by Sam Pink
“Whoa-bob, this place has aMAZing scones,” she said, tapping a description of a restaurant and making a noise with her mouth.
“Boy you know we got the best scones, muffucker,” I said.
Then I grabbed a corner of the newspaper and ripped it and said, “MufFUCKa.”
“Motherfucker,” she said, with passive disapproval, straightening the rip.
A pie store employee walked past us.
She made eye contact with me and smiled.
I’m too goodlooking—I thought, gravely.
Goddamnit.
The employee locked the entrance and said, “Take your time, I’m just closing up.”
My girlfriend and I sat there eating our pie.
Most of my life could be characterized as “being somewhere/doing something with someone who has paid to ensure I come along.”
The other part of my life could be characterized as “not.”
My girlfriend said, “Oh I forgot to tell you, my sister’s pregnant.”
I listened to her talk about her pregnant sister.
But I was thinking about dogs.
I want a German Shepherd—I thought.
And I imagined myself dressed in some type of ceremonial robe, standing with both my arms out, palms upward.
And above one palm floats the fully-enclosed fetus of my girlfriend’s sister’s future baby, and above the other palm floats the fully-enclosed fetus of my future German Shepherd.
And my face is emotionless.
And above my head there’s a fire but it’s clear and just looks like the air is waving.
I stared out the window watching things happen on Milwaukee Avenue, eating pie with my girlfriend.
2012.
Living.
What happened to me.
Outside, someone walked up to the pie store and tried to come in.
When he noticed it was locked he looked at the store hours.
Saw it was closed and made a face, looking downward at the sidewalk.
Then he looked up.
We made eye contact.
Maintaining eye contact, I picked up my plate and took a big bite of the pie and made a face like the pie was too good to endure—leaning back a little as I chewed, closing my eyes and touching at my throat and face like a woman nearing orgasm.
He laughed and gave me the middle finger before walking away—hands in pockets, looking down at the sidewalk.
*
We waited for a bus out front.
My girlfriend called her sister, leaning against the bus sign.
I paced.
The first thing I heard was, “Hey, how’re things!”
And I thought about how I’d answer.
I’d answer that things weren’t working for me.
That there were only things.
And I couldn’t get them to work together.
Other things would indicate, “No, we’re not going to work with these things.”
I’d make like, two or three things work then realize those two or three things were attached to everything else, which never worked, which stopped referencing each other and became just things.
And I’d be helpless again—standing there with things in front of me.
A pile of things, piling more but only ever making one pile.
A life.
Born with it, though felt like something that never happened.
Not a phase.
Not something to get over.
But something to overlook, to forget about.
Something that’s there.
I stood sweating on the street with vague and unguided thoughts about being an architect who knows nothing, but tries, learning what not to do the next time—each next time having less and less energy to produce anything.
A series of accidents creating exactly the same thing, resulting in the same sad person, everything connected to time as it happens, without any ability to turn around and stop it even for a second to say “what is happening” because that is happening.
And eventually your body just learns to operate so slowly it looks like you stop moving and decay—looks like you die—but you don’t.
Everything else around you just speeds up and learns to look different until you look dead by comparison.
But it always makes sense.
Never any errors.
Of course.
Of course this is what’s happening—I thought, standing on Milwaukee Avenue waiting for the bus.
And it felt like things were going to have meaning again maybe.
Also felt like I couldn’t imagine anything that would make me feel better.
I walked up behind my girlfriend and lightly kneed the back of her knee and she fell a little then breathed in quickly, saying, “Ahhh.”
About the cat
Rontel is three years old. He lives in Chicago.
About the author
Sam Pink is 29 years old. He lives in Chicago.
Also by Sam Pink
Available from Lazy Fascist Press
Rontel (print edition)
No One Can Do Anything Worse to You Than You Can
The No Hellos Diet
Hurt Others
Person
The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home
Frowns Need Friends Too
I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It
Table of Contents
Copyright
Rontel
About the Author
More from Sam Pink
More from Electric Literature
Table of Contents
Copyright
Rontel
About the Author
More from Sam Pink
More from Electric Literature