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“No,” Felix interrupted, changing the order to a bottle of water instead. “Beer’s gonna fill you up. We have a lot of eating to do today.”
Two minutes later the tacos were served, and we ate the same way: an extra dabble of salsa, a squeeze from a lime wedge, heads tilted, the first bite taking out nearly half the taco. Felix chewed slowly, not talking, taking the task of assessment seriously.
“What do you think?” I asked, wiping at some salsa on the corner of my mouth.
He held up a finger as he finished chewing. Every time he came back from his travels his hands were rougher, his skin cracked and worn by a foreign sun. “Solid, but lacking something.”
“Like, maybe the ingredients in their specialty taco?”
Felix widened his eyes comically. “Who said you’re allowed to be funny now? I’m the funny one.”
A surge of joy flowed through me, because after all those years of being abandoned in favor of exciting adventures, I was still the little brother. Reflexively, I checked my phone to see whether I should be letting Mom and Dad know where I was. The habit was so ingrained that it even felt rebellious to not call and at least lie to them.
“Put it away,” Felix grumbled. “They don’t need to know your every move.”
The night wore on. The metro got unbearably crowded, people pushing in, literally packing each other into the carts. The trains slowed, and getting on and off became a struggle, each “excuse me” bolstered by force as we pushed others out of the way. We escaped at the Salto de Agua station. An indoor market was half a block away.
Our list of tacos sampled had grown to nearly ten, and a couple had come close to perfection, at least in my opinion. But each time I’d thought we’d found it (crispy, juicy meat, warm doughy tortilla, perfect spice and zing to the salsa, the grilled pineapple sealing it all with its sweetness), Felix would shoot it down.
“We’re not looking for great, man. We are striving for perfection! Nothing short of it will do.”
“And what makes a taco perfect?”
“Beautiful question,” Felix said. “It’s a taco that tastes as good as the idea of a taco itself. A taco that’ll hold steadfast through memory’s attempt to erase it, a taco that’ll be worthy of the nostalgia that it will cause. A taco that won’t just satisfy or fill but will satiate your hunger. Not just for tonight but for tacos in general, for food, for life it-fucking-self, brother. You will feel full to your soul.
“But!” he added, a callused index finger pointed straight up at the sky. “It’s also a taco that will make you hunger for more tacos like it, for more tacos at all, for food, the joy of it, the beauty of it. A taco that makes you hungry for life and that makes you feel like you have never been more alive. Nothing short of that will do.”
I walked in awe beside my brother. I was starting to feel the discomforts of so much food, a tiredness in my feet. I still had school tomorrow. Mom had already called a handful of times; lately she’d been trying every twenty minutes. It was so hard to break the momentum of the night, though. Maybe one or two more stops, just until traffic died down. Then I’d tell Felix we had to turn back around. Fun could still be enveloped by responsibility. Maybe that feeling Felix had described did exist, was to be found in one of these unassuming stands, joy encapsulated in three bites. A shame not to try a little longer to find it.
Most of the stands were starting to shut down. The fruit and vegetable vendors packed their produce into wooden crates. Butchers hosed down their chopping blocks. Only the taco and birria and ceviche stands still had customers crowded around on stools or on foot, two guys in aprons working the grill, one more at the big slab of pastor. No real sinks in sight, one pump bottle of hand sanitizer for customer use.
Mom would weep if she saw us here, if she knew how many similar spots we’d visited throughout the day. She’d run to get us typhoid shots, never let us leave home again. I was proud of this, for some reason.
“Dos con todo, porfavor!” Felix called out as we elbowed for room at the counter.
“This might be the spot,” I said.
“Oh yeah? How can you tell?”
“The size of the pastor. They know they’re going to sell a lot. Line of people is always a good sign. The limes are fresh. More than three salsas, which means they take some pride in what they provide. The girl making the tortillas back there from scratch.” I pointed out the little details I’d started noticing, clues as to whether or not the place might be worthy. “That cook just spotted a bad piece of meat and threw it out right away, so they care about quality. They have some sort of special mix of seasoning they use on their arrachera, not just Worcestershire and Maggi sauces like lots of the other places.”
I knew I was rambling, but Felix rambled too. I continued. “Look at how good that guy is at catching the slices of pineapple inside the taco. He’s looking away while he does it. He must have served a shitload of these every day for years.”
Felix smiled, surveyed the scene. “You want me to talk to one of these guys? Get you a job?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Why? All you watch is those cooking shows.”
“Sure, yeah. Except, what would I tell Mom and Dad? ‘Oh hey, remember my SAT prep courses? My internship with Dad? College next year? Yeah, never mind. I got a job at a taco stand!’”
“Why not?” Felix asked. He was serious too. “You think they’d love you less?”
“Probably,” I joked and then said, “Last stop?” just to get off the subject.
“Are you kidding? The best spots only start setting up now. I guarantee that the perfect taco doesn’t go to bed until four a.m.”
The napkin list was running out of room, heavy with ink and pockmarked by holes from the pen on uneven surfaces. “Dude, this has been great. But I really have to get back home.”
“No, you don’t,” Felix said.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, staring resolutely at my brother, trying to come up with something to convince him otherwise. Felix led us somewhere near the historic downtown area, where homeless men lined the streets in thick blankets, surrounded by empty bottles.
Another taco stand, who-knows-where in the city. Extra dab of salsa, squeeze of lime wedge, head tilt. My worry had drifted away, especially after Mom stopped calling. I’d stopped looking at the time, stopped thinking about the homework I didn’t do. I listened to Felix’s stories, gave myself up to those little cheesy diatribes about living life as you wanted to, to laugh loudly and love often. Felix could sound like a Hallmark card, like boxed inspiration, but he was earnest enough to make you fall for it. One in the morning on a school night, and clearly the perfect taco was not necessary for perfection. “What a world,” he kept saying.
We were both full to the brim, laughing about not being able to stomach another bite and yet forcing ourselves to keep eating when a nearby argument turned to shouting. My heart began to race. Then, pops like pinecones in a fire, a stray bullet knocking Felix to the ground. Soda from his glass bottle, intact but spilling bright orange liquid behind his head. The thought, even then, of life’s sudden change of course. The terrible words: nothing will ever be the same.
CHAPTER 1 (#uda688454-fc94-5f12-a98e-eb95253a8a72)
THAI BRUSCHETTA
1 French baguette
½ pound deveined shrimp
½ cup coconut milk
2 teaspoons minced ginger
2 Thai chilies, seeded and deveined
2 stalks lemongrass
2 tablespoons red Thai curry paste
1 mango, sliced thin
1 tablespoon Thai basil, chiffonade
METHOD:
On a rooftop in the ritziest part of Mexico City, while my graduation party rages on—music and drinks and waiters delivering canapés to the two hundred people in attendance—I am trying to act like I have my shit together.
There’s a pigeon perched next to me, its head tilted, eyes meeting mine, cooing suggestively. I know before it even opens its beak that it’s Felix, and that he’s going to tell me to escape. It’s just what he does now.
The air is fresh after this afternoon’s rain. Mexico City doesn’t have that nice post-rain smell that other places do, like Mom’s hometown in Illinois, when the storms sweep in from Lake Michigan and leave in their wake an almost herb-like scent. I wonder if anyone’s ever replicated that post-rain smell in a dish.
This party is Dad’s consolation to me for not letting me travel this summer, for fearing that I’d be like Felix and stay gone. It’s also Mom worrying that I’ve been Unusually Quiet Since It Happened; it’s her desperate to see me acting like myself again.
Waiters are running around delivering rum and cokes to my classmates, glasses of wine to the parents in attendance. Trays of assorted hors d’oeuvres make their way around the rooftop (ceviche in a spoon, yakitori skewers, chilaquiles sliders—getting to choose what to serve might be the highlight of the party for me). Music thumps out into the night. Neighboring buildings with their own rooftop terraces have similar soirees happening, but none are quite as loud as this one. I keep imagining that I’m not really here, that I’m floating above the party or something, watching it all from some far-off vantage point.
Poncho, Nico and Danny hold their shot glasses out in front, waiting for me to clink. The burn passes quickly. None of us really have to scowl to get the stuff down any more, though I think my friends are really over the burn and I’m just good at suppressing it.
“Ya no te hagas güey,” Nico says, putting his glass down on a nearby table. “Tell your dad you’re coming with us. This internship thing is stupid. You could get out of it if you just asked.”
I shrug. The conversation is predictable. But why wouldn’t it be? All our lives are basically mapped out for us, all the days ahead bleeding in with all those to come: internship, college in the States, and then back to Mexico, Dad’s company, marriage, kids, success, everything Felix walked away from. My friends may get a Eurotrip first but then their futures will look just like mine.
“Tell him you’ve received an offer for another internship. One that involves partying and sexy Europeans,” Nico says, raising a hand up for a high five.
I ignore him and my eyes meet Isa’s across the party. She gives me a slight wave and a smile that tells me maybe I’ll get to fall asleep next to her tonight. It’s better than tossing in bed trying to fight off memories and nameless weights.
The DJ puts on something with a beat, and the dance floor fills up, though mostly with parents. Nico and Poncho head over toward our classmates. Danny hangs back, hands in his pockets. “Nico always turns into such a bro when he drinks.”
I laugh. “Yeah, have fun with that this summer.”
Danny groans. “You should be there with us, if only so you have to suffer through him too.” After a quiet moment, he adds, “Everything okay with you?”
“Yeah, of course,” I say, eyeing the pigeon on the railing. It’s grinning. “Why?”
“I dunno. Sometimes you get quiet, and I think it’s gotta be about Felix. Meanwhile we’re talking about stupid shit like mixed dorms in hostels or beach parties or something.”
“Nah.” He doesn’t notice I’ve been making eye contact with a bird. He doesn’t notice that I’m almost see-through, that I’m barely here. “Just trying to figure out what the qualifications would be for the internship that Nico described.”
Danny gives a chuckle, runs a hand through his hair. “And how the hell Nico qualifies for it.”
The pigeon’s returning my gaze, mouthing the words get out of here. He always loved having mantras. This is his in death. He shows up like it’s no big deal, tells me to go. Except I don’t know where he wants me to go, and I’m pretty sure this feeling would follow me there anyway, so what’s the point.
I turn my attention to Isa. She’s on her phone at the edge of the party, smiling as she talks. Nothing much stirs within me.
Danny seems to be content with ending the conversation there, so I make my way toward Isa. I walk slowly, around the party, not through it. I take a few more hors d’oeuvres, trying to guess all their ingredients, the techniques used. I feel better when I’m in the kitchen. I can remember Felix when I’m there. I can see the way he’d hang out in the kitchen with me, teaching me how to hold a knife, how to tell when a sauce was done. I can remember our food adventures, all those that came before the Night of the Perfect Taco. Flashes from childhood: how we’d pretend to be asleep and then sneak out of bed to play video games, our family trip to Greece where we took the last photograph of the four of us together. They hurt like hell, these memories, but at least that’s all they are: memories. They’re grief as grief is meant to be, comforting and hard but comprehensible.
That’s one plus to the summer, at least. No one will be around. Plenty of time to cook. Maybe it’ll keep Felix away, make me feel less crazy.
When I get to the other side of the roof, I stand by Isa as she finishes her call. I’m glad the bird doesn’t follow me. Isa hangs up and we cheek-to-cheek kiss hello. “You look great,” I say.
“Gracias,” she says, and we continue on in Spanish. I’ve always felt weird switching back and forth between English and Spanish with one person. Whatever language my first interaction with someone is, I stick to it, usually. I’m smoother in English. Funnier, I think. But with Isa it’s always been Spanish, and maybe that explains the lack of stirring; maybe it’s something else.
“This is amazing,” she gushes. “I can’t believe your parents organized it. The view is gorgeous.”
Obligingly, I look at the city stretching out below, twinkling lights of street lamps and far-off neighborhoods.
“Vete de aqui, hermano,” the pigeon shouts across the party. Felix always preferred Spanish too.
“My dad’s into parties,” I say lamely. I don’t want to listen to Felix right now or fall into another predictable conversation about summer, about the future, about anything. I put my hand on Isa’s shoulder and lean in for a kiss.
She accepts it but keeps her lips tight and ends it in a second or two. “I don’t think I want that tonight.”
“Okay,” I say, stepping back. “Yeah, of course.”
We stand quietly for a minute or so, at least as quietly as two people can at a party. “When do you leave for Argentina?”
“Monday,” Isa says. The word barely means a thing to me. After this party, the days will bleed together, and Monday may as well be any other day. “How long’s it been?” she asks.
“Since what?”
She gets that cartoonishly concerned look she sometimes gets, all eyebrows. The purple scarf she’s wearing catches the breeze, unraveling itself. It looks like it’s trying to escape. “I don’t think you talk about your brother enough,” Isa says.
The pigeon tilts its head.
“I know we were never together, but we spent enough time together that I should have heard his name a few times, maybe some stories about him.” Isa uncurls the wayward scarf from her neck and holds it in her hand. I wish I could uncurl myself from this conversation. “I understand why it might not be with me,” Isa says, her hand going up so casually to her eye that I almost miss that she’s on the verge of tears. “But I hope you do talk about him with someone. Just, you know...for yourself.”
“I do,” I lie.
We look out at the city a little longer, elbows brushing against each other. I’ve always loved the expanse of the city at night, its lack of a typical skyline, its refusal to be contained to one stretch of buildings.
Then she exhales and steps away from the railing. “Okay, time for me to take advantage of your parents’ partying. Any food I absolutely have to try?”
I think for a sec, happy to have the conversation turn to food. Food, I can always talk about. “The Thai bruschetta is pretty amazing.”
As soon as she steps away, the pigeon flits over to me. “She’s cute.”
I don’t respond.
He ruffles his feathers, picks at something in his wing. “Look at these people, man,” Felix says, unperturbed by how I’m ignoring him. If he were still a person, I could picture him crossing his hands behind his head and leaning back. Maybe he’d click his tongue a few times in disapproval.
He’s looking with his little pigeon head in the direction of the bar, where Dad and a few of the other parents are standing in a circle, holding drinks. Next to them a group of my classmates do the exact same thing. The adults sip their tequila and the kids shoot it. Add a few gray hairs, adjust their tastes so that they’re from the seventies or whatever and it’s basically a mirror image.
“You’ll forget about cooking,” Felix says, loud enough that for a moment I worry someone will hear him. “You keep going down this road, that’s where you’ll end up. Just like them.” He bobs his head in Dad’s direction. Dad, who’s holding a shot of tequila, and looking like he’s about to shoot it. Dad, who went to the same school as me and Felix, got a nice safe business degree—Dad, who was irate when Felix refused to follow that same path.
Dad, who hasn’t even talked about Felix in months.
Felix coos and flaps his wings. If he just left me alone for a moment, it might be easier to pretend like I have my shit together.
Then Dad smiles and heads toward the DJ stand. He motions for a microphone, gestures impatiently as the DJ cuts the music and hits a few switches. His shirt is unbuttoned way farther down than any middle-aged man’s shirt should be. I think he’s swaying a little. Sometimes I can’t stand looking at him.
“Shit,” Felix the pigeon says. “He still loves his fucking speeches.”
“Bienvenidos,” Dad says through the speakers. He looks around for a drink, and then snaps his fingers at a passing waiter and asks for another shot of tequila. He thanks everyone for coming, cracks a joke about how this isn’t a party for my graduation but a party for him not having to pay for tuition anymore. The crowd responds with alcohol-boosted laughter.
“He made the same joke when I graduated,” the pigeon grumbles. Then he offers one last coo and takes off, disappearing unceremoniously into the night. For a second I feel relief. Maybe he’ll stay gone.
“Hijo, I want you to look forward now,” Dad goes on. “Forget about the past, about what we’ve lost.” He pauses and looks down at the floor for a moment. He bites his lip, like he’s struggling to keep back tears. “I know you miss your brother, and I miss him every day too. Life isn’t fair.”
The performance is impressive, but it makes me want to throw something at the stage. Dad basically wiped his hands clean of Felix long ago, and not even death has undone the forgetting. To him, Felix has been dead for years. Only for appearances will he pretend to be broken. He wants all these people to just go quiet for a moment or two, to think that he’s trying to move past tragedy, instead of completely unaffected by it, like I know he is. It’s what I see every day: Dad talking about work, Dad talking about my future, Dad going on like nothing’s happened.
Then, after all these months, something within me clicks. An understanding. Felix has it right. Escape. Yeah, I know it’s probably not a great sign that I’m thinking a pigeon is my dead brother, and I know that everything I heard Felix say was maybe not real, just my grief doing strange things to my head.
But he had that part right all along. I shouldn’t be here.
