North of Happy by Adi Alsaid
PROLOGUE
THE PERFECT TACO
2 ounces pork al pastor
1 teaspoon lime juice
1 slice pineapple
1 pinch chopped onion
1 pinch chopped cilantro
1 warm corn tortilla
Salsa, to taste
METHOD:
The day before Felix died, he’d flown in from Asia craving tacos.
As usual, the two of us and Mom went to our favorite taco joint, a chain in a neighborhood near our house. It was one of those places that offered English menus and had TVs in overhead corners. We gorged on every kind of taco on the menu, made hungrier by Felix’s cravings.
But when the waiter cleared our plates, Felix wasn’t satisfied. The tacos, he said, were overpriced and bland, the atmosphere too sterile. “You love food so much, I’m shocked you still come to this place,” Felix told me casually. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but I also knew I’d never be able to enjoy the restaurant again.
“Meet me outside of school tomorrow. I’ll find us some real tacos.”
And the next day, there he was, wearing that threadbare once-white shirt that seemed on the brink of disintegration. Even now that he’s dead, that same shirt stained red with his blood, I always think of it as it was then: colored not by the violence of Felix’s death, but by the shape of his life. He claimed to wash it in the shower himself, which grossly explained the yellowish hue of old sweat and cheap soap. In that one color I can still see my brother in all his exuberance.
“So, where we going?” I asked. I’d been antsy all day, eager to spend time with him before he ran off again to wherever the hell he was going next.
Felix just smirked and led us toward the hospital down the street, where there’s a “secure” taxi stand everyone from school uses. Instead of asking for the price to a certain destination, though, he took us past the huddled taxi drivers and around the corner, into unexplored territory. The neighborhood around the campus was not particularly safe. Rumored to be gangland, even. The bodyguards who hung out outside my international school were a constant presence, though Felix always insisted it was rich-people paranoia.
“Uh, where we going?” I instinctively reached for my phone. I’d heard teachers got mugged here on the way to the subway. One of the houses on the walk was rumored to be a drug dealer’s, painted bright blue to stand out against the drab gray buildings around it.
“There’s a taco place I saw on the way up here. I bet it’s way better than that shit we ate last night.”
I readjusted my backpack. “I thought you used to like Farolito.”
“Sure, when I was in the bubble.” Felix slung an arm around my shoulder, slight pang of body odor coming off him. “The world is a much bigger place than you realize,” he said with a smile. “We’re going to explore it.”
We sat down at one of three plastic-tablecloth-covered tables, and a small, smiling man walked over with two menus. Felix waved him away, calling out our order: two tacos al pastor, everything on them (pineapple, onion, cilantro, salsa; I’m sure the words strung together could make a poem).
Then he asked me for a pen, and took a napkin from the metal holder in the middle of the table. He drew three imperfect columns, labeling them Restaurant/Stand, Location, Reaction. “One taco each per spot. We don’t stop until we find the perfect one.”
I could almost see the day ahead as if it were shot by the Food Network, some Anthony Bourdain–narrated exploration of the city. I tried to contain my glee.
The tacos arrived and Felix clapped his hands, smiling warmly at the waiter/owner. The man smiled back and asked what else he could bring us. I was about to stammer some apology for only getting one taco, maybe cave in and get something else, but Felix spoke up. “Nothing today, thanks. We are on a quest, un tacotón.”
We paid the miniscule bill, recorded our reaction (meh), followed the curving street down to a massive set of stairs and then to a subway stop. It marked the first time I had ever been on the metro, I was embarrassed to realize. To my surprise, the metro was not the dangerous hellscape I’d envisioned. It was actually kind of soothing—to move around the city without the ubiquitous traffic, the manic chorus of horns employed at the slightest annoyance or whim, to disappear into a station and reemerge in a part of the city I barely even recognized.
Toward the southern end of the city, in a neighborhood called Coyoacán, we sat at a small place with red plastic tablecloths and a taco named the Chupacabra. “We should get that,” I said. “It’s their specialty.”
Felix waved the little columned napkin in my face. “Important research going on here, man.” He turned to the server, again asked for two al pastor, everything on them.
I rolled my eyes and asked for a beer, since I was with him and it seemed to fit the mood.
“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.”