The Chronicles of Tulip Touzie

ONE

At the ripe young age of twenty-one, Tulip Touzie had already discovered that she was not cut out for the working world. She had been a member of the work force for five full years and believed half of a decade was long enough to this conclusion. Being satisfactorily sound in said conclusion, she accepted her college diploma and put in her two weeks notice at Burrito's Burrito Company. It was the first time she had quit a job without being warned that she would be terminated if she called in sick ‘one more time’.

Tulip had never been fired from a job based solely on the fact that she was too lovable. She had called in sick sixteen times in the six months she worked for Tallahassee Bread Company. The management had enjoyed the sheer entertainment of watching her come to work slightly intoxicated and possibly stoned at 5:30am daily and attempting to do seemingly menial tasks with the greatest difficulty and satisfaction upon completion. She once served seven espressos during Monday morning rush without once changing the coffee grinds. The result of which was seven angry government workers, which was no skin off her back as Tulip assumed most government workers were angry by nature. She just hoped that she wouldn’t be held responsible for someone going postal. She scanned the Tallahassee Times on Tuesday and couldn’t find any evidence that her coffee had caused an immediate butterfly effect of immense proportions. For that, she was thankful. She promised the gods of coffee never to forget to change the coffee grinds again. She could only imagine how this could have affected Starbucks when it was a start-up company. One thing she was certain of was that she wouldn’t have graduated from Florida State without them. In conclusion, she also thanked the gods of coffee that she did not in fact work for Starbucks when it was a start-up company. Tulip believed that we must be thankful for past present and future equally.

Tulip thought that her job as a barista and sales cashier at Tallahassee Bread Company was going quite swimmingly. Which is why it was shocking when an assistant manager took her into the freezer to tell her that he heard she would be fired if she called in sick again. She wondered why he took her into the freezer instead of telling her in the kitchen. She was not ashamed. But she was very cold. Also, she wished that she could hear the sound of the classical music they played in the Café in the background. It would have made the moment more memorable for her. She had trouble remembering things when there wasn’t music playing and feared she may show up for work the next week.

Knowing that she would be calling in sick on Friday due to a student rally she had organized against the war in Iraq, she walked out of the freezer and into Bach and officially put in her one-day’s notice. She would not have minded working her weekend shifts and felt bad to leave them in a bind with such short notice, but there was no way she would work the weekend just to be fired on Monday. She was nobody’s fool.

Tulip could tell that Freddie Hornito was greatly disappointed to hear that she would be quitting the burrito business. Who would he smoke pot with after work? They had made it a thrice weekly tradition to turn off the fluorescent lights and let the paper lantern strands of twinkle lights and beer signs illuminate the small red cantina whilst they smoked pot out of apple cores and listened to classic rock on full blast. Freddie’s brother Jo was pleased by the many improvements that had come into fruition under the management of Freddie and Tulip. Tulip flirted with the beer distributor and had as result received free neon signs, beer samples, and cut outs of hot girls dressed as Indians drinking Bud Light. They resold the beer samples for a one hundred percent profit and were inspired to redecorate the eight-table restaurant with twinkling paper lanterns that came on a strand like Christmas lights. It was Tulip’s idea. Everyone in college had them. And she knew just where to get them. There was a local store owner whose shop she visited frequently, mostly to window shop and chat with the cute sales guy. They sold various hippie trinkets and treasures and she was pleased to inform that she would be buying more than just incense this week. She also invited the cute sales guy to see his merchandise on display at BBC and enjoy a free burrito if he desired. She figured it’d be good for business. The only people that came to Burrito’s were cops, construction workers, and Tulip’s friends. Who mostly ate free nachos and watched TV.

“Why are you leaving us?” Asked Freddie Hornito. “Is it the money? I can ask Jo if we can give you a raise. I’m sure he’d say yes. What d’you want? Eight-Fifty?”

“I’m retiring.” Tulip Touzie said with conviction.

They both laughed until their guts cramped from de-oxygenation and then Fred got out an apple core and a bag of pot and closed the restaurant for the day. They would need to sit down and discuss this matter immediately. Freddie Hornito was sure she was serious, and also sure that she wouldn’t have enough funds for a cushioned retirement and thought she might not have the sense to understand this fully.

Tulip always admired vagabonds and liberal folk artists. Her mother, Rose Touzie, felt slightly responsible for this because she only listened to peace inspiring music when Tulip was in the womb. Mostly Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan. When Tulip was twelve, Rose Touzie encouraged her to study alternative forms of religion before confirming to Catholicism. She had only intended to make Tulip aware that she was making her own mature decision to become a confirmed Catholic. It was never her intention to develop a Taoist slash Buddhist slash Catholic slash Hindu believer with a minor interest in witchcraft. She also allowed Tulip to frolic with the peanut butter and bean sprout eating Scientologist children next door who were teaching her God knows what about life forces and aliens. When Rose Touzie explained to Tulip how contradictory her pool of beliefs were, Tulip concluded it would be better to develop her own religion. She kept a book of deities where she named an individual god of every inanimate object she could think of. She kept it with her always, so that she could add to it as necessary. Rose often thought that her daughter’s eclectic behavior was quite possibly the result of information overload. She was never certain if her daughter would mature to understand things as they were.

When Tulip attempted to single-handedly take down the Marion County School Board after the implementation of block scheduling in the eighth grade, Rose began to worry. Her tweenager was writing papers on anarchy and even worse, socialism. She was becoming a weekly feature in the Ocala Star-Banner’s editorial section; each week her ideas became more complex and oddly, more possible. Rose immediately implemented required reading for Tulip in addition to her summer reading requirements. She would also need to read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation by David Ricardo. Rose Touzie also started discussing rich capitalists like Warren Buffet as often as possible at the dinner table and how “awesome” it was to be American. She did everything she could. And after that failed, she bought her a guitar.

Freddie Hornito had listened to Tulip play her guitar on many occasions. All of them had involved a group of about nine close friends and a bottle of Jose Cuervo. If she had planned on supplementing her retirement with income earned from guitar performances she would have to learn more than five chords. Even though Freddie only knew Tulip for three-quarters of a year, he was sure that she wouldn’t be willing to go that far. Tulip was really good at learning almost anything really fast and she always quit as soon as things became too complicated. For this reason, Freddie didn’t see this early retirement coming. The burrito business was as uncomplicated as things could be. Tulip learned everything real fast and nothing ever changed, so she could just coast like a car on cruise control; and so could he.

Freddie sat there apple core in hand and said, “Tulip, you’ve gotta’ explain this to me. Retirement? I just don’t see how you’re gonna’ support yourself.”

“I figure I can just work for rent, you know like the Mennonites or whatever, and then travel a bit. You know, while I’m young. Old people are always using retirement to travel. I wanna’ do it while I’m young. And hot.” Tulip said frankly.

Freddie Hornito was not familiar with the Mennonites, but if Tulip said they existed then it must be true. A later search through Wikipedia confirmed that they were in fact real and there were 1.5 million of them world-wide which meant Tulip would have a lot of people out there looking out for her. Tulip was happy that after much deliberation, Freddie decided not only to support her early retirement but also to give her a thousand bucks towards the cause. Freddie wanted to go with Tulip and knew she’d welcome the company, but he was on probation for possession of illegal arms. Tulip knew Freddie was completely harmless and had petitioned his arrest after learning that the guns were a family heirloom. The guns held so much historical value that Freddie was afraid to register them for fear that someone from the registry would get greedy and try to steal the Cuban weapons for themselves. That and the fact that he had also been arrested for possession of marijuana so many times that he assumed they wouldn’t let him cross the border anyhow. Shit, if he made any missteps they just might ship him back to Cuba. And that would undo all that his parents had done to keep him here. No, Freddie Hornito figured he was better off staying in Florida. He told Tulip to use the money to buy him some more decorations for the restaurant, and send him some postcards while she was at it.

Tulip smiled and agreed, but they had turned off the music an hour ago after a cop on his lunch break persistently knocked on the door, jonesing for a chicken burrito. She knew without Sammy Hagar in the background, she was likely to forget her promise in about a week. In fact, she would be surprised in a week when she noticed her bank balance had increased by a thousand dollars. And even more surprised to learn that it was she who made the deposit. How incredibly curious, she’d think.