S15E05 - "Finger Lickin' Good" - Horror Hill

**Erik Peabody** (0:02)
Chilling Tales for Dark Nights.
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Greetings, listeners, and welcome to Horror Hill. I'm your host and narrator, Erik Peabody. Tonight, I've got a deliciously terrific story for you about one of my favorite subjects, Mexican food. Even though I'm broadcasting from Western New York, where the buffalo wings and garbage plates are local treasures, I grew up smack dab in the middle of California, where the Mexican cuisine was plentiful. I miss those days dearly, and you can imagine my delight when I cracked open tonight's tale, Cactus Jack's Tex-Mex Grill by Ryan G. Peacock. Our protagonist, Craig, can't turn down a pro bono burrito after filming a commercial for a local restaurant. But as they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
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And now, from author Ryan G. Peacock, I give you Cactus Jack's Tex-Max Grill.
My life was fairly simple. I never really asked for much, nor did I expect all that much either. I was freelancing as a videographer and had a steady group of repeat customers, mostly small businesses who wanted me to help them put together ads, but they kept me fed. Those small businesses did me a lot of good too. Word of mouth is a hell of a marketing tool, and it hadn't ended me a bunch of repeat customers before. So when I got the call from Cactus Jacks, I wasn't exactly surprised. I'd been out that night meeting a girl I'd been chatting up on OKCupid. The date had gone well, but I didn't think I was going to message her again. We hadn't had much to talk about, which was a shame since she'd seemed like a nice enough girl. Either way, I wasn't too beat up about it. I rolled myself a joint and took out my cell phone. I got in some emails while I'd been out that I'd chosen to ignore. Sure enough, one of them was from Cactus Jacks.
Hi Craig, I'm the owner of a little restaurant down on Burnham Thorpe called Cactus Jacks Tex-Mex Grill and got your information from the owner of Risotto's. I love the ad you shot for them and I wanted to ask about your rates and availability to shoot something similar for us. We're a new business and we're looking to build awareness of our location. We'd really like to work with you and are willing to work around your schedule. Best regards, Barry Miller.
There was a phone number and an address as well, but I figured it was too late to call the man back. Given my penchant for forgetfulness, I figured it was better to just reply to the e-mail outright. I sent him my rates and the days I was available to shoot. His address was in Mississauga, so I figured it wouldn't be too far of a drive. I remembered the restaurant he'd gotten my contact info from. Risotto's was a little Italian place owned by a robust but friendly woman named Sonia. She'd been one of my repeat clients and I'd always enjoyed working with her. She always gave me a discount on her paninis, and let me tell you what, that woman made one hell of a panini. It was good to know she was getting me new business too. I made a note to throw in something extra for her next time she hired me as a little thank you.
The next day, Barry got back to me. We ended up talking over the phone and he seemed like a pretty laid back guy. There were no red flags. Some clients demanded that I work for free. They promised me exposure, portfolio pieces, or tried to haggle with me. But I didn't bother with those people. The thing about small business owners is that a lot of them can be self-important jackasses. I understand that they work very hard to keep their business afloat. But just because you work every single day of the week to keep your little wing emporium open doesn't mean you have the privilege to treat the rest of the world like shit. I pity the poor folks who work for those fuckers, but I digress. Barry was nothing like that. He sounded like a middle-aged man and had a slight southern twang to his voice. He came off as conversational but polite. I liked him from the start. We settled on a price and a day for me to come over and handle the shooting in a couple of weeks. Over the next week or so, we worked out a script together. I usually worked with my clients to create some sort of script for their videos and Barry took to it quickly. Wasn't too hard to get it all set up.