The Music of What Happens(30)

He’s magnificent. Max the Magnificent.

He’s a food truck deity. I feel my heart pulse as I watch his broad shoulder muscles glisten sweat, and I have to look away because parts of me are beginning to tingle, and those things should not happen on a busy food truck.

By the time we close up, we are swimming in sweat, cash, and credit card receipts. I have no idea how much we made, but a ton, and I can’t wait to count. But first I make sure to spend the very last bit of energy I have on cleanup, because I want Max to notice my effort. I really do. I want him to see that I can work hard too, that I’m not a total waste case.

He doesn’t say anything, but I see something in his eyes as we clean up that tells me he appreciates my hard work. He turns off the grill and oven, and an ever-so-slight breeze blows through the truck when I open the back door. It’s not cool, but anything is cooler than what we’ve just worked through, and we catch each other’s eyes, dramatically wipe the sweat from our brows, and smile.

I melt inside. If only I could make Max feel half of what I feel right now, which is more alive than alive. More real than I’ve ever felt. Like I want to dance and jump in a pool and sing and giggle simultaneously, even though I’m not really one to do any one of those things singularly.

When we’re done, I decide I have to do it. Share what had felt like a secret weapon, like maybe I was trying to manipulate him a bit into liking me again, but after today, now that we have bonded as brothers-in-arms on this food truck, it feels like something I just want to share. It’s out there, but somehow it feels right.

He’s leaning against the grill, which is no longer exuding waves of heat, looking at his phone. I walk over, my journal in front of me. He looks up. I hand it to him.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Duh,” I say. “You know what it is.”

“I don’t need to — why are you handing it to me?”

I look away as momentarily this new confidence in me wavers. I breathe through it.

“I’m a writer,” I say. “I wrote something last night. I want to share it with you, because. Well, because you’re becoming a friend, and I know it’s weird, but I wanted you to know that the shit you saw yesterday is not, um. About you, I guess. It’s more about this. This is who I really am.”

He stares at me, not harshly, and I can’t believe I am about to share my innermost thoughts with a dude bro. But I feel drunk with closeness. Maybe it’s a kind of heatstroke? I don’t know. I just … I want Max to know who I am.

It feels dangerous. Like he could laugh after reading it, and I would melt into a humiliated puddle.

He opens it, and I help him flip to the poem I wrote last night. I swallow deeply, a mixture of dread and something foreign — pride? Realness? — mixing in my throat.



I swallow again as his eyes stop moving and I realize he’s gotten to the end. The oxygen has been sucked out of the truck, it feels like. He stares down at the page, motionless.

“Well? Please say something. I know it’s not that great.” His next words hold far too much power, and I hate the feeling and also I love it.

“Wow,” he says. He closes the book and looks up at me, his dark eyes soft and warm. I am utterly covered in sweat, tired, cold, and needing more.

“I don’t know anything about lyrics or poems or whatever, but I think it’s cool. Really cool. I like that he needs a steel shovel underground to dig up.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, my eyes mostly averted, every few seconds sneaking back to look at his. His are focused on the poem still. It’s unbearable, how much I need. Unbearable and stupid.

He hoists himself up on the grill, goes “Ow!” and hops back down. He says, “I feel bad that the oxygen is running out. That kinda sucks.”

I swallow and keep my eyes trained on the floor beneath me. More. I need more. Anything please. Just more.

He reaches over and hands me back the poem. “You’re an amazing writer,” he says. “I admire that.”

“Thanks,” I repeat, and I chance looking back into his eyes. He’s smiling at me. They’re smiling at me, and I’m petrified, and grateful, and hooked. On Max. Which is such a deeply bad idea. But I can’t help it.





He showed me his poem.

No one has ever entrusted me with something that delicate before.

It’s weird and I don’t want to get all corny, but it’s like I saw Jordan today for the first time. Like with the funny movies he wrote I saw his humor, and I saw his snark with the rude poem about the food truck from hell. But this was different. This was real.

I don’t have people in my life who write poetry. Zay-Rod writes slam poetry, but it’s political stuff, and that’s fine. It’s just not — personal. Like it flies off into anger without ever revealing the soul.

It made me wonder: Could a guy like Jordan, a guy that graceful, a guy whose walk looks like a dance, could he like someone as thick and clunky as me?

Could he look past my rough exterior to see that I have a heart too?

When you’re like me, when you’re a dude who plays baseball and hangs with his bros, you aren’t supposed to have a heart.

But here’s the secret: I like tender. Maybe more than I should.

I wish I could show him my heart. That’s dangerous, though. You show it and people laugh. Nothing is worse than people laughing at your open heart, which is why I think guys don’t do that so much. Which is why I can’t believe Jordan trusted me enough to show me that.