Hollis showed up with a printed chart.
Not a list. Not notes in his phone. A chart, folded in thirds, on paper he described as "cardstock-adjacent," with columns for price, patty-to-bun ratio, sauce complexity, and something he called "emotional finish," which he defined as "how you feel about the burger thirty seconds after the last bite." He had written this definition in a footnote. There was a footnote.
I had said yes to this date because he mentioned burgers and also because he has this way of being excited about things that makes you feel like maybe you should also be excited about things. I did not know the chart was coming. I want to be clear that I did not know about the chart.
We were at Cryptid Creations, which is an art show in Mobile about Bigfoot and Mothman and the Wolf Woman, who is apparently local, which I find deeply charming and Hollis found "contextually relevant" because, he said, "we are here on opening night, which is also night one of Burger Week, which means we are operating at maximum event density." He said this like it was a good thing. He said this like he had planned it, which he had.
The air outside had that heavy Gulf Coast feeling, the kind of warm that sits on your shoulders like a wet towel, and there were clouds moving in that looked like they had intentions. Hollis had checked the forecast. He had accounted for the rain window. He had, he told me, "built in buffer."
The first burger he ranked a seven-point-four. He explained the point-four.
I was looking at a painting of Mothman and thinking about how Mothman supposedly appears before disasters, and I was wondering if Mothman could see us right now, if Mothman was watching Hollis write "brioche: adequate" in the sauce complexity column, and if Mothman felt anything.
"You have to try this one," Hollis said, appearing at my elbow with half a slider and the chart and a look of genuine scientific investment. "Tell me about the emotional finish."
"Hollis."
"Just thirty seconds after the last bite. That's all I need."
I ate the slider. It was good. It tasted like being at a party on a Thursday in October in a room full of cryptid art while a man waited with a pen.
"Fine," I said. "Eight."
He wrote it down. He wrote down my number. He looked at his number and then at my number and then he said, "Interesting, there's a one-point-six variance," in a tone that suggested the variance was meaningful, that the variance was data.
By the fourth burger, I had started actually enjoying the chart, which I think was Hollis's plan all along, if we're being honest, if we're being generous, which I am choosing to be. There's something that happens when someone is so completely, helplessly themselves that you stop being embarrassed on their behalf and start just being there with them. He had gotten so happy explaining brioche. He had used the word "infrastructure" to describe how a burger is built. He meant it sincerely.
The thunderstorms rolled in around nine, the way the forecast had said they would, and Hollis checked his phone with the satisfaction of a man who had predicted something. "Right on schedule," he said.
"Okay but we're inside."
"Yes, because I planned for that."
He had not planned for the trolley situation — something about a busted bell, a route we'd intended to take that wasn't running quite right, the way Mobile's infrastructure sometimes has opinions of its own. We walked instead, through the warm wet dark, Hollis still holding the chart, which now had a small grease mark in the corner of the "emotional finish" column.
I asked him what he was going to do with the rankings.
He looked at me like this was obvious. "I'll compile them," he said. "Make some determinations. Probably come back Saturday for the ones I missed and do a secondary round."
"Hollis, Burger Week runs for ten days."
"I know," he said.
He was already looking at the next restaurant. He had, I was almost certain, a secondary chart.
The sky smelled like rain and Gulf and fried food and whatever October in Mobile smells like when you are walking next to a boy with a grease-stained spreadsheet who is very, genuinely, helplessly pleased with himself.
I gave the whole evening an eight-point-four.
I did not tell him about the point-four. Some data you keep for yourself.