[hr][hr][center][h1][b][i][color=orangered]Caesar Gonzalez[/color][/i][/b][/h1]
[img]http://media.giphy.com/media/wbomIbUs5Bc2I/giphy.gif[/img][hr][b]Location:[/b] Apartment 1D (his), Street
[b]Interacting With:[/b] Himself, Lawson, and the Reason He Lives Alone
[hr][hr][/center]

	A shower. Oh hell yes, a shower. A little post-hangover cleansing of one's self, and a metaphorical sloughing off of the previous day to meet the new one with a fresh attitude and fresh perspective. There was something about cascading hot water and a coarse, exfoliating (yet absorbent) washcloth that unmade minor annoyances and prepared one for the coming day. 

	It was also useful for removing enchilada sauce from one's self. 

	When the water's thermal output reached a level two notches below excruciating, Casear kicked off his bunny slippers and divested himself of his smiley boxers. Now it was just him, his extensive tattoo collection, and that blessed bastion of cleansing relief: The Shower. Caesar had already set the remainder of his Patrón bottle upon the counter and rested his machete on the tank of his toilet. He had seen Psycho, many times in his youth. While the Spanish translation left much to be desired, it was regardless one of Hitchcock's better productions. Some random cabrón with a mami fetish wasn't going to catch him with soap in his eyes, oh fuck no. Especially with what he'd heard of this town. Looking back, it was a great place to set up a branch office of M.S.S., but a less than ideal spot for a semi-vacation. 

	The elder Mexican looked himself over in the mirror, the image mildly unclear due to accumulating condensation from the shower's steam. His skin told a story. Some several stories, point of fact; some adventure, some horror. Tragedy and comedy were mixed in there too, in smaller amounts, though decidedly more of the former than the latter. Every tattoo and scar had a few words attributed to it, and there were plenty of each. His skin also told the story of age - many tales piled upon each other over decades, more than six of them. His skin was wrinkled and stretched in places. Not overly, but enough to indicate that the man had seen many hard years. 

	Beneath his skin, his physique told the same stories. But it was not the physique of an old man. Not by far. 

	Caesar set a foot inside the nigh-scalding shower, making a noise that was either a growl of annoyance or a sound of immediate relaxation. The expression of positive and negative emotional states lead with crossed signals and mixed takes from second parties. Even his more mid-coital pursuits left his partners awash with feelings of awe, fear, and considerable confusion in addition to the usual gratitude associated with accumulated experience in the pursuit. [color=orangered]"Okay shower, let's do this."[/color] he mumbled, stepping fully into the shower and tending to his personal hygiene. 

	[color=orangered]"Hmm, fresas y jojoba."[/color] he exclaimed with mild amusement, selecting a hair conditioner for the day. He never used to give a rat's ass about bouncy, lustrous hair before, and likely still wouldn't were it not for his daughter's influence. And his daughter's friend. The concept of trying to put up a better social image, now that he was the head of a growing professional enterprise, made sense. And let's face it, his own nature wasn't overtly sophisticated, nor was it genteel. For instance, what the hair care product called "Jojoba", he referred to colloquially as "Goat Nut". It fit. 

	[color=orangered]"...heh, jojoba. Heh heh..."[/color]

	Refreshed and sadly [i]much[/i] more sober, Caesar toweled off and got into his more casual garb. Lots of dark colors, boots, biker vest, a [i]different[/i] pair of smiley boxers, and a couple of sharp implements. One always finds daily use for sharp things. A pistol he wore out of habit; American law was always a little fuzzy about thing like that, especially in California. But he possessed the proper legal and corporate permits for such a thing, and besides, the last time this street held a block party something tragic occurred. He had meant to ask about that. 

	Packing or not, tragedy or not, Caesar had a Block Party for which to get ready. 

	His native Monterrey didn't have block parties. Well, they did and they didn't, you see. They had massive family gatherings for things like weddings, quinceaneras, holidays, and the like. The extended families tended to live very close to one another, often taking up a block or three of space in the city. As best as Caesar could tell, this was kind of like a Block Party. Except no one really knew anybody else unless they made an effort to. And fistfights might break out. And obnoxious music was a constant. 

	Come to think of it, a Block Party sounded [i]exactly[/i] like a Familia Gonzalez gathering. This meant he would have to bring a covered dish. Crap. 

	Caesar rummaged through his kitchen for ingredients. Maybe if he could throw something together on the quick, it would be covered over by the informality of the social function. So first step: See what he had. In any respectable amounts, Caesar's larder yielded him a metric fuckton of flour tortillas, a couple bottles of chocolate syrup, some fresh chiles, a gallon of coffee ice cream, vegetable oil, some dulce de leche, a bit of raw sugar, and some leftover duck. 

	The first thing he did was hide the duck deeper in his fridge. That shit was good. He was keeping it. 

	The second thing he did was get some oil going in a deep pot and set out the ice cream to soften. Rolling the tortillas into cylinders and securing them with toothpicks, Caesar fried up a multitude of them until they bubbled and held shape, like little edible paper towel tubes. He wasn't 100% as to where he was going with this, but it was a good, basic start. 

	Caesar poured a tiny amount of oil into a saute pan and put it on medium heat. With one of his favorite stabbin' knives, he bisected the chiles and scraped the seeds out, then diced them small. They made a considerable sizzling sound the moment they hit the pan, settling down to a white noise murmur as heat broke down cell walls and lightly caramelized the capsicum bearing vegetables. He was no chef, certainly. But he had to prepare most of his own meals. Eventually, he learned not to screw basic things up. 

	Some sugar went into the pan with the diced chiles, immediately breaking down into brownish liquid and desiccating the peppers. After a moment Caesar was satisfied that they had candied just enough, and deglazed with the last half ounce of his Patrón. Well, the last half ounce in [i]that[/i] bottle of Patrón, at any rate. When the liquid bubbled mostly away, the culinarily anxious Latino Grande poured in a smallish can of Dulce de Leche and an entire bottle of chocolate syrup, hitting it with a few quick side-to-side motions with a whisk. So, it's a chile/chocolate/milk pudding sauce. Yeah, let's go with that. 

	Now softened, the coffee ice cream spooned fairly well into the fried tortilla cylinders. Caesar found a couple of aluminum roasting pans they would fit into, more or less, and spread a thin layer of the sweet and spicy sauce over the bottom of them. The ice cream fried tortillas stacked (almost) neatly in rows on top of that, and the lion's share of the sauce was spooned atop them. They needed to go back into the freezer for a few minutes, just to make sure that the ice cream stayed good and solid before moving them out into the open air. 

	Packing the last tortilla roll into the second pan met with some difficulty, evidenced by the flaky shell fracturing and splitting in half. One too many, it seemed, and it looked ugly in comparison to the other portions, fitting neatly in the pans. No sense in it going to waste, Caesar was motivated to sample his improvised handiwork. 

	His face lit up, eyes widening with heretofore unexpressed emotion, at least for a while. [color=orangered]"Dios efucking mio,"[/color] he slowly exhaled, [color=orangered]"M'hija's going to love this. Cookie might, too."[/color] This was actually something. Maybe he could pass it off as a local dish from back home, for the naysayers who would be surprised to find their mouths on fire after expecting something purely sweet and processed. Maybe he would sip from a tall, cool glass of Fuck'em and hide this in Alicia and Lorna's place for the three of them to sample at their leisure with a bottle of fine Mezcal after darkness fell proper that evening. 

	Twenty minutes later, the pans came out of the freezer, and Caesar came out of his apartment en route to Alicia's abode a few meters away. He noted the guy at the smoker/grill, the guy that'd been there all day and was there still, manning the meat searing apparatus like a Redneck Beefeater. He didn't know the guys name, but perhaps he could find some use for him. He shouted across the way to him, [color=orangered]"Órale, Smoker-Boy!"[/color] as he readied the other half of the broken confection he sampled earlier for a slow and easy toss, [color=orangered]"Eat my food!"[/color]

	It sailed gently through the air, wrapped tightly in waxed paper. Not bothering to stick around for feedback, nor even to see if the poor fellow had caught it, Caesar continued his short journey to the only people he actually cared about on this street. Mostly to test out the word he'd come up with for his dish, he called out in his gruff, accented voice, [color=orangered]"M'hija, Cookie! The EnGelatos are ready! EnchGelato? Engelata? Eh."[/color] 

	EnGelatos would have to suffice for the meantime. Party to prepare for, you see.