The Music of What Happens(58)
Betts snorts. “So the fuck what? My girlfriend is feminine.”
“Right, like you have a girlfriend,” Zay-Rod says.
“Well. If I did. She’d be feminine, okay?”
“I don’t care if he’s whatever,” Zay-Rod says. “You like him?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“He treat you good?”
“Yeah.”
“Who cares? Invite him over.”
Betts says, “Yeah,” as he drives off the tee on the fourth hole.
As I think about Jordan meeting the Amigos, a shiver goes through my body. Me meeting Pam and Kayla was one thing. I’m good with the ladies. I don’t know if Jordan is good with the boys. I doubt it. It took him awhile just to learn how to talk to me.
“Nah,” I say. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Seriously,” Zay-Rod says as he sets up his tee shot. “Don’t be ashamed of him. For reals, Maximo. We wanna meet the guy you’re whatever-ing.”
I laugh. “Um. Yeah. He’s not the one I’m ashamed of.”
Betts slaps me in the head, and I grin.
We take Friday off to paint the truck.
It’s time to change the name and change the image. It’s not that I don’t like the name my dad picked exactly; it’s just that it doesn’t feel like it’s ours. We spent a couple hours texting on Thursday night, trying to decide on a name and a design.
Me: So … name ideas. Go.
Max: Um … Boom Chicka Wow Wow
Me: Oh my God no. Chicken Littles?
Max: We’re not that little
Me: Just trying to think of puns I guess. As they say, there are no bad ideas. Except Boom Chicka Wow Wow
Max: Dude. Don’t be hatin on the Wow Wow
Me: Chick something? Chick-Fil-B?
Max: Haha
Me: Chick Trick? Chick Flick?
Max: Meh
Me: Boom Chicka Wow Wow?
Max: I like it. Who Gives a Cluck?
Me: Haha better
Max: Cluck U?
Me: Even better. I kinda like that. Cluck Truck? Max and Jordan’s Cluck Truck?
Max: I like that I got top billing
Me: Insert sexual innuendo here
Max: Haha
Me: Poultry in Motion?
Max: !!!!
Me: Yeah?
Max: We have a winner
Since I came up with the name, and since he is the self-proclaimed “visual artiste” of our little team, I let Max come up with the design for the truck. He chose purple with yellow lettering and he spent hours watching YouTube videos about truck painting while I slept, because I’m a delicate flower and need my beauty rest.
He arrives at 5:00 a.m., while I’m still in bed, and texts me to get my ass going because it’s supposed to hit 108 this afternoon. Also there’s a 10 percent chance of rain late, so better to get it done early.
I go outside pre-shower (but not pre-tooth brushing), in an old tank top that doesn’t drape particularly well on my skinny-ass chest, and he’s leaning against his truck, looking like a superhero in the early-morning sunlight. I hurry over to him and lean in and nuzzle his neck even though we’re outside and nosy Ms. Carpenter is probably peering through her blinds, watching us.
He’s assembled a large cloth over the driveway, holding it down at the corners with big rocks. Two spray painters are ready to go, and he’s placed several canisters of purple, yellow, and white paint along the grass.
He holds out his hand and I place a hundred-dollar bill in it, because I promised to pay him back. He shakes his head and I add another bill. He shakes again.
“Five,” he says.
I grimace. That’s a lot of cash. But it’s already done, and I feel like it’s time to unveil Poultry in Motion.
We back the truck out of the garage and I get my laptop out, open Spotify, and play a chronological ’80s playlist that begins with the Psychedelic Furs and the B-52s, and goes all the way through T’Pau, the Bangles, and ends with Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation.” I wait for Max to notice and compliment me on the music; it doesn’t happen. Instead, as we spray purple over my dad’s beloved chicken cartoon, we talk. A lot.
“Do you ever wonder what goes on behind the doors of your neighbors’ houses?” I ask.
Max laughs. “Creepy, dude.”
“I don’t mean it creepy, though. More like, isn’t it amazing that we’re all, I don’t know.”
Max doesn’t say anything for a while. He’s picked up a paintbrush and is concentrating all his energy on the bottom left corner of the truck. “We’re all what?” he finally asks.
“Connected, maybe? My dad used to have a favorite poem and he’d recite it, which was funny because he wasn’t like a real poetry kind of guy. I don’t know that I even really got it until recently. Last night I was tossing and turning a lot, and the poem came to my mind and it really made me think.”
“You really like poems, huh?”
“Yeah. Do you?”
“I liked the one you wrote. But seriously? Like in class, with Whitman and Frost and Langston Hughes and all that? Nah.”
I start spraying over the chicken’s angry face, and say a silent good-bye to my dad’s creation. “Why did you like mine?”
“I guess ’cause I could feel it. It made me understand you better and shit.”