The Manhattan Project: Where Are All the Mexican Chefs?

the year was 2005 and I was at the Siete Dolphinas taco shack on Sunset Blvd when I first heard the rumors of alien abduction in the strange disappearances of New York’s Mexican chefs.

Over the sound of the pork and carne asada sizzling on the open fire grill I caught bits of the story:

…’¿Etas me dicendo que su hermano, en Nova York El era abductada para espacio?’ …

…’Etas me dicendo que su hermano, en Nova York El era abductada para espacio’ …

…’Era Los estrangeritos verdes del espacio, con certanza!’ …

… ‘UFO? No creo que exista, deve ser la policia.’…

At the time I couldn’t understand enough Spanish to trust what I was hearing, so when this year intoxicatedly selecting another poor imitation of Mexican cooking here in New York, I launched an investigation on the spot.

‘What gives, mothefucker?’ I asked the suddenly frantic Korean behind the counter. ‘Where are the mothefucking Mexicans?’, I screamed.

But instead of a mad dive for the telephone, his face fell into a look of supreme dread. He put his finger to his lips with one hand and pointed to the ceiling with the other.

‘Sshh… They listen.’ he whispered.

And I flashed back to that strange day over shrimp cocktails at the Siete Dolphinas when he drew me a pictionary-like tale of stick men being sucked into flying saucers and kept in electric cages.

‘More, more, I must know more!’ I screamed, but his broken english wasn’t enough to give me the whole picture.

Dejected, I wandered the streets of bushwick looking for answers, asking at the local mexican bakeries and deli’s, on the corners and stoops, behind bushes and under cars.

‘¿Where has the authentic Mexican food gone?’ I pleaded.

‘¿Where did you get that guacamole?’

‘¿Where is your husband, did he disappear … into the sky?’

Everyone seemed to know something but no one had the whole burrito. A crack addict claimed to have been taken to space eight times in the past decade but he had never been a cook.

And then on my way to a greasy spoon Chinese restaurant to drown my sorrows in some Szechuan style soup I was yanked into an alley by a very large government agent-type with a very small gun. He shoved me over to another, much smaller, plum-shaped man. They both wore suits that suggested a lot of travel.

‘Ive heard you’ve been asking a lot of questions in bad spanish. I suggest you stop,’ said the little one.

‘Who’s gonna stop me?’ I shouted back. ‘We work for the government’ he answered.

‘What have you done with the Mexicans?’ I shot back. ‘Are you from California?’

‘Look, why don’t we tell him the truth’ suggested the tall one. ‘No one believes it anyway. Look at all the Mexican restaurants that still operate in the city. Ok, you’ve heard of the Manhattan Project right. Turns out Einstien wasn’t the genius everyone thinks he is. In 1942 we traded all of the Mexican chefs in New York City limits to the aliens for a nuclear bomb.’

I stood aghast. ‘You just let them abduct all those cooks??’

‘Hitler was prepared to make the same deal for his German sausage chefs but we put a better offer on the table,’ said the tall one.

‘We’ve got to go,’ said the short one.

‘And what do they do with them?’ I demanded to know, as they walked out of the alley.

‘They treat them pretty well’ said the tall one.

‘If they cook’ replied the short one.

‘You ever had Ricardo’s Humano asado?’ said the tall one.

‘Excelente’ said the short one.

And that was the last I heard before they vanished into a nearby falafel house leaving me with an empty stomach, a full bottle of Tapatio hot sauce and an eerie gaze toward the heavens where I imagine a cosmic chimichanga is being prepared for an unearthly little green appetite.