There is sugar in our salsa, though most people wouldn't know that, might argue that it couldn't be true, the mixture on the edge of their chip is too tart.
But it is true. I make the salsa, and today, the tomatoes are juicy, so when my knife cuts into them, they squirt. I make quick, clean slices with this blade, so unlike the knives that I have in my kitchen at home. I cut though air, skin, pulp, and meat, and the journey ends against the plastic cutting board.
I combine the tomato cubes, chunks of purple-white onions, cilantro with the curvy leaves, lime juice, a little sugar into a huge bowl, uniting them into a chunky, vinegary soup. Plastic gloves keep my raw cuticles safe from the burning juices. And when Joe tells me that he needs me up front, I regret leaving the kitchen where the tomatoes and onions and cilantro marry against a gray backdrop, know that the color in the front of the restaurant is all different-steel blue of low rise jeans, yellow haired girls, and their static white impatience.
The teenage girls who want tacos after buying movie tickets that each cost more than an hour of my labor don't understand my accent, say, "What? What did you say?" They shrug at each other, giggle. Some are embarrassed, but it's my fault, not theirs, as they tuck long hair behind ears. Some girls call me wetback or dumbass, which is okay because they whisper it, or mouth the words, and I don't know English, anyway. I point at different items in containers in front of me, would you like marinated chicken, some black beans, a little corn relish? And I heap on cheese, even though they only want a little, because I can't understand, and they cry out, whoa, too much cheese, so I pinch some off. Just a little.
And one pack of girls turns into another, all the same to me, as I am to them. German will pick me up in twenty minutes, but we're getting low on salsa, so Joe sends me back to the kitchen, to make more. And this time, the juice gets inside of my glove, somehow, and it stings, then the tick tock throb that lingers after the smart of a burn. But I keep on working, making the salsa, until my shift is over.