Another Example of Theme of The Week

Last birthday, around March, we were eating fried Jalapeño - so, the theme was  of course, Jalapeño- here is the original writing on my part that ensued-which is the beginning rough draft for me, a character I started to fall in love with. So here is an example of my writing process- I write short stories as long as I can possibly go, then in this case, Benny J is actually turning into more of a screenplay, inspired by my love for the movie, Forbidden Zone:

Jalapeño  

As Benny Jalapeño drove his Taco Truck down Sepulveda, he contemplated his recent divorce. He met her when she was a waitress at that road side topless bar, the one with the terrible Mexican food. It was actually sitting there at Lefty's swilling Chamucos, staring at his future ex wife's perfect tits, that he came up with the idea to invest his dead mother's life savings in a fleet of food trucks.  He found it funny that he wasn't even a Mexican, but a half breed  Navajo. Benny was his real name and his mother had been a whore at the Nevada brothel where he grew up. He got the name Jalapeño from Maria Louisa, one of his mother's coworkers-when she had seen him naked at 14 years old, after he was busted spying on her and a client doing it doggy style. She took the money from the old bald man in a dress, winked goodbye, flung open the closet door to find young Benny jacking off. She flicked him hard:

"If you're going to play with that little Jalapeño in here while I'm working, you must pay five dollars!"

From then on, Benny was known as "Benny Jalapeño". One day, he got drunk and jumped in the back of a pick-up truck bound for Los Angeles, filled with illegal migrant workers. He picked fruit in the Central Valley, worked in a factory in East LA, and eventually scored a job washing dishes at a Taco joint in Manhattan Beach. Because he never had a father, and never really liked his drunken, whore of a mother, he took Jalapeño for his last name. 

He bought an old surf board at a yard sale and spent several years winning amateur surfing competitions, becoming semi-famous with the locals. Several years later after he was promoted to Bartender, he was surprised to receive a certified letter, telling him his mother had died of strangulation, and had saved every cent she had ever earned working in that brothel. He guessed she wasn't so bad after all, so he decided to celebrate. That was how he found himself at Lefty's staring at the craziest pair of eyes he had ever seen. And as luck would have it, the crazy eyed bitch just happened to also have the best tits he'd ever seen. Drunk, they headed for Tijuana after her shift  and got married early the next morning. 

Polly was from the Deep South, and liked to pretend she was a southern belle. She had escaped from the foster home in rural Georgia at 15, after her Foster father stopped paying her for hand jobs.   Hitch hiking across country, turning tricks wherever necessary, she finally found her way to Lefty's. Sick of men, she wandered in and met a bouncer who described how Lefty had gotten her name:

In Tampico, Lorena Alvarez had been a semi famous contortionist, in El  fenómeno 

 de la naturaleza, the local nude circus. Lorena, was caught by her husband/pimp/owner of El  fenómeno, lapping between the legs of la señora gorda. He reached for one of the prop swords and hacked off her right breast, as punishment for her crimes against God, and so she became known as Lefty. She continued to work for her husband for two years, until she discovered where he hid the money; shot him in the crotch, and absconded to Tarzana, assuming her dead sisters citizenship and identity. From then on, Lefty avoided sleeping with men, decided with the help of her ex con brother in law to take over the Topless Taco business. When Pedro, the brother in law, went back to prison, she decided to rename the business, "Lefty's Topless Tacos." Business was good because she kept her bitches in line. No one seemed to mind that the food tasted like it had already been eaten. 

On a Tuesday in May, in wandered a scrawny kid with round boobs peeking out of a thrift store tube top. The kid reminded Lefty if herself at that age.

"Aye, Wetta, you look like you have parasites."

Polly batted her eyes and popped out her tits.

"Prolly from eating in dumpsters, Mam". 

"How old are you, baby girl?"

"16 years today, Mam".

Lefty took pity on Polly and gave her a cot in the shed, and a job washing dishes, on the account of Polly being under age. But at 17, Polly had already started turning tricks on the cot, so Lefty scored her a fake ID, and also let her dance, at took a healthy percentage of Polly's "extras". Polly became Lefty's most popular girl. With her demure Southern drawl, and baby soft skin, long dirty blonde hair, in a house filled with Latinas, she melted the hearts of all the Truckers who frequented Lefty's Topless Tacos. It wasn't until after Polly turned 18, that Lefty discovered Polly's dark side. One day, during a power outage, Polly freaked out on an aggressive customer. During a candlelight lap dance, a rich but filthy Trucker, squeezed her boob so hard, she broke a bottle and slashed his face. Not wanting harm to fall on her young lesbian lover, Lefty was forced to pay the Trucker a lot of Money to keep quiet. 

"Wetta, it's a good thing you so red hot at licking pussy. But you WILL work of EVERY dollar, I pay that Man, aye, with me-your Mama, and with the stupid filth that come through here."

Polly rolled her eyes. Since birth, life had been hard.  She was the quintessential victim who in turn, victimized everyone in her path. Manipulation was her strong suit and she learned to use others as much, if not more, than they used her. She was kicked out of school in the 6th grade after violently attacking Leilani Scamp, the local female bully. After setting a track house on fire, she was sent to Juvie and bounced from one foster home to another, where she learned to manipulate any situation with her sexuality. Ungrateful by nature, Polly felt no loyalty to Lefty for taking her in and was game to escape to Tijuana  with the newly rich bartender who kept talking about Taco Trucks. Polly not only planned to suck the marrow, out of life, but also the lifeblood out of anyone stupid enough to fall for her disintegrated Southern charms.