Tuk Tuk Taco Bar

A Hush Money Poem

I knew that following you to your new restaurant after hours was ill-advised, what with the way you gave off a smoky heat when you looked at me, slowly blinking those slightly hooded blue eyes when we talked business / But I did want to go / After all, you were an entrepreneur, a visionary, with your high voltage smile gleaming out from the pages of glossy magazines / At least I had the good sense to drive my own car and meet you there / So I cruised down Central Expressway in my old beat up Toyota Corolla and parked in the empty lot of the strip mall near the Anatole Hotel, street lamps already illuminating the storefront in the dusk /

You were standing in front of the glass doors, tall and slim and blond, with a colossal cream cowboy hat perched on your head, a massive Lone Star buckle sparking on your belt / You were gleaming like a rodeo trophy / With a self-assured swagger, you whipped out a set of keys, jangled them back and forth and there we were in the foyer, slick ceramic tile shining under our feet /

You snapped on the fluorescent light fixtures with a cocky confidence, and in the buzzing, pulsing light you proudly pointed out the condiment counter, the shining stainless steel taco bar with the plexiglass hood, the sleek booths with red and green vinyl seats, the upholstered banquette backs sporting sequined sombrero designs / You bragged about how the customers would have choices, how they could pick out their own salsas and radishes and jalapeños: Revolutionary, you said. 

You waltzed me around the kitchen, squawking about margin and inventory, brainstorming promotions, spitballing names: Should we call it Taco Bar or Taco Hut, or – get this! – Tuk Tuk Taco /  I didn’t even understand what Tuk Tuk Taco meant, but everyone said you were a genius, so I followed you around like a stray dog, hungrily taking notes and nodding yes, yes, I see, that’s brilliant.

So when you turned around and lunged at me, the look of a starving hyena in your eye, why was I surprised / The signs had been there all along / You kissed me, pushing me up against the hard metal condiment bar / For a moment, your touch was electric / But then you jammed your tongue deep down my throat and rammed your thumb right into the soft groove between my collarbones and circled your fingers around my neck / Bile rose up in the back of my mouth and my heartbeat clanged like a firehouse bell in my temples, and I pulled away, saying, No, no, stop, please, stop / 

That is when you grabbed my whole upper right arm, yanking so hard that the sleeve of my new white silk blouse ripped clear off at the shoulder / I fell head first against the sharp edge of the stainless steel taco bar and clipped my cheekbone on the way to the ground / Sticky blood ran down my face and onto my collar, first a pinprick of red and then a bloom spreading as if I’d been shot in the chest / I staggered to my feet and started to run, but you grabbed my wrist and uttered a plaintive cry – as if you were the one who’d been injured / Please, don’t tell my wife! / When I wrenched your hand away you bleated: I’ll make it up to you! / You can eat for free when we open /

As I pushed open the glass door and ran, clicking in my high heels across the parking lot to the car in the hot, sticky Texas night, I wondered: Who thinks they can buy silence with tacos? / I drove home to my apartment and buried the blouse deep in the garbage, wadded up in a bloody ball, as if burying evidence / And I never did say anything to anyone.

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Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll

Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Nik Heftman, The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla

Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines

Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo

Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa

Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar

Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines

Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines

John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains, Washington, D.C.

Macey Spensley, The Midwest Creative, Davenport and Des Moines

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona

Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

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