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Two long plastic foldout tables were set with plates of quartered limes and squeeze bottles of red and green salsa. Abdominous middle-aged men sat alongside their wives and kids, idly chatting, eating tacos, and pulling on cans of Pepsi and Modelo, not giving the firefighters a glance.
This wasn’t a family gathering: the people eating were customers. But nor was it a legit business (which is why I’m not going to say exactly where I was). For the last year or so, a landscaper named Gustavo has been selling tacos out of his garage for two bucks apiece. A native of San Juan, Jalisco, he lives here with his wife and three kids. One of them, his 15-year-old son Carlos, would rather sleep in on Sunday mornings, but he helps his father and uncle Jesus in the garage. Their customers are a mix of family, friends, and coworkers and other people from the city and surrounding suburbs who’ve heard about it by word of mouth.
Around 9:15 seven kids rushed in through the alley and swarmed the garage, chattering in English and Spanish. One little girl ran up to Gustavo and demanded “Where’s my ten dollars?” Another reached deep into the cooler for a Pepsi. A boy took a bat to a whiffle ball and thwacked it so hard it sounded like a gunshot.
