Nacho-Slurpee

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Nacho-Slurpee was a brief retreat from the prying eyes of anyone

who wanted to mold us in their image. The setting was elsewhere, 

not domestic or curricular. The day’s last bell, a game show buzzer

one hears after they’ve mouthed the wrong answer. So we embarked

there with the four wheels between us. Al’s car was carpeted in teenage artifacts, 

tubes of lip gloss and half-empty pill bottles. Half the stock of a Hot Topic

strewn between the two rows of seats. It was a child of divorce’s mobile arsenal. 

We went to 7-11 to revel in the showroom of artificiality and stimulate our senses.  

The entrance bell was an afterthought behind us, our evening song. 

We shopped as mirrors of one and other, clutching one plastic-covered vittle per hand. 

Pulling the Slurpee lever felt like gambling at an adolescent slot machine, 

bug-eyed, watching that tube of sugar-ice gaining volume. 

The drip-button mechanism which dispensed the nacho’s condiments 

felt less like escapism than a nifty industrial way to squirt liquified animal by-product 

over stale chip husks. It was as if Taco Bell’s hardshell tacos had been stepped on

then sealed in an airbag. The whole thing unsheathed then re-covered 

by a liquid cheese waterfall the color of emoji smiles and smooth

as our shaved summer legs. We forked over a few crumpled pocket bills

and returned to our safe chamber to eat in a reverent trance, at a loss for gossip

while we straw-sucked and crunched. Funny how memory has omitted anything more

after that point than a young me, lapping it up. That and my embarrassment-cum-wonder

at the orgasmic noises my companion made as she communed with each loaded bite.

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Danielle Unger is an anti-Zionist Jew, a poet, and a social worker living in New Orleans. Her poems have been published a few times and she is slowly working on getting them published more while taking care of a geriatric dachshund and trying to be a top-shelf friend. You can admire her caption writing work on Instagram @exhaustmonologue.

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