The Music of What Happens Read online

  That makes me roll my eyes.

  I don’t want to die. I just. I don’t want it to be my responsibility, I guess, whether or not we’re going to be homeless.

  In what world am I going to know enough about how to operate a grill to successfully run a food truck? In the summer, when it’s a hundred and ten out every day? I was already dreading that when Mom talked me into it, but now it’s totally on me and a virtual stranger my age? How’s that gonna work?

  What’s a shelter like? Do we wind up in a shelter?

  Should I learn to sell my body?

  That one makes me laugh. Yeah, right. Like anyone’s buying this.

  I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t do this.

  I want my dad.

  My dad. Yes. I really need to talk to him. Even if he can’t answer.

  I go into my mom’s bedroom. Her sheets are tangled up like she’s just been in a fight. A half-full Diet Pepsi rests on the bedside table, next to three Ring Dings wrappers, a bowl of grapes that appear to be well on their way to becoming raisins, and a bag of Sweetos, which are, apparently, the sweet version of Cheetos. Gross.

  I momentarily sit down on her unmade bed, which is still warm from her body and still smells like her blueberries and shea butter bodywash.

  Mom. What am I going to do with you? I close my eyes. Her room is like the room of someone who works super hard and can’t afford a maid. My mom doesn’t work anymore. She used to be a dental assistant, but after my dad died, she never went back to work. We’ve basically been living on my dad’s insurance payout, which wasn’t like huge, but was enough to live on. Which is fine. She’s fragile, and I get that.

  The thing that upsets me is the histrionics. The herstrionics, as she called them, that one time when I said, “Enough with the histrionics” and she said that she didn’t understand the gendering of that particular word. It’s just that I never know when she’s going to embarrass me by becoming Crazy Mom. And yeah, doing it in front of Max the Dude Bro from school was, as she said, not cute.

  I love my mom. I love the Lydia Edwards who loves to do self-made scavenger hunts where, if we find everything in two hours, we get a treat. Who loves to wrestle on the floor with Dorcas, our goldendoodle. Who insists we start off every Christmas by walking the neighborhood in ugly pajamas, singing Christmas carols with all misheard lyrics. But the unhinged woman who sometimes forgets to shower, who is too delicate to run a food truck, who spends her days binge watching Beast and the Beauties, her favorite reality show, while reclined on our faded and torn leather couch, shouting obscenities at the contestants while freebasing Muddy Buddies? I love that mom too, but she scares me.

  I promised my dad four years ago, right before he died, that I would take care of her. And I’m trying so hard. When Mom melts down, I do the best I can to cook meals and I let her cry on my shoulder and I do the shopping. And when she morphs into normal, awesome Mom again, I don’t even mention the other stuff because I’m so glad she’s back. But I guess doing all that isn’t good enough.

  Until two days ago, I had no idea we were running out of money. She pays the bills. Or I thought she did, anyway. Now I know: We owe five thousand dollars in back mortgage. We have to pay it by July fifth or we lose our house. And Dad’s insurance policy has dried up, I guess, so it’s now on me until she finds a job, which she says she’ll look for but no way will she find one and make that kind of money in a month.

  I tap the bed, then punch it. The tap part is me sending love into the twisted sheets, hoping that she’ll be okay. That we will. The punch is the part of me that knows it’s hopeless. We soon won’t have a place to live. Then I stand, walk over to her closet, and step inside.

  The interior of the closet smells faintly of the fruity perfume Mom wears, even though I’ve told her a million times: no. I’ve told her I’d take her to the mall and get her something better. But she won’t allow me to do it, so parts of our house, this closet included, smell a little like overripe melon. Nauseating.

  Odor aside, what’s great about the closet is that it’s the one place where my dad still exists.

  She refuses to throw out his cowboy boots. They are brown with a white, embroidered diamond design running up the leg. I sit down on the closet floor, pull his boots to me, and close my eyes.

  The first year after he died, I used to come in here sometimes, turn on the light, close the door, and sit with them. Which sounds creepy, maybe, but it’s what I have left of him and even though Dad was nothing like me, I loved him with every fiber of my being, and I know, deep down inside, that he loved me too, even if I’ll never be manly like he was. His gravelly voice, gentle and strong, always made everything okay.

  The leather feels smooth and warm as I rub it with my fingertips, like it’s just waiting to be worn. If only my feet were as big as my dad’s, I’d wear them. Even though cowboy boots are in general horrifying and a major don’t, I’d wear them proudly, because they’re his.

  I rub the leather and imagine he’s here with me.

  Dad, I think. What the hell am I supposed to do? Mom is falling apart, Dad. I don’t know how to put her back together again, and I’m so sorry. I’m letting you down, because I should know how to do this and I don’t, Dad, I don’t.

  Dad, I think. This kid Max, who we used to call Guy Smiley in AP Comp because he is one of those dude bros who is always smiling because life is perfect? He’s gonna help, I guess. Because I know how much you loved that truck. And him helping is so random, and I don’t even know how to talk to boys like him, and are you ashamed of me for that? That I’m not even a real, true boy?

  And Dad, I think. What if we wind up on the street? Are you disappointed in me for not taking care of Mom as well as you would have?

  I know it’s just my imagination, but I swear I hear his voice respond. It floods through my veins, from inside of me right up to my inner ear.

  No, Jordan. Of course absolutely not, never. His usually rough voice is soft, like marshmallow.

  I sit this way for a long time, not moving. It’s almost like I can’t. Finally, I take a deep breath, kiss the leg of my dad’s right boot, stand up and turn off the light.

  I open the closet door and my mom is on her bed, reading. She glances up at me, and she doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to see me emerge.

  Her eyes are glassy and pink-tinged like she’s been crying again. She smiles weakly. “I need some snuggle time. Mini-snuggle?” she asks.

  I melt. I can’t help it. I always do. Because she’s so fragile, like a bird, inside, like her supple largeness is inadequate to protect her brittleness, and it’s my job to make sure she doesn’t break. Because she’s my mom, and she was married to Dad. Because I would still jump in front of a train for her, despite the fact that she sometimes makes me furious.

  I sit down on the bed and she turns away and I settle into my outer spoon position.

  I say, “Sure.”

  “Do you know how I know you’re gay?” Betts asks as he jerks his controller to make Ezekiel Elliott juke past a defender on the big screen in front of us. “It’s because you had gay sex with a gay guy last night.”

  I crack up and say, “Do you know how I know you’re straight? Your T-shirt.”

  Zay-Rod, who is sitting on the other side of the couch from Betts with me in the middle, cracks up and says, “Aw, snap.” Betts is wearing some cheap-ass white shirt his mom bought him at Costco. It’s gone through the laundry so many times that now it’s more like gray white.

  “What’s wrong with my T-shirt?” The Three Amigos are on hour four of our Madden Football Fest in Betts’s TV room. His Dallas Cowboys are huddling up. They’re trailing Zay-Rod’s and my Arizona Cardinals by three in the fourth quarter, but this drive could give Betts’s ’Boys the win. He breaks the snap and the Cowboys head to the line of scrimmage. Big third down.

  I say, “Dude. That shirt is so straight it watches Tosh.0. That shirt isn’t even bi-curious. You need a shirt upgrade.”

  “For real though,” Zay-Rod chimes in as Betts hikes the ball. “You go out in that and the ladies be like, yo. That shit needs some Downy.”

  Zay-Rod’s Cardinals blitz, and Betts says, “Crap,” as he tries to help his quarterback evade the rush. Fail. Seven-yard loss.

  “Clutch, dude,” I say as Zay-Rod slaps my raised hand. “Clutch.”

  “Gang up on the white guy. Nice,” Betts says, and he crosses his right leg over my left one at the ankle. It’s an unspoken thing with the Three Amigos. We’re very physical with each other. Telling them I was gay didn’t change anything at all; it’s just what we do. His Cowboys get in punt formation and Zay-Rod hands the controller over to me. I’m playing the Cardinals’ offense.

  “So, what actually happened when you disappeared last night, MAXIMO?” Betts asks as he punts. He says the last part real loud and slow.

  I shoot him a quick-but-deadly look that he doesn’t see because his eyes are on the screen. I hate being called my birth name. Imagine naming a human baby Maximo Ashton Morrison. Hell to the no. “None of your damn business,” I say as my returner catches the punt and goes literally a yard before he’s swarmed by Cowboys. “Do I ask you what you do with the ladies? Not that you don’t tell us anyway.”

  “You’re too secretive,” Betts says. “That’s not normal. I know something happened.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Seriously don’t sweat it. You’re way too up in my business. Makes me think you’re interested. And if you are, don’t even, because I’m out of your league, dude.”

  Zay-Rod snorts. We call him Zay-Rod because his name is Xavier Rodriguez and, like Alex Rodriguez — A-Rod — was, Zay is a third baseman. The baseball team coined him X-Rod and we tried that for a while, but Zay is here to stay
.

  Truth is, yes, something went down last night. And maybe if it went better, I’d spill. I’m not shy. But this isn’t the motherfucking View. We don’t sit around and talk about our feelings. We play varsity baseball at Mesa-Guadalupe High School. We fiend on Madden. We eat Poore Brothers jalapeño potato chips by the bagful. We’re the Three Amigos, and I’m so lucky, because I have the most loyal buddies in the world. They’d do anything for me. I’d do anything for them. I don’t want to change that.

  “Stop running out the clock. What kind of punk-ass shit is that?” Betts says.

  I say, “Right. Wanting to win is punk-ass. Like you didn’t do the same thing with the Pats?”

  “Shut your hole, dipshit,” Betts says. “Like you should have done last night.”

  “Snap,” says Zay-Rod, and I shoot him a look, like, Aren’t we teammates here?

  He flips me off. Apparently all is fair in trash talk, even among teammates. Good to know.

  “You know this kid Jordan something?” I ask as I finally bring my Cardinals to the line of scrimmage. “Skinny dude with lotsa acne? Emo? Black hair hanging over his face?”

  “You just described twenty percent of my homeroom,” Betts says.

  “I don’t know how to explain him. He’s … I’m gonna work on a food truck with him.”

  “You’re wha?” asks Zay-Rod. “I thought this was the Summer of Max. You were gonna wake up at noon and shit? You were gonna binge watch Cartoon Network and hang in the pool all damn day.”

  I bit my lip. “Yeah. Rosa was not down with that.”

  Betts laughs. “Since when does your mom lay down the law?”

  “Since I came home at six this morning,” I blurt, and then I’m sorry I said it.

  Betts hits the pause button on his controller just as my running back takes the handoff from Carson Palmer. “Hey,” I say, annoyed he’s stopped the action.

  “I knew it. Soon as you said you had to jet last night. I was like, No way that dude’s going home. I knew it.”

  I grab my phone out of my pocket and see what’s up on Snapchat. Nothing.

  “Yup,” confirms Zay-Rod when I don’t say anything. “That whole ‘I need to get up early’ shit was weak. Where’d you go? Was it this Jordan kid?”

  “Relax. I’ve only been with like five guys.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?” Betts asks. Looking up and to my left and right, I see him and Zay-Rod looking at me funny. I smile and laugh, as if one of them just told a lame joke.

  “Shut up,” I say, and by habit I pick up my phone again and then put it down. “And no.”

  Betts says, “Holy shit. Max Mo got some, yo! Max Mo got some!” and Zay-Rod cackles.

  “Yeah he did,” Zay-Rod says. “What was his name? This some Grindr hookup and shit? Pitch or catch?”

  Betts laughs like crazy and I say, “Shut the hell up.” I pull my leg from under his.

  “Oh, come on. You can tell us,” Betts says.

  “So anyway, I’m gonna work on this food truck because Rosa was not having it when I came home in the morning. She texted me like twelve times and I had my phone off. I’m fuckin’ stupid.”

  “Was Stupid his name?” Zay-Rod says, laughing, but he stops fast, because I’m not laughing.

  “It was either get a job over the weekend, or Monday morning my ass was gonna be at State Farm with Rosa.”

  Betts gives Zay-Rod a look that I think means We’ll talk later. “Whatever, dude,” he says. “Don’t tell us.”

  “That’s the plan,” I say, and he shrugs, and picks up his controller and un-pauses, and because I’m not exactly ready, David Johnson gets hit for a loss. “Ass,” I say.

  “That’s what happens,” Betts says back.

  “What do you think you got on your podcast?” I ask Zay-Rod, as we huddle up once again. It was the final in AP Composition, which was Thursday.

  He shrugs.

  “You’re so modest,” I say. “You know you’re gonna get an A.”

  He doesn’t answer, and Betts says, “You know why he’s not answering? Because he doesn’t want to make you jealous, and you’re not very smart. And not-very-smart people are sometimes jealous of smart people.”

  I say, “That awkward moment when a kid in remedial everything tells you that you’re stupid even though you’re in four AP classes.”

  “There’s other kinds of smarts,” Betts says. “My obdulla oblongata is bigger than yours. I promise.”

  I snort. “Medulla oblongata. And all that would prove is that you have a large organ that controls your heart and lungs.”

  “You said big organ,” Betts says. “Which is funny because you have a micopenis and tiny munchkin biceps.”

  I punch him in the bicep and he drops his controller midplay. “Asshole,” he says, rubbing it.

  “If you had bigger biceps muscles, that would hurt less,” I say.

  My wives take me to the Chandler Mall food court because it’s Saturday evening and that’s what we do.

  I want to tell them about my impending employment issue, though I still haven’t told them about the potential homelessness motif and I don’t plan to now. It seems like a downer for a Saturday evening. Getting their full attention proves challenging. As usual.

  “Did you see how she looked at me?” Pam asks as she just about slams her tray down opposite mine. She is staring at the Panda Express station, and her expression is typical Pam — defiant and dramatic in a way that is too big for the space, and most probably the situation too.

  “I have my own life, Pam,” I monotone. “Not everything is about you, Pam.”

  She sits down with a huff. “I swear to you she just gave me side-eye for no damn reason. I asked for an extra soy sauce and she was all, ‘I’ll give you that soy sauce’ reeaall sllooww, and ‘Here, have this side-eye too.’ You know they’re a bunch of racists over at Panda.” She raises her voice now as if she’s yelling back at the Panda Express girl, but her voice is way not loud enough to reach. “Yes, you. Side-eye. I swear I’m gonna boycott this racist-ass mall.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Kayla says. She is on day three of her typical “I’m going to eat better from now on, I swear” thing, so she is rocking a Cobb salad from Panera. “Shouldn’t you just boycott Panda? And shouldn’t you do that anyway, because it’s Panda Express and that’s barely food, and would your volleyball coach be even a little okay with you eating that crap?”

  Pam’s eyes go all wide and she runs her fingers across her cornrow Mohawk. “Oh I swear to God if you get all holy about food again.”

  Kayla winces and tosses her blond bangs to the side. “It’s not again.”

  Now Pam rolls her eyes. “Post-Thanksgiving tofu fest. Check. Early January freak-out followed by a trip to Whole Foods with your mom, and then a million phone calls about how deprived you were and how gross radishes are. Check. Valentine’s Day crash diet. Check. Earth Day’s Day of Eating Earth, which is not happening again, by the way.”

  “Okay, okay,” Kayla says, cutting a piece of lettuce into tinier and tinier pieces. “God. Self-righteous ever?”

  We eat, unable to avoid the Sia video playing above our heads because mall officials have decreed it’s a criminal offense to not be assaulted by at least six sources at any given second. Kayla intermittently texts Shaun, the Chess Club participant most likely to get a girl pregnant at MG.

  “Bitch is resting-bitch-face-ing right at me,” Pam says, still not over her made-up drama.

  “I hate to disrupt this diatribe about a microaggression that may or may not have happened, or this world-changing conversation about Kayla’s latest unnecessary diet, but I was wondering if for one second we could focus on me,” I say. “I mean, what about me? What about my needs?”

  “Drama queen,” Kayla says, putting her phone down and forking lettuce into her mouth.

  “Queer card,” I reply, slapping an imaginary card on the counter. We all have cards we get to play, though I only get to play mine once a week because I lost a bet (Keanu Reeves is in fact Canadian, not dead). Pam, whose mom is black and whose dad is Mexican, gets to play her card daily, and Kayla, whose dad is Canadian and whose mom is Scandinavian, gets to play hers whenever the hell she wants. Because privilege.

  The girls are looking at me, having decided to grant me center stage for a moment, and suddenly it’s hard to figure out what to say. How I am supposed to feel in this situation. If, say, my mom quit the food truck and I was stuck with it and with an employee I barely know, but we weren’t, say, about to be homeless. I can’t figure it out, so I swallow, and I pivot.