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.”
“Now that’s poetry,” I say.
“What?”
“Language. I like when language is funny or surprising, I guess. ‘It made me understand you better and shit.’ I like it.”
“Just ’cause I added ‘and shit’ it’s a poem?”
“Not a poem. Just. Double meaning. Please don’t make me spell it out.”
Max stops painting and looks at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I roll my eyes and lower my voice. “Because ‘shit’ could be a noun or a verb. Sorry. I know that’s gross.”
Max cracks up and goes back to painting. “Wow. You think that’s gross. Glad you don’t hang out with my buddies.”
We let the Human League and Berlin be our soundtrack and we barely take breaks, even after the sun rises and starts to broil our exposed limbs. About two hours in my mom comes out, looking like she hasn’t showered in a few days. She salutes and takes a look at our work with her hands on her hips.
“Oh I love a project,” she says.
“You want to paint with us?” I ask, hoping she will. I want her to get to know Max. I want her to see how mature I’m getting, making big decisions like changing the name without even asking her anymore.
She looks at the car and then back at me. “I’d love to but I’m doing that thing where I live better,” she says. “Remember what I said a couple nights ago? I’m now a person who does things. Normal things. I’m going to the gym. Proud of me?” She strikes a pose.
I grin wide. “Go Mom,” I say. “I’m really proud of you.”
She puts her head to the side, turns her left leg in, and lifts up onto her heel as if she’s bashful. “Thanks,” she says. “That means a lot to me. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and other clichés.”
I laugh. So does Max. She walks over to her car and curses when she touches the door handle, and then again when she gets in and touches the black leather steering wheel. She starts to drive off, then stops and rolls down the passenger-side window. “You look so handsome, Jordan,” she says. “You’re becoming such a handsome, strong young man. And by the way, can you pick up some plain Greek yogurt later? I’m gonna start doing protein shakes again.”
I nod and shade my eyes because she’s stopped at an angle where I’m looking right at the sun to look at her. She drives off.
Max says, “You have an … interesting relationship … with your mom.”
“I guess,” I say.
“She treats you like you’re the adult. Also that handsome stuff … creepy, dude.”
A shiver goes down my spine despite the heat. “Whatever,” I say. “I’m sure everyone’s relationship with their mom is weird to other people.”
Max shrugs. “If you say so,” he says.
We paint in silence, and I can feel pressure in my jaw from clenching. Why would he say that to me? Who is he to judge me and my mom? I rant in my head a bit, but I so don’t want to fight. So when Max says, “Truck’s coming along pretty good, don’t you think?” I nod and say, “Yup.”
Once both sides and the back are a shade of purple that makes me think of grape soda, Max takes out stencils and says we need to let the paint dry before he can do the lettering and the design. We go in and flop on the couch with two heaping glasses of ice water. Mom has left empty Go-Gurt containers on the table in front of the couch. Three of them. Cotton candy and melon berry flavored.
“Is your mom six?” Max asks, and I laugh but really my entire torso twinges at the comment.
“Yes. My mother is six. I’m negative twelve.”
“I’ve never in my life heard of an adult eating Go-Gurt. Or known that they make a cotton candy flavor.”
“Well, you learn something every day,” I say.
“Does that flavor come with an insulin pump?”
“Okay!” I yell, surprising myself. “Got it. My mom is an infant and I have a weird thing with her. Got it loud and clear. I’m a freak.”
Max moves closer to me on the couch. He’s drenched in sweat, as am I. He hugs me from the side. “You went wide there, dude,” he says. “I’m just messing with you.”
“I know, but.”
“I like messing with you.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Because I like you. But I don’t have to mess with you. If you want to be serious, you just say, ‘Be serious’ and I will. I like having deep conversations with you.”
I pull back and steal a glance into his eyes, and then avert mine from his. “You do?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry.”
He kisses me. My whole body goes numb in his arms. I want to stay this way forever. With Max kissing me and being serious with me, and it being a Friday afternoon and us alone at my house on the couch, with no boundaries, where anything can happen. I feel like I could get addicted to this. I whimper into his mouth, and I feel his lips curl into a smile.
“Better?” he asks.
I nestle my head in his wet shoulder. “Better,” I say.
“You know what I’d really like to do?” I shake my head no. He says, “Draw you.”
I laugh, because who the hell would want to draw this. He doesn’t, though, and this warm feeling races through my bloodstream. Max has that impact on me. A lot.
“Uh, sure,” I say, as casually as I can, while my mind is screaming: HE WANTS TO DRAW ME! HE WANTS TO DRAW ME!
The other food truck folks have all sorts of comments for us when we arrive at the Gilbert Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning and unveil Poultry in Motion.