thinking of everything I needed to get done in the next twenty-four hours.
“We need to be on the road by nine if I’m going to be ready for the gig tomorrow. I shouldn’t have let Mamí talk me into opening this thing the day after getting up there.”
Milo looked at me shaking his head, then put down his coffee and crossed his arms over his chest like he had all the time in the world.
“Chill out, you’ll be fine. Your mother already has your food order waiting at the commercial kitchen she found you. As soon as we get in, she’ll be deploying people to make sure you’re ready to go. Besides Juanpa, Patrice, and I will be there tonight to help too. Don’t worry so much, pa. It’s only like a five-hour drive. We’ll be there by two, tops.”
I took a deep breath, because I knew arguing with Milo would probably mean I’d either get going even later or that he’d get himself so worked up he’d crash my damn car on the interstate.
“Dude, can you be at least a little sympathetic? This is a big fucking deal for me. I’m moving out of New York City, my home since I was six years old, to try and get a food truck business going upstate.”
I reached over for another container and huffed in exasperation. “If I had a beard and a man bun I’d be a cancelled show on Food Network.”
Milo’s face softened, and he started chuckling while he finally got his ass in gear and walked a box to the truck. “You’re so over the top sometimes. But okay,” he said, raising his hands. Palms out. “It’s only a six-month trial, you can always come back. Your truck is doing fine here. It’s not like you’re going out of business or anything. People love those burritos.”
He grabbed his coffee and drank deeply before continuing with his pissy pep talk.
“I mean, true, it’s hard to make a living out here with all the competition, but your food sells well. You’ve been killing it at Smorgasburg when you’re down in Brooklyn. Those hipsters go crazy over your shit.”
I shook my head forcefully at his words as I slammed the back doors of the truck closed.
I stepped away from the vehicle, taking a long look at it. Emblazoned on the back was the logo for my business, OuNYe, Afro-Caribbean Food in huge bold black font on a red background. The black and red contrasted with the flags of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica painted over the entire truck.
To name my business, I used a word from the Yoruba language. Which had been spoken all over the Caribbean by our ancestors, the West Africans who were brought there as slaves. Ounje is the Yoruba word for nourishment, and I’d decided to play a bit with things and put the NY right at the center.
The two worlds that made me merged into one word.
OuNYe was my baby. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into getting this idea off the ground. Street food filled with the flavors of the Caribbean. My roots and those of Juan Pablo, Camilo and Patrice, my three best friends. The food we had grown up with and had been our connection to where we came from, while our families tried to make a life here in the Big Apple.
Now I was taking one last shot at making my living from it.
I looked over at Milo, who was still gulping down coffee. “I’ve been doing this for two years, and I need to be able to make a decent living. I’m not going to be sweating it out for the rest of my life, to barely break even. If I can’t get it off the ground like I want to in Ithaca, I’m done. Se acabo.”
Milo clicked his tongue like it was taking every ounce of patience he had not to hit me upside the head.
“Oh my god, you gotta stop. You’ve agonized over this move for a year. You’ll be doing business like gangbusters up there. You’re gonna kill it. You know white people love ‘ethnic’ food wrapped in a tortilla.”
He held up his hands with his index fingers hooked together, ready to start pulling out the receipts to shut down my bullshit.
“First of all, the concept is awesome, and your food is delicious. Second, there isn’t any Caribbean food anywhere up there. Now stop whining before I lose my temper with you! I’ve