‘Red Sauce, Green Sauce’

Photographer: HP Yater is a nonbinary artist and poet from Eastern North Carolina, where they were raised by two Northern parents, a white mother and black father. So their perspective is normally one that is not often thought of or even considered, but they are always there taking notes in various colorful notebooks. They graduated from Lenoir Community College in 2015 with an Associates in Liberal Arts, while also in high-school they were president of the creative writing club for four years.

Red Sauce Green Sauce

So welcome back baby, to the poor side of town. 

The Poor Side of Town

Johnny Rivers

I was downtown with Mandy and O.K. and some of his rich Bishop Kelly friends. I knew some of O.K.’s friends fairly well, being around them always reminded me how poor I was, but the people that night were mostly unknown to me, so it was worse. We were sitting on a patio in the Basque block drinking kalimotxos. That’s red wine and Coca-Cola. One of O.K.’s Bishop Kelly friends was actually a girl I went to elementary school with. Tabitha Bomarito. I hadn’t seen her since the end of sixth grade. She’d grown a couple inches since then and her blonde hair wasn’t as curly. I was talking with her, kept bringing up people she’d intentionally forgotten the minute she entered private high school. I brought up Brian Vicar, an LDS kid who’d been my best friend all those years ago. He had a huge crush on Tabitha back in the day. 

“Were you guys like besties?” Tabitha said.

I could tell she had no idea who I was talking about. “He was in love with you,” I said.

She smiled at this. Also she frowned. Drank her kalimotxo.  

The person with Tabitha was supposedly some hotshot nature photographer. Her photos featured in some classy magazines. She was taller than Tabitha, her brown hair in a ponytail, and she was the kind of skinny that made me think the fat had been burned off her. She had on a bright pink Patagonia vest. And she was drunk. The kind of drunk I wished I was. I’d had spaghetti with my parents before coming out and the kalimotxos weren’t taking. They called her Mack, short for Mackenzie. 

Listen. I’m not the best-looking guy. Some might say ugly. My face is long, my symmetries are off, I have a growth on the tip of my nose. Back then I was overweight. Most days I don’t care. Somedays, if I like someone and they don’t like me, it feels like an easy excuse. And sometimes I meet someone, and I can see it in their face. That no matter how funny I am, or charming, or kind. Ugly. That’s all I will ever be.    

Mack looked at me like that. 

She was talking to Mandy about shutter speed. Mandy seemed fascinated by every word. Mandy was like that. Somedays it felt genuine, others full of shit. We’d become friends after she started dating O.K. She was short with long dark hair, tried her best to morph me into an extrovert whenever I was around her. The Saint Patrick’s day right after we met, she had me wearing one of those foam green leprechaun hats. We joked that I was her surrogate boyfriend, someone to hang out with when O.K. was busy playing video games. And, true, I was in love with her. Though more and more I seemed to be Mandy and O.K.’s third wheel and, privately, I felt like their dog. 

Tabitha had gone off to another conversation. I sat and drank my kalimotxos, watched the upper crust of Boise walk up and down the Basque block. Bardenay was across the street. Supposedly people saw Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad there all the time. I finished my drink and went inside to the bar. The mayor of Boise was sitting there. He was of Basque heritage, so it wasn’t that surprising. He’d been mayor for a while. I’d voted for him a couple of times. He was a big proponent of riding his bike to work. I ordered another kalimotxo. “I ride my bike to work,” I said to the mayor. He thought that was great and me and the mayor had a not-too-long, not-too-awkward conversation about the perils and perks of riding bikes in the City of Trees. Then I took my drink back out to the patio. 

“Hey everyone,” I said. “I just talked to the mayor.” 

Nobody cared. 

The night progressed. I felt more bloated than drunk. The wine was sour in my mouth, and I felt like a switch to Pepsi might be in my future. In coming years, if I knew I’d be drinking, I wouldn’t eat anything past noon.

Mack told us about masking her scent in the wild, how she set up blinds, how she’d photographed wolves up close. Her life seemed to have the point and purpose mine always seemed to lack. I thought it was awesome that she’d seen an actual wolverine. She kept harping on the wilderness and how we didn’t get it. We didn’t understand. We were ignorant. O.K. argued her point; he was a hunter. That kept her going till last call.

Tabs were closed. I’d gotten a ride with Mandy and O.K. Even before Mack tripped I knew Mandy had decided to give her a ride home. 

“I’ll give you a ride to your car,” Mandy said. 

“I’m good,” Mack said. That’s when her feet got tangled in her chair and she came down hard on both of her wrists. “Jesus fuck,” she said. Sat on her butt and furiously shook her hands. “Fuck. Fuck.”

I stood back while the Bishop Kelly alums surrounded her. Held out hands to lift her up. “Fuck,” she said again. “I’m fine.” Got herself up on her own volition. 

“Are you okay?” Tabitha Bomarito asked.

“I’m just fucking fine,” Mack said. 

Tabitha nodded and took off with some dude who’d been introduced to me as Gavin. Dude still had the frosted tips of a Circuit City employee circa 2001. 

“I’ll give you a ride home,” Mandy told Mack.

“No,” she said. “Just to my car.” 

“Okay.” Which was a lie. I knew this because Mandy had pulled it on me more than once when I was drunk and wanted to ride my bike home.  I looked at Mandy and smirked. Which got me a big-eyed glare. The whole walk to the car, Mack kept shaking out her hands and rubbing her wrists. She mumbled a lot of curses to herself. 

We got to Mandy’s green Hyundai. I got in the back seat with Mack. The car smelled like Red Vines for some reason. It always did. Mandy and O.K. stood outside for a minute whispering to each other. “Fun night,” I said to Mack. She was rubbing her wrists and didn’t even look at me. Mandy and O.K. got in the car and Mandy gave me a look which I interpreted as Trees, please don’t be Trees. 

It didn’t take Mack long to figure out we were not headed for her car. 

“My car isn’t this way,” she said. “My car is back there.” 

“I know sweetheart,” Mandy said. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“We better be,” Mack said. 

Streets passed in silence. Mandy had turned off the Michael Jackson playing in her CD player. I had to piss but not so bad that it was urgent. 

“No,” Mack said. “No.”

“Honey,” Mandy said. 

“Mandy, I love you but take me to my car.”

“I think you need to go home.” 

“Take me to my car.”

Mandy looked at O.K. “Keep going straight,” he said. 

“Take me to my fucking car!” 

“You’re drunk,” Mandy said, “you need to go home.” 

“No. I need to go to my fucking car. I love you Mandy but you’re being a real bitch.” 

“Come on, Mack,” O.K. said.  

She started to rub her wrists again. “Bitch,” she said. 

At this point I decided to make my presence known. “The thing about Del Taco,” I said, “is they have a red sauce and a green sauce.” 

Now why did I bring up Del Taco? True, after a night out I liked nothing better than to stuff my face with fast food and watch a couple episodes of The Simpsons. But that night the spaghetti dinner and the kalimotxos had left me with very little appetite. Plus, I didn’t care for Del Taco. The previous weekend I’d been out with a different friend group, and we’d stopped at Del Taco before going to my friend David’s sister’s house. When David asked for his food, his sister freaked out and kicked the Del Taco bag stuffed full of Burritos and Tacos and Ranch Chicken Rollers across the room. If the universe wanted to keep giving me awkward, I was going to keep that mother fucking train rolling. 

“If you go through the drive thru and order a Bean and Cheese Burrito, they ask; do you want red sauce on that burrito? Or do you want green sauce? Red sauce. Green sauce. If you go to Taco Bell, they don’t ask you that. They have sour cream in a caulking gun. Not like Del Taco. They have a red sauce. And they have a green sauce.” 

“TAKE ME TO MY FUCKING CAR YOU FUCKING BITCH.”

“O.K!,” Mandy shouted.

“Take a right in two blocks,” he said. Turned around so he could look at Mack. “Mack. Please. Please.”

“I want to go to my car!” 

“Mack. We’re almost to your place. We’ll come get you tomorrow okay. Take you to your car. Go get brunch at Bardenay. We’ll do that okay. Drink some mimosas. It will be nice.” 

After he stopped talking, we waited for Mack’s response. She said nothing. Kept rubbing her wrists. Eventually she nodded. O.K. turned around and guided Mandy the rest of the way to Mack’s place. It pained me to think that this Bardenay brunch was not something I’d be invited too. We pulled in front of Mack’s place. She got out without saying anything and left the car door open. I reached across the seat to close it. “Red sauce, green sauce,” I called.

Nobody spoke after we drove away. Mandy turned Michael Jackson back on. I knew as soon as I was out of the car she was going to tear into O.K. She pulled up in front of my parent’s place and I got out. 

“Take it easy O.K.,” I said. “Thanks for the ride, Mandy.” 

Mandy looked at me and she was definitely pissed. “Trees,” she said. “You did not help with that situation. Not at all.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I try.” 

“Try harder.”

I laughed and she drove away.

Oh Mandy. Goddammit.  

Sometime after that, days, weeks, months, I can’t remember, it was me and Mandy at The Plank. Drinking from a pitcher of PBR. Her sipping, me chugging. I always felt the two of us worked best hanging out in the dive bars on Vista, as opposed to downtown, surrounded by O.K.’s rich asshole friends. She brought up Mack. “She can’t do her photography anymore,” Mandy said. “She can’t work the equipment. Remember that time she tripped? She really messed up her wrists.”

“She can’t take pictures?” 

“Nope.” 

“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. “She didn’t seem that bad.” 

“She was.”

“Really?”

 “Unfortunately. I guess she’s a real mess.”

“Doesn’t seem fair,” I said. 

Mandy pulled her phone out of her purse and began to text O.K. She’d recently cut her dark hair short. Looked at her phone with her face scrunched up. I could tell she was trying to come up with the perfect word for whatever text she was sending.

“What,” Mandy said when she realized I was staring. 

“Red sauce, green sauce” I said. Poured myself more beer.

Ross Hargreaves has an MFA from the University of Idaho. His work has appeared in Mikrokosmos, Quibble Lit, God's Cruel Joke, Fatal Flaw, Drunk Monkeys and the Boiler. He lives and writes in Idaho.