It turns out it’s not that easy to just park the truck at a location in Phoenix in the summer and expect foot traffic. We park in the trampoline parking lot, which may or may not be legal, and lots of kids go in and out but almost no one stops at our truck. We sell a couple frozen lemonades to a mom and her daughter as they leave, but as far as chicken goes, we get shut out. I guess jumping up and down while eating spicy chicken is not recommended.
We close up and Max says we should try the escape room place in south Scottsdale. We get there, though, and there’s literally no place to park, as it is right on Scottsdale Road.
“We could do Zorba’s,” I say, pointing in the direction of the infamous dirty bookstore.
He laughs. “Good plan.”
“Can you think of any place where there would definitely be people?”
He gets on his phone and surfs around for a bit. Finally, he says, “D-backs game?”
Having never been to a Diamondbacks game, I have no idea if this is a good plan or not. But I’m getting desperate. I’m afraid we’re gonna waste hundreds of dollars of chicken if we don’t find a location in the next day or two.
So we park in front of Talking Stick Resort Arena, a couple blocks west of Chase Field, as the streets closer to it are cordoned off. We face the sidewalk and soon we’re doing a brisk business with people heading to the ballpark for an afternoon game, not wanting to eat the horrible food there — their words, not mine.
“Two habanero all day,” I yell back to Max, about an hour into our stay there. A police officer walks up.
“Do you have a permit to be here?” he asks.
I freeze up. “Do we need one?”
He frowns. “Yes you need one. Get moving.”
I nod, finish the order we’re on, apologize to the other people in line, and we close up and jet.
As Max drives east on Van Buren, back toward home, we try to look at the bright side.
“At least we sold some,” I yell up from my seated position on a cooler in the aisle behind him. My words are carried away by the open passenger-side door.
“I guess,” Max yells back, and I hear the words more clearly than I expect. That’s when I realize we’ve come to a stop. I look out the window. We are not at a light.
“Shit!” Max yells. “Shit shit shit.”
“What happened?”
“Poultry is not in motion,” he says.
Max has to turn off the truck as we wait to be towed. We sit there in the stagnant heat, watching cars go around us. Most of the drivers give us the finger as they go by. As if we’re just taking a rest in the middle of two-lane Van Buren Street.
“This is where the no-tell motels are,” Max says.
“You mean like hookers?”
“Yup.”
“Firsthand experience?” I ask, and he punches me lightly on the shoulder.
“Got some shit to figure out,” Max says, and I realize that this is karma. Our hubris. I celebrated too early. I have no idea what this will cost, but suddenly more money is going out than coming in, and who knows how long it will take to make the truck legal and drivable again.
“That we do,” I say. “Gotta look up homeless shelters for me and my mom.”
“Don’t say that,” Max says, but he doesn’t contradict my statement either.
A fairly accurate recording of the first-ever meeting of me and my Amigos and Jordan and his wives. In the style of a play, because Jordan is rubbing off on me.
Max: You made it! Hey!
Pam: Did you think we’d die getting here? Get struck by lightning? A meteor? Yes we made it.
Jordan: Chill. I think he was just saying hi.
Pam: Don’t tell me to chill. You chill. Bitch.
Max: Okay. So …
Kayla: Hi, sweetie. [Hugs Max] We have heard so much about you recently. Including the obvious lie that you are not doing the nasty with our husband.
Jordan: Kayla!
Pam: I mean, for real. Sure. You’re not fucking. That makes total sense. Right.
Max: So … um, Pam, Kayla, meet my buddies. We call this guy Betts. Real name Ron Betts. You choose what to call him, or better yet just ignore him because, well, you’ll see. And this is Xavier Rodriguez. Goes by Zay-Rod in these parts.
Pam: Hey.
Kayla: Hey.
Betts: What up.
Zay-Rod: What up.
[Awkward silence lasting perhaps twenty seconds …]
Max: So …
Jordan: You keep saying that.
Max: Someone’s gotta say something.
Pam: So awkward. This is why I don’t make new friends. So it doesn’t feel like this ever.
Kayla: Yeah, THIS is the reason you don’t make new friends. The ONLY reason. Nothing about your personality.
Pam: Bitch, I will throw you in the dryer and put you on spin cycle. Bitch, I will haunt you all your life and terrorize your children.
Zay-Rod: [Laughing] So you are basically us.
Pam: What?
Zay-Rod: You’re us. Jordan is the misfit [points to Max], she’s the one with all the privilege who thinks she’s all that [points to Betts], and you’re the hot one.
Max: Hey!
Jordan: Hey!
Kayla: Hey!
Betts: Hey!
Pam: Hi!
Betts: Privilege my ass. Straight white men are the new minority.
Max: Why are you so stupid?
Pam: Why haven’t I seen you around?
Zay-Rod: I seen you.
Pam: Yeah?
Zay-Rod: Yeah.
Kayla: Does this mean I’m stuck with this idiot?
Betts: I’m not an idiot.
Kayla: You’re not NOT an idiot.
Betts: True.
Zay-Rod: You like to hang out?
Pam: Depends.
Zay-Rod: On?
Pam: [Smiles]
Kayla: Jordan, you need to stop this before it starts, and she doesn’t listen to me. Tell Pam she cannot get with this boy because you’re with his friend and that leaves me with this guy and he’s not viable.
Betts: What? How am I not viable? [Flexes his biceps]
Kayla: [Pointing with a finger and then circling with it in Betts’s direction] Um. This.
Betts: Oh please. Like you’re so hot.
Kayla: No. You. Didn’t.
Pam: No. You. Didn’t.
Betts: What? You just said the same thing to me.
Zay-Rod: Read the room, B.
Betts: I’m telling you. Straight white men are the new oppressed class.
Max: He was dropped on his head a lot when he was a kid.
Zay-Rod: And he continues to fall on his head which is why it’s so misshapen.
Max: Oh snap.
Betts: At least I’m not … [Pauses, looks around, stomps a foot] Damn it. I got nothing.
Kayla: Aww, poor baby. [She goes behind him and rubs his shoulders]
Betts: Oh. Okay. New strategy. Um, I’m a loser baby …
Kayla: [Laughs] Better, yeah. I cannot take that bravado stuff. Makes me nauseated. I like a man who knows he’s less than.
Betts: Oh I’m less than …
Kayla: Yeah, but this is never, ever, ever going to happen, so maybe just stop trying? No offense.
Betts: [Rolling his eyes] None taken.
Pam: So question … Who here buys that these two are not having sex on the daily?
(Only Max and Jordan raise their hands)
Betts: Sure.
Kayla: I know, right? They should embrace it. We’re all sexual beings.
Betts: Yep.
Zay-Rod: Yep.
Pam: Yep.
Jordan: But, um. Okay. So we’re taking it slow? Because there’s more to life than sex?
[Everyone but Max and Jordan make a sound that connotes disbelief]
Max: He’s not lying. Why are you so up in our business anyway?
Pam: We’re not. We just like the truth, is all.
Kayla: Exactly. Here you have all these friends who love you exactly as you are, and you can’t even be real about having sex.
Betts: He’s so repressed. Won’t tell us anything.
Kayla: Oh my God! He’s your Jordan. Do you give him makeovers and pep talks when you find his dildos?
Jordan: Kayla!
Max: Wha? This is, um. Information.
Jordan: [Turning the color of an eggplant] Pre-dating you, and can we not discuss this please?
Betts: Nice. So Maximo is the guy?
Pam: The guy?
Kayla: [Play slaps him] What is wrong with you? They’re both guys. Are you one of those boys who thinks if you’re penetrated you’re no longer male? Because that’s fucked-up.
Pam: True. And what about you?
Zay-Rod: Leave me outta this. B you’re on your own.
Betts: Nice loyalty.