I’m not a real mystery activity sort of dude. But it’s nearly Tuesday morning, Jordan and I are having weird fun, and I’m not ready to go home. Some of that may be about how damn sweet Jordan looks when he’s holding a chicken wing in his skinny hands, how his light green eyes get big like he’s doing a science experiment, like he’s never eaten a piece of actual fried chicken before, which of course he hasn’t. Also I never know what the guy is going to say next.
“Next stop, Walmart,” he says.
See what I mean?
I turn on the ignition and the AC whirs to life outside Lo-Lo’s.
“Walmart, eh?” I ask, and he nods. “And can you promise me there’s nothing illegal that’s about to happen? I’m not down with Tent City.”
“Tent City doesn’t exist anymore,” Jordan says. Yeah, duh. This is not the encouragement I was looking for. I glance sideways, waiting for a little more information. “I don’t think so, but no promises. If it’s illegal, it’s more You kids go on home now illegal than We’re hauling you into jail illegal.”
My chest tightens, like after he suggested we trespass into people’s yards to pick prickly pears. But I don’t say anything. I don’t want to ruin the mood.
“Okay,” I say, becoming concerned that maybe we should have quit after fried chicken. “Are we, like, doing good hooligans at Walmart?”
He laughs. “Hooligan do-goodery. And no. We need supplies.”
“Then supplies we shall have,” I say, trying to sound a bit like Jordan, but the voices in my head are doing cartwheels and I’m having second, third, and even fourth thoughts.
The artificially cheerful fluorescent lights greet us and momentarily disorient me. The store is nearly empty, except for a woman wearing what appears to be a flower pillowcase as shorts, and a creepy-looking guy with perv sunglasses, the kind that are too big for his face.
“We need as many stuffed animals as we can carry,” Jordan says as he leads us down the aisle to the right.
“Okay,” I say, and I slow my pace as my brain tries to come up with an excuse in case I need to abort this mission. Because the stuffed animals thing? Sounds a little weird to me. What the hell are we gonna do with “as many stuffed animals as we can carry” at just after midnight on a Tuesday morning?
“Also we’ll need a ladder.”
“Of course we will,” I say, and I take a deep breath and flash him an encouraging smile, which is as much meant for me as it is for him, and Jordan smiles back in a way that makes me feel at least a little more at peace with this weirdness.
We find stuffed animals in the toy section. The cheapest animals are a buck fifty each. There are ducks, chickens, teddy bears, tigers, birds, cows, zebras, squirrels, monkeys. He starts grabbing pairs of each and cradles them to his chest. He looks like the big winner at the state fair’s water gun balloon race booth.
“These are all good choices,” he says, looking down at the monkeys, zebras, and tigers in his arms. He unloads them into the cart.
“Yes. Um. Monkeys, zebras, and tigers are … good,” I say, deadpan, and Jordan nods. I grab some birds and teddy bears and chuck them into the cart, but when I pick up some cows, he bats them to the floor.
“No!” he says, deranged-like. “No cows.”
“Um,” I say, and I pick them up and place them back on the shelf. When Jordan leads us away from this aisle — I guess we have enough appropriate animals, I don’t know — I jump up onto the cart and surf it like a skateboard, coasting down the aisle.
“Stop! Ladder time,” he says, and I get that he’s doing some corny old-school Hammer shit, but I ignore it because it’s late and I just can’t.
We settle on a folding step stool for sixteen dollars. After he pays — thank God we netted eight hundred this afternoon, because it’s been an expensive day — he asks me to drive us south on Scottsdale Road toward Tempe, and then we do so, in silence.
“Do you hate me?” he finally asks.
I can’t help but exhale dramatically. “What?”
“I know. We’ve been hanging out all day. But I kind of think you just feel bad for me, because of my mom or something. Like you’re babysitting me.”
I open my mouth and no words come out. I truly don’t know how to respond to this. There’s insecure, and then there’s whatever this is. And I wonder if this is like a sign. That even though he’s adorable and we’re getting closer and I like it, I should run away, fast. Because maybe watching him walk makes me shiver and he’s fun to hang with and a good poet and says interesting shit that makes me laugh, but how can I ignore that the dude I’ve just spent an entire day with asked me if I hate him?
“You’re not saying no, which is a bad sign,” he says.
“Oh my God,” I say. “Shut up. Like seriously. Shut up.”
“Shut up?”
“Shut up,” I repeat. “At a certain point, you have to man up, and not be asking pitiful-ass questions like that. It’s after midnight. We’re in my car together. We’re going to hooligan do-good or whatever. No, Jordan. I’m not your babysitter. That is some fucked-up shit, dude.”
The car goes quiet again, and I pass the various cabarets that dot Scottsdale Road in south Scottsdale.
“Do you want to just head home?” he asks. “Maybe that’s enough for one day?”
I slow the car down, which is fine since the streets are pretty much deserted. I turn and glance at him. He turns toward me. I pull off the road into a small strip mall where all the shops are closed for the night. I park again, this time in front of a tattoo parlor.
“You’re better than this,” I say.
“I am?”
“Yeah. You’re better than asking me if I hate you after I spent all day with your ass. I like you, Jordan. You’re different. You make me more spontaneous, and I like that. I don’t hang with people unless I wanna hang with them. So if you’re gonna be all mopey and shit and act like you’re not worthy, I’ll take you home. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. Okay?”
He looks down at his lap. His profile, in the moonlight, is so beautiful, so delicate. Like I could break him. I don’t want to break him; I just want him to have a harder shell.
Finally he glances at me for a quick moment before looking out the window, away from me.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay?”
He meekly smiles, not turning my way again. “Okay I’ll stop with the stupid questions. You know Papago Park?”
“Yes. And good,” I say, and I shake his shoulder and muss his hair a bit, which makes him fix it self-consciously. And I pull back onto the road.
“In all of this, I didn’t even text my mom,” he says, as I enter Papago Park from the north. He tells me to keep going straight.
“Maybe you should,” I say. “I did. I kinda got in some trouble the night before I met you. Didn’t text her and stayed out all night.”
“You stayed out all night? What were you doing?”
“Still straight?” I ask.
It takes him a moment to realize I’ve changed the subject. “Yeah. We’re going to the zoo.”
“It’s closed,” I say.
“Duh. And you didn’t answer my question.”
I don’t, and when I see the sign, I turn right and pull into the empty parking lot. I turn off the ignition and the truck moans to a halt.
“Text your mom,” I say.
“Geez. Man of mystery,” he says. He pulls out his phone, looks at it, and puts it away. “Who am I kidding? If she were in one of her moods where she cares, she’d be texting me. She’s passed out. She doesn’t hear anything at night.”
“If you say so,” I say, and we open the doors. The streetlights shine above us. Despite the fact that it’s 12:27 a.m., heat radiates off the asphalt. It feels like we’ve just walked into a sauna.
I pull out my cell phone, turn on a flashlight app, and we walk up to the entrance. I hold the step stool and Jordan has the bag of small stuffed animals. I admit it’s kinda awesome to be the only people here.