The Gang Bang

Lessons In Love At A Flint, MI Taco Bell

from Mike Burns

In 1996, I was working in construction, putting in swimming pools, driveways and the like.  As a foreman, I had to deal with a lot of almost mythical pieces of shit.

One in particular was Mark “Hondo” Rondo.  A stick thin, cookie cutter “burn out” complete with a decent sized criminal record, a mullet down to the middle of his back, a dirty thin moustache, and a seemingly endless supply of sleeveless Metallica t-shirts.

Mark had a Basic 100, lit and dangling off his lip, 90% of the time.  The other 10% of the time, one was “locked and loaded” behind his ear.  Hondo also refused to wear proper steel toed work boots, preferring raggedy high top Nikes, which, were no match for terrain littered in jack hammers, 600 lb. wheelbarrows filled with concrete, and coked up heavy machinery operators ripping up someone’s lawn with a backhoe or Bobcat.

Injuries were on the regular, and fueled by a breakfast of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, Iced Tea, and pot, I cherished every single time he would gash his leg open or smash his tootsies with a sledgehammer.  It was a moment of pure bliss in the midst of a shit storm job that usually involved spending the majority of the day in the bottom of a 120 degree hole, trying to shovel through molten clay.

Mark loved to talk about “his old lady”, so while at lunch in a Flint, MI Taco Bell, we were quite enthused, possibly overly, when Hondo asked us if we wanted to meet her.  We said sure!  Then, out of context, he went into a long winded diatribe about how “we were fucking stupid ass fucks” for paying for pops, when he just gets a water cup and fills it up with Mountain Dew.

After finishing his crunchy taco (“dude, a motherfuckin’ bean bureet and and tac with a water cup is less than fuckin’ 2 bones”), Mark pulled out his wallet and produced a tattered high school style photo and said, “this is my bitch”.

We weren’t disappointed.  Even an 81-year old Bret Michaels wouldn’t have found this woman remotely digestible. 

Sensitive to our reaction, Mark “Hondo” Rondo dug deep to save face, and then uttered words that would help shape my comedic sensibility, and feed my interest mixed with disdain for the overly macho and misogynistic:

“Well, she ain’t much to look at, but she sure can fuck.”

Hondo quit a week later.  He said it was because the boss’ wife was a “stupid fat bitch”.

God bless you Mark “Hondo” Rondo, in whatever correctional facility you may be in today.

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