Week eight- Fighting in a Taco Place Parking Lot- The Unofficial State Sport of New Mexico

This week, I am going a slightly different direction then I have in the past. In this post, I will be discussing an event that occurred last semester that for me, highlighted the need for physical activity, especially in young folks with raging hormones. That story, is the tale of my most recent scrap.

It was thanksgiving break, and  I was visiting some of my friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My friend Jacob dropped me off at Taco Cabana, where my friend Travis worked, at around eight o clock PM. I sat and  worked on my paradigm shift essay until his shift ended at ten, when we headed outside to his car. In the previous weeks, Travis had allegedly been having problems with his car being vandalized in that very lot. His theory was that his ex girlfriend, who he recently had a nasty break up with, was some how behind it. That night, his suspicion was confirmed.

As soon as we rounded the corner of another business that was between Taco Cabana and  the lot, we immediately saw three guys sitting on the hood of his car. The guys were Emile “Shorty” Trujillo, his brother Rodrick Trujillo, and     their acquaintance Isaiah Smith. I knew Shorty and Rodrick as the cousins of Makenzie Chavez, and  I played football with Isaiah in  middle school. As soon as we saw each other, Shorty stood up and  leered at us. I was hoping I could weasel out of conflict.

We approached the car and    the three got up to meet us, around five yards away from the vehicle. Judging by the way they were sizing me up, I presumed that they were expecting for Travis to be by himself. I was the first to speak, wishing the three gentleman a good evening, to which Rodrick charmingly responded with “shut the f*** up, white boy”. Shorty walked up to Travis and    got in his face, while Rodrick and    Isaiah stood between me and    the car. Shorty recited a laundry list of insults to Travis, and    made it clear that he was there for the sake  of his cousins honor. For about a minute, he stood there beating his chest and    shouting at us, making it very clear that he was not going to let us into the car. Finally, him and  Travis exchanged shoves, and    the chaos was underway.

Fights are difficult to recall. As soon as Shorty and  Travis made contact, Rodrick started edging toward them. Panicking, I grabbed Isaiah and    Shoved him with all of my might into Rodrick, and    then turned my attention to Shorty. He was much larger then Travis, and  by the time I got to him he was working Travis onto the ground. I grabbed him and  pulled him off, but not before he landed an open palm slap on Travis’s cheek. Right after pulling him off, I was put in a chokehold from behind by one of the two others. In an effort to get him off, I desperately thrusted my body against against the hood of an adjacent Chevy Taho, sounding an obnoxious alarm.

Seconds after the alarm went off, an alerted security guard came sprinting toward us. Mistaking him for a police officer, the three guys sprinted across the street to a pick up truck. Travis, having worked at that location for years now, apparently knew the security guard well, and  shouted him a thank you for interfering over the blaring car alarm.  Thankfully, everyone was relatively unscathed. The worst injuries were Travis’s red cheek and  my self inflicted shoulder bruise from banging into the car.

The fight reminded me of the dangers of idleness. In sixth grade, I never exercised, and  was expelled from a school for fighting, likely due to an excess of energy. Back in eight grade, I remember Isaiah was a nice kid, but I had heard that he fell into a rough lifestyle after quitting football in tenth grade due to his lack of growth since seventh grade. Given that they all work full time now, I doubt they ever have much  time to get their wiggles out. Perhaps if the three were still physically involved, they would not have had the time nor the excess aggression to be bothering my friend,  and  we all would not have wasted those two-ish minutes tussling that day.

In conclusion, everyone is ok, thanks to the fact that we really just got into pathetic middle school slap fight. Travis is dating Makenzie again, and him and  the Trujillo brothers are cool (apparently Makenzie was furious with them for confronting us). To our knowledge, nobody shut off the car alarm.