Dumpster Fucking Behind the Taco Bell on The Edge of Los Angeles

My high school job working the late shift at Taco Bell

My high school job after school was working at Taco Bell. The Taco Bell was on the same block as the school. My Mom knew the owner so I was hired on the spot.

Living La Vida Loca

I worked at the Taco Bell on and off for three years. I kept quitting but I’d go in drunk because I was hungry and it was open late. The manager would yell, “Ota lay! It’s Ricky Martin!” The people working the line would say in unison, “Ricky Martin!” Because I sorta look like Ricky Martin if you lived in Mexico all your life and Ricky Martin is the only white guy you’ve seen.

The manager would hard sell me into coming back to work on Sunday. He knew I was bad at saying no. I’d work just one shift and the next thing I know, I’m working 35 hours a week again. As soon as I realize it I’d quit. Then I’d get drunk and go into Taco Bell so it kept happening.

It wasn’t a bad job at all. The advantage of working as a cashier for Taco Bell was skimming cash was easy and I never had to prepare any food. I worked the register and only the register.

The Octavio rotation

The line was a giant steam tray on one side and a salad bar type set up on the other. The first guy working the steam cabinet was always Octavio. It wasn’t always the same person but it was always Octavio.

There was always an Octavio working the steam cabinet at our Taco Bell. The original Octavio worked there for six months. Great guy. One day, he was gone. But there was another guy named Octavio who showed up in his place. That Octavio was a weirdo. Probably on drugs. Lasted two months. In his place yet another Octavio showed up.

I’d come into work and there’d be some guy I’d never seen before in a Taco Bell uniform. I’d say, “Hi, I’m Hogan. Who are you?” He’d just stand there smiling. The assistant manager was like, “That’s the new Octavio.”

“Oh, got it. Ota lay Octavio!”

“Si! Si! Hey, Ricky Martin!” New Octavio said.

Poor Pebbles

The manager of the Taco Bell was this angry Indian dude Alan. He had a chip on his shoulder. Thought he was above being a Taco Bell manager, but no. Taco Bell manager suited him.

The original assistant manager was Neil, another Indian dude, he was cool but he left after a few months because he bought the liquor store in the shopping center. Which was fucking awesome for me because he’d sell me booze and cigarettes when I was 16 out the back door.

I’d collect money from a party and show up with 400 bucks and he’d help load it in my trunk. My car scraped over the speed bumps from all the weight. I owe a lot of my popularity in high school to him.

The assistant manager who took his place was another Indian guy in his early 30’s named Pebbles. Nicest guy in the world, super positive, a genuinely caring person. Wanted nothing more than to find a nice girl, fall in love, and get married. Problem was he was 5'2 and ugly. No other way to put it. Looked like he had monster makeup on. Massive unibrow. Forehead like a Ferengi. He looked like a Ferengi.

I forget where he lived in the US before but he was new to LA. This town chewed him up and spit him out. The women he found took advantage of him and played him. When he got here he was super positive and super optimistic.

The last time I saw him was 4 years after I met him. He looked 10 years older. I asked him how he was. He says with a pained smile on his face, “I’m ready to die.”

“Well, at least you accept your fate. Take care!”

What do you say to a guy who says something like that? No idea what happened to him.

Working the Drive Through

I saw so much shit working the drive through. You get offered a lot of bongloads working the drive through. I smoked every one of them. Alan would yell that it smelled like weed. It’s from the cars dude, nothing I can do.

I handed food to cars that smelled like a dumpster inside. I saw people having sex in vans. I saw a couple freebasing cocaine with a kid in the back seat. Naked men and women were not uncommon.

One time I was handing this guy his food when WHAM! He was rear ended so hard the guy who I was handing the food to and his car was gone. In his place was a kid clenching the steering wheel with a look on his face like he just smashed into the back of someone’s car.

They had 2 cashiers work the drive through. I didn’t develop much of a relationship with the food preparers of dubious citizenship, but I got to know the cashiers I worked with well.

First it was Rosa. A Beautiful 20 year old Chola girl. We got along great. One day she needed a ride home. Sure, it was sorta on the way.

When we got in my car she asked if she could stop by her friends to pick something up. No problem. She was in and out in no time.

“Wanna pull over and smoke this crack?” She asked.

“Uh, sure.”

I smoked crack for the first time on top of a hill overlooking our town. My heart was racing and I was really excited about everything. Everything was going great.

“I’ll suck your dick for 20 bucks,” Rosa said seductively.

“Okay! Sure!”

I didn’t really want my dick sucked at that moment, but I was really bad at saying no at that age. I couldn’t get it up because of the crack. Though not for lack of Rosa’s enthusiasm. In retrospect a 20 dollar blowie from her was the bargain of a lifetime. She quit a week later.

The next girl lasted 4 months. She ran off with the other assistant manager, not Pebbles. They both were married with kids. The strangest thing was how nonchalant all my other co-workers were about it.

But this story is about the girl that replaced her. Miggy’s sister, Barbara. Miggy also went to my high school and worked as a cashier. He wanted to get her a job, and we needed someone. But he kept saying she was really weird.

“It’s Taco Bell. How much worse than these pisas can she be?” I asked.

Dumpster fucking

I wasn’t there for the actual event, but I was there earlier that day.

Miggy was right, his sister was a weirdo. Loud and obnoxious. Impulsive with no filter. Didn’t respect personal boundaries or space. Gross with little regard for hygiene. Maybe she was autistic? I don’t know. She would wander off for a few seconds to a few hours. We’d be working with me leaning out the window and her preparing the drinks. I’d look back and she’d be gone.

“Where did you go?”

“I got a beer and chugged it. Fuck you you Ricky Martin looking bitch. You ain’t the manager. I’m going to smoke a blunt,” She said as she took a cigar and a bag of weed out of her pocket. And that was Barbara.

The day of the incident, Barbara was walking around behind the counter saying, “I want a baby,” to no one in particular. She always had some weird thing she was fixated on. Before I left for the day, she asked me in front of everyone, “Will you fuck me? Gimme a baby?”

“No!” I exclaimed. Hard no. Not happening. Nothing to discuss, just no.

The next day I went in to work. Pebbles says, “Oh man, you missed it. So Barbara asks everybody to fuck her. She asks Hector, then Luis, then Felix, Then Gustavo, then me…”

“You said no?” I asked. If Pebbles didn’t pay for it he was probably still a virgin. I was also amazed that none of the other guys went for it. Those guys were dogs, but she was that gross.

“Are you nuts? I’ll never be that desperate! That’s disgusting man!”

“Barbara asks everyone and the last person is Octavio and he says yes. They ask me if they can fuck in the freezer. I say you guys can go fuck but you got to fuck in the dumpster. And they did!”

“No way.”

“They didn’t go in the dumpster just the enclosure. They closed the swinging door but they couldn’t lock it from the inside. Everyone was dumping garbage on them over the top. We kept opening the door and he had her bent over with her pants down to her ankles. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life man.”

I was dying.

Barbara missed her next shift. Everyone was speaking in Spanish about it. I don’t think she was embarrassed. I think it was a coincidence that she stopped showing up. Maybe that was the whole reason she took the job.

I quit Taco Bell a month after the dumpster fucking incident. I went to college and got a much better job selling weed.

Today I’m a eel tickler down at the mall part time when I’m not writing. I still bear a passing resemblance to Ricky Martin. I like my stories to be narrated by Daniel Stern in peoples heads.

I have no idea if dumpster fucking made a dumpster baby. That dumpster baby would be 25 today. The Taco Bell still stands on the corner of Woodley and San Fernando Mission. The guy who manages it today was the last guy I worked the drive through with 25 years ago.