D_S, Boxxi:
Join me now, at a small, humble restaurant.
The couple looks at each other, and then back to the man in the stained apron.
They say, " ...but all Mexican restaurants have free tortilla chips!."
"But please, I beg you. I can't afford it." the poor owner pleads, "You come and eat all the chips. I have good food. I work hard. If you keep eating just the chips the restaurant will close!"
In the back, the hiding, silent 'chef d' tortillas' leers triumphantly, assured his art is appreciated.
The couple huff simultaneously, enraged by the owner's heinous display of self preservation.
"Well, you may close, but we'll have our chips and salsa in the meantime, Jose'!!"
Manuel nods in defeat, a small tear welling up in his eye as he thinks of his Mother, far to the South. She waits for her ticket to America, to her great-grandchildren.
"Not this month, Mama" he says under his breath, roaming from table to table; each filled with people who drink only water, and eat only tortilla chips.
He's a chef, our Manuel; a master in the art of haute Tex-Mex. A man whose burrito even Bobby Flay would stand in awe of, and here we leave him. Manuel to some, Jose' to others. We leave him watching his dreams slip through hands calloused from years of scalding mole' sauce, and from ferrying ponderous trays of tortilla chips to the little round tables of the unfeeling.
( P.S. wtf? Frogboy said he wasn't getting rid of the section. You want drama? I got Drama out the wazoo.
)
