The Donkey
Margaritas and Misfits
We arrived at the Mexican restaurant down the street, the one with the neon yellow sign and rarely a car in the parking lot. We both asked for water when we sat down, but the waiter, who couldn’t have been older than seventeen, told us they don’t have tap water, only bottled.
“So... how do you cook?” you asked.
“Bottled water is fine, thanks,” I interjected, offering the waiter a small smile that I hoped conveyed we weren’t actually those customers.
He never brought us the bottled water.
Instead, we each ordered margaritas. Mine tasted predominantly of sweet-and-sour mix, a splitting headache waiting for me in the morning. I drank it anyway.
You ordered tamales, but they brought you taquitos. When you waved the server over, he seemed confused, pointing to the dish and shaking his head until you eventually gave up.
“We’re never coming back here,” you said to me before getting up to use the restroom.
I shrugged and took a bite of my hard taco with beef and lettuce, remembering my order: soft tacos with beef and cheese.
When we first arrived, we had been the only ones in the restaurant. Now, looking around, I noticed a group of teenagers, or perhaps college kids, as you can’t really tell these days, had filled in the larger table next to ours. The place didn’t serve water, much less ID anyone, so it made sense why they’d chosen this spot.
I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation, which was on the subject of children when I tuned in. One of the two girls in the group, with a jet-black bob and sharp winged eyeliner, announced in a raspy voice that alluded to cigarettes and defiance,
“Well, I’m for sure NOT having kids,” she projected over the side conversations at the table, before taking an empty slurp of her margarita that was mostly ice now.
The other girl, who appeared to be the exact opposite of the first, with an athletic disposition and sandy blonde hair, reacted in disbelief.
“Wait, like, ever? You really don’t want any?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve literally had a list of baby names picked out since, like, third grade! If it’s a girl, she will be Olivia, and if it’s a boy…”
The whole table was listening now. I was skeptical of their genuine interest in the names Cooper, or Liam for a boy, or if this girl was the group leader and used to being the spotlight of their conversations.
Suddenly, the girl with the black bob interrupted:
“OK it’s not that I don’t want them,” she said. “I just don’t think I can have them.”
The revelation seemed to dampen the table’s morale. Two guys, as if on cue, reached for their phones, and the two girls turned toward each other and began whispering. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I caught the words “clot” and “polyp.”
That’s when, for a brief moment, I met eyes with the guy occupying the table’s edge, squeezed into a corner seat. He hadn’t taken out his phone like the others, but he also wasn’t part of the girl’s secret side conversation. Instead, he seemed to be pondering something.
I wondered where he fit. Everyone else had clearly assigned roles: girl #1, the ringleader; girl #2, the ringleader’s inferior, second in command; guy #1, sleeping with the ringleader; and guy #2, guy #1’s funny sidekick.
Guy #3, the outlier, had physically shown up with this group, and yet, didn’t appear claimed by any of them. What was I missing?
I couldn’t help but think of my childhood home, which backed directly up to our neighbor’s stable. We had a horse at the time and worked out an arrangement to keep ours alongside the neighbor’s horse together in their barn, plus Donkey.
I remember being too young to get the horses out by myself, so instead, I’d walk over and play with Donkey. There was a field adjacent to the barn where I could take her, but never for extended periods of time, otherwise the horses would get stressed out. At the time, I hadn’t realized Donkey’s sole purpose for being there was to stabilize the horse’s behavior.
That’s when I made the connection. Guy #3’s role was to make the others feel more secure in theirs. He was Donkey. Never intended to lead or belong, only to steady the herd.
Just as this realization formed, was also when I heard him speak for the first time. He leaned slightly forward, directing his voice toward girl #2.
“I think my mom thought that too,” he said.
“You know, that she couldn’t have kids or whatever,” he added, offering context. “But then she had me, so you never know.”
He was, of course, trying to make her feel better, offering support where it hadn’t occurred to anyone else. But I found myself holding my breath, staring down at my food, unable to look at her expression in case it was deadpan or dismissive, the way I sensed it might be. I hoped she would lean in and kiss him, or at the very least reach for his hand in acknowledgment of his kindness.
Instead, she let the moment hang, just long enough to suggest he’d overstepped. And then,
“Thanks, bud,” her attention never veering from girl #1.
I didn’t hear him speak again. His job was complete.