob had only had The Marty a few times before, but when he did…he knew
what heaven could be, in one bite.
The legend behind The Marty is that it
hailed from somewhere in the desert in a far away farm, deep in the dry,
heartless, trenches of Mexico. A long
lost land of steers, bulls, goats, ghosts, swine and lust. Who knew?
But whoever knew, knew that it was a legend meant to be. It was the only thing that people would
accept once they had tried The Marty.
They say in the early 1800’s the recipe came from a band of gypsies,
dried up and starved by Germany, they swam to the Americas for peace and a new
way of life, only to find more hardship.
But there…somewhere in the desert of northern Mexico, in what they now
call the Sonoras, they found a luxury, strength, and the will to carry on…in a
meat. This meat they found, the secret
so lost among the stories of old, only to be told one day, and the word would
slip, but for now, it’s all about Bob and his desire to devour the delicious
meat of The Marty.
And now it was time, he stepped right up;
the air blew back what threads of hair was left on his head as he opened the
door to Rosa’s Burrito Shop. He looked
upon the counter in front of him, in front of his one true desire. He let the man behind the counter know
exactly what he was looking for, “The Marty…por favor!!” he exclaimed. The man behind the counter gave him a look of
disbelief; he looked at his watch then back at Bob, and shouted back,
“MARTY!!” The man pointed to a chair for
Bob to sit in, but Bob couldn’t wait any longer. His hunger struck solid right in his gut as
he began drooling and ranting, making unintelligible sounds at the patrons
waiting with him, their disturbed faces turning away, they had no idea what he
had coming to him. “Where is it?!” He demanded.
Ten minutes had gone by and he knew it couldn’t have taken this long,
but may be it could he thought. He
walked back up to the counter, his eyes turned red with fury, his heart beating
hot blood underneath his skin, but he whispered quietly, “The…Marty???” The man behind the counter stared quietly at
Bob’s pathetic posture, it had began looking curved like a scavenger on some
mission to pick up pieces the coyotes left behind, the man knew it was too
late, Bob was doomed, he was hooked, anchored, diseased even. So the man behind the counter brought it out,
and there it sat on a beautifully garnished plate made of porcelain and pain,
THE MARTY, or more appropriately, EL
MARTIN. The grease oozed beyond the
tortilla’s edges and the steam became overbearing, burning Bob’s red eyes as he
snatched the plate with his greedy little hands. The Marty was real, oh yes; The Marty was
more than a meat, but more of a man…a man just like Bob. As Bob took down The Marty in huge gulps,
barely keeping his human composure, The Marty took over his every last piece of
humanity, his every desire to remain in this world, in a world that could
possibly be without…The Marty.
The man behind the counter smirked,
looking down at Bob as he devoured what was left of The Marty, and watched as
Bob’s little hands became crooked claws, his mouth pointed and beak like, his
neck elongated as wretched black feathers grew from under Bob’s shirt, and his
eyes, his eyes beamed with the sheer madness of delight. The Marty had come to take Bob home, and as
Bob transformed into what the Mexicans called El Buitre or the vulture, the man behind the counter, grabbed what
was left of good ol’ Bob by his scrawny throat and seized the chance to take
him to the back and cut off his head, for soon the next customer would be
arriving, asking for the same single item, the only burrito that one could get
at 3:17 a.m., on the dot, no more, no less, at Rosa’s Burrito Shop one block
south of Broadway, where the legend of The Marty lived on.
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