Imagine Little Tokyo Short Story Contest III
“MERRY CHRISTMAS, MARIO-SAN”

Little Tokyo, 1989
One night, Mario Martinez, a struggling musician from Boyle Heights, was sitting in a booth at the Atomic Café in Little Tokyo when punk god Sid Vicious walked in with his entourage and ordered fried rice. Suddenly rice balls were flying through the air but no one seemed to mind or notice. It wasn’t unusual for that kind of craziness. Other punk bands would come by such as X, The Bags, The Ramones, even David Bowie and the avant-garde artist Andy Warhol once paid a visit. Even though punk music wasn’t Mario’s cup of ...