The Taco Joint

      Erin woke up that morning with a throbbing headache that could only be the result of a night of tequila and tacos. She huffed out the sound a gremlin might make when disappointed with its post-midnight meal and rolled out of bed. “What, did I get a lobotomy last night?” She said to herself as she dragged her body to the bathroom to reveal her hair and makeup, while still on, thoroughly defeated by sweat and gravity.

“Next Wednesday I’ll have a turkey sandwich for lunch and Thursday I’ll decide to take up pole dance fitness?” Erin looked into the mirror in her bathroom in her studio apartment in the west district of downtown. “What in the fresh Hell?”

      Her mind was racing with the uncertainty that she most certainly knew what she already had for lunch four days from now. Tasting the slimy coating of deli turkey and disappointing tomatoes, slathered in mayonnaise and stuffed with kale meant for a smoothie that morning, but gladly substituted for a frozen waffle. Erin walked to her couch, sat down in a puff of cat hair and grabbed her phone to text her best friend.

      “He’s going to say this is ludicrous.” Indignantly poking the letters, Erin texted Alex a string of sentences ending with, ‘I can remember next week.’ She sat back on her couch, her orange Tabby, MC Hammer (Hammer for short) rubbing on her legs. Trying to take some deep breaths, remembering that tomorrow night Josh Groban would get voted off The Masked Singer, “How could they? He is a G – E – M -gem.” Hold up, that episode hadn’t even aired. Just as a paranoid spiral of assuming she had been hexed by some swamp witch began, her phone buzzed.

      It was Alex; he had simply texted back a GIF of the artist known as Ludicris. “Hammer, if you could throw up your hairball on the tile, that would be great.” Just as she finished speaking, Hammer began yurking and yaking a hairball right on the area rug beneath her couch. A tiny quaff of dribble and hair slipped out as he locked eyes with Erin. “meow” Erin’s heart was palpitating. Was she psychic somehow? Was she burdened with superpowers over a night of debauchery? But they weren’t visions; they were memories, some good, some bad, several fuzzy. She could not, however, bring herself to remember anything about the night before.

      Erin quickly texted Alex, ‘Coffee. Now. Downstairs.’ She pulled what shred of dignity she had left into some leggings and a sweatshirt and headed down to The Grain on the first floor of the complex. A tall guy wearing a wrinkled flamingo button-down and sunglasses slunk in. “You look as terrible as I feel.” Alex said trying to laugh, but only exacerbating his hangover. “I’m going to get a cold brew and a bagel, want anything crazy woman?”

      “No, I’m good. Well not good, I’m awful…you’re going to throw up that bagel.” Alex rolled his eyes so dramatically it was visible under his sunglasses. Erin went to sit down in the booth they usually frequent together, but upon approach decided on the table diagonally to the left. After several what seemed like hours of the line cook yelling, “order up!” Alex came over to the table where Erin was.

      “Why’d you skip on our booth?”

      “The waitress slipped and spilled a tray of food on it.”

Alex twisted around to look at the table. “It’s clean,” he sighed. He begrudgingly removed his sunglasses and started picking at his bagel and cold brew like a child picks at steamed broccoli.

Erin took a deep breath and began explaining herself. “I woke up this morning and could remember what happened next week.”

“Come again?”

“I remember what happened next week. It doesn’t make sense to me either okay? I didn’t want to know Josh Groban was the steam punk panda bear.”

“What?! Dammnit, I really wanted that to be Kanye. Where did you read that?”

“Nowhere you dunce! I’m trying to tell you, I remember; you and I watched it in my living room, he sang Sweet Caroline and got voted off!”

“There is no way you could know that without –“ Just as Alex began a tirade of insider information, the waitress, with a full tray of bowls of grits and plates of pancakes, stepped on her shoelace and tumbled to the ground in an epic display of flying breakfast food. Eggs in the air, toast in the air, hash browns in the air and all of it landing in the empty booth placed diagonally from Erin and Alex.

Alex slowly turned his head back to Erin who, stunned at her memory serving her truth, said, “you might want to go to the bathroom.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak and just as quickly as it opened, it snapped shut, his face turned purple, and Alex sprinted to the bathroom to relieve his stomach of the undigested bagel and cold brew he had been nursing.

Upon his return, Alex sat calmly; a new man. “How did this happen?”

“I have no clue. I woke up this morning, felt like I’d been hit by a truck, and I remembered next week but not last night. Real convenient. I was hoping you’d remember.”

Alex rubbed his eyes and pushed the rest of his bagel and cold brew to the side, “We went to The Taco Joint and this rich guy came in and started buying tequila shots for everyone, he was legit, I think you had like six, but I don’t remember anything past that.”

The two sat in silence for a moment before Erin looked up, “I guess we go back to The Taco Joint?”

“You guess? I thought you ‘remembered’ everything. What happens while we’re there? Do I throw up in the lobby or something? Do we get abducted by government agents? What if we forgot to tip last night? What if I –“

“Alex, shut up…I, don’t know what’s going to happen. I know what we’ll have for dinner tonight, don’t look forward to the breadsticks by the way, but I don’t remember anything for the next few hours, but we have to go…don’t we?”

Fifteen minutes later, Erin and Alex found themselves in front of a familiar door. It was thick and wooden with a small stained glass window at the top. It’s hinges were rusted and squeaky from years of use. Erin reached forward, grabbed the handle of the door belonging to The Taco Joint, and pulled it open. A haze snuck out through the cracks as they peered into the dimly lit barroom, of which they had never seen in the daylight, and a scratchy voice from within grumbled, “remember me?”