The Taco Trailer That Crossed the Street

Russ said it loud enough for eleven people to hear. That was the part I could not get past afterward, on the porch and in the truck and at two in the morning with the ceiling fan going.

It was ten after five on a Tuesday morning, the sixth of October, and Russ’s Diner was full of the people who fill it every morning.

Four farmers in the corner booth. Two county road men. The Hendricks table by the window, with old Mr. Hendricks working through his oatmeal.

I had walked in because my husband had left his thermos on the kitchen counter. Marvin drives a grain truck from the elevator to the river terminal in harvest, and a man who starts at five and quits at dark needs his coffee hot.

I stood just inside the door with the thermos in both hands. Russ was behind the counter with a coffee pot in his hand, telling Marvin about the village board.

Russ is Marvin’s older brother by six years. He has the same square hands and the same slow way of talking. He does not have Marvin’s patience.

“Five to one, Monday night,” Russ said. “Mobile vendors on Main Street need a permit now. Five hundred dollars. Health department letter, insurance paper, the whole business.”

Marvin had both elbows on the counter. “Russ, the only mobile vendor in Fenwick is a nineteen year old girl.”

“Then she’s the only one who has to pay it.” Russ topped off a cup that did not need it. “She can work the fair. She can park out at the county line. Main Street is where the people live.”

“She’s your niece.”

“She’s a kid with a hot plate. I’m paying on a roof and a walk in cooler, forty one thousand dollars, and lunch is what pays it.” Russ said it to the whole room, and the room got very quiet.

“Tell her she can have her old job back. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I could use the help.”

Somebody’s fork touched a plate. Nobody else moved. I set the thermos on the counter in front of my husband. I did not say a word. I have been married to Marvin Kuhlman for twenty four years, and I know when he needs me to say nothing.

He looked at the thermos and then at his brother. He turned the thermos lid slowly in his fingers, the way he does when he is counting to ten.

“We’ll talk later,” Marvin said.

“Sure we will,” said Russ. I walked out into the dark with my face hot. Mr. Hendricks watched me go. He did not say anything either, but I remember his spoon had stopped halfway to his mouth.

That is how I found out. Not from the village, not from a friend. From a man I have passed the potatoes to at every Thanksgiving for twenty four years, telling my husband in front of the whole county that my daughter was a kid with a hot plate.

I should tell you how it started.

Mallory is our youngest. She was a quiet little thing, the kind who would sit on a stool in her grandmother’s kitchen for an entire Sunday and watch carnitas braise.

My mother in law, Nell, made them every Christmas Eve with pork shoulder, oranges, a little cumin, and a bay leaf she insisted came from her own tree.