Dos Gringos v. Ryan McKee :: RYAN MCKEE

Dos Gringos v. Ryan McKee
by Ryan McKee
Modest Proposal

Prologue:

In May 2004, my girlfriend and I broke up. However, we still had another month left on the lease to our apartment. Neither of us had the money to break the lease or find another place, so we both stayed - albeit in different bedrooms.

The breakup devastated my girlfriend. However, she didn't show her heartbreak by crying or begging. She showed it by going out every night to the bars and having a really good time with her friends. Denial can be so hard to watch sometimes.

Being a school teacher, she could stay out to all hours because the school year had already ended. On the other hand, I had to be home early so as to be awake in time for my super-intense library job. Books could fly off the
shelves at any moment - I needed to be rested for each crazy day.

At night, I would lie awake on the floor (she had our only bed and we never could afford a couch) and know that she was at the bar next to our apartment, Dos Gringos. The bar was a huge patio-style establishment that served Coronas for $2. A notorious local meat market, the place usually resembled a Girls Gone Wild video shoot. Visions of her doing body shots and cartwheeling naked onto some guy's cock would haunt me until she stumbled into the apartment smelling like a windowless bar.

When you're that low, it's interesting what you consider an upswing of events. One morning I got up for my job after a sleepless night and saw someone had driven an SUV into the drainage ditch that separated our apartment complex from Dos Gringos. A feeling of victory washed over me like high tide over hobos sleeping on the beach.

I felt the meatheads who had stolen my girlfriend were: A) too stupid to realize their SUV couldn't make it over the five foot ditch, B) too drunk to realize their truck was in "drive" and not "reverse," C) too wrapped up in hateful yet too-drunk-to-care homosexual embrace to realize the vehicle was rolling.

At work my fellow librarians didn't seem to share my sense of triumph. They said things like, "How do you know the SUV belonged to a guy your ex is with?" and "Somebody could have gotten seriously hurt in the crash," and "Who are you again?"

My bliss began to taper off. My coworkers were right - finding happiness in others misfortune (no matter how much the misfortune was their own stupid fault) wasn't healthy. Besides I was placing blame on the meathead guys who frequented the bar when really the blame lay closer to home. Right next door to my home actually, Dos Gringos Bar.

Who did Dos Gringos think they were anyway? Providing cheap booze and a date-rape friendly atmosphere? Somehow I had to turn this on them. So I wrote them this anonymous letter and included these photos.

Dear Dos Gringos,

You claim to offer white people a haven to study Mexican culture without the drawbacks of dealing with actual Mexicans; however, that is not your real game.

I know your real game. You offer alcohol at rock-bottom prices so that fiscally-responsible young females have no qualms flashing their breasts for free shots. Then you pass on the savings to your target customers: the phrat-boy, the just-graduated phrat-boy, and the middle-aged bachelor who owns a tattered copy of the Old School DVD.

I'm on to you and I've decided to go "A-Team" on your ass.

Please turn your attention to the enclosed photographs. I am claiming responsibility for the black Toyota Landcruiser belonging to one of your patrons meeting its demise in what I like to call, "Rank River."

As I write this, I can only imagine the horror its tires must be going through: being splashed with E coli and fecal pollution. If some person were to touch those tires later, even after it's been pulled form the water, and then put their finger in their mouth without washing it, there's a 7 to 15% chance they might experience intestinal cramping and/or diarrhea.

Can you even imagine the horror a vaguely Mexican-themed bar's clientele running around the streets in a maddening rage of cramping and diarrheic despair?

Terrorism, you say? I prefer the term, "Desperate measures in desperate times."

Your clientele's cars will continue to meet the same fate, one after another until the scene resembles an automobile Guantanamo Bay, unless you release my ex-girlfriend.

She's blond with small to medium-sized breasts and will answer to the call, "Free tequila shots for any girl that will dance topless on the bar." You may have to play the song "Getting Jiggy With It" by Will Smith immediately after to ensure her response.

She may claim that she "does not want to be released" and call me things like: "a liar," "an idiot," and "a washed-up fuckhead." Do not listen to her. She has been brainwashed just like Elizabeth Smart was by her insane kidnapper Emmanuel. And your new name might as well be Dos Emmanuels.

Sincerely,
Your Friendly Neighbor

Epilogue:
While Dos Gringos never formally responded to my letter, a year later they raised their Corona prices from $2 a bottle to $3 a bottle. Victory was mine.

:: contact Ryan McKee :: ryan@mpempire.com