Person

by Sam Pink

  “Exactly. Not you Jimbo baby. I mean it. When I bit into the sandwich—I mean—something happened deep inside me. A detonation. Does that make sense?”

  “Hell yeah,” he says.

  I switch ears with the phone.

  “Yeah, really good,” I say. “Like some slice removed from the inside of an angel’s thigh you know. I kept thinking, ‘How could it be this way’. I couldn’t tell if it was normal reality, or something I’d transcended.”

  “Hell yeah, it’s like that.”

  “Hell yeah,” I say. “I expected more portals to be involved though, know Jimbo baby? I didn’t know if I’d survive. I thought I had become the spirit.”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Hell yeah is right Jimbo,” I say.

  He clears his throat again.

  I say, “You all right, Jimbo baby?”

  He tries to clear his throat again.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Just got this dry-throat thing going on. It’s painful.”

  “Shit man, need to get some water quick then, yeah?” I say.

  “Yup,” he says. “Alright I have a customer. I have to go.”

  “You going to remember to get that water, Jimbo baby?”

  “Sure,” he says.

  “Ok, bye Jimbo baby. Keep being wonderful. Don’t forget that water.”

  “Ok bye,” he says.

  “Bye Jimbo baby.”

  I press a button on my phone and end the call.

  Then I look inside the garbage can.

  There in repose, the sandwich wrapper.

  I touch the wrapper and breathe out, saying “Jimbo” in a halfwhisper.

  Today I tell my roommate how I’ve been regularly taking a multivitamin.

  He tells me to prove it by punching through a car window as we walk the streets back from the grocery store.

  I am holding more groceries than him.

  I’ve been shaving my head for a while now.

  That’s my haircut.

  That’s the haircut I have now.

  I like it because it causes people to leave you alone more.

  They just assume you’re a mean asshole.

  I’m serious.

  Try it.

  It feels good.

  The other day when I was shaving my head I used an old disposable razor I found in the bathroom.

  I don’t know whose it was.

  I cut my head badly—in front, in back, and behind my ear.

  There were long lines of blood coming out of like maybe four cuts.

  The bathroom was cold.

  And I just stood there looking at myself in the mirror, wearing only my underwear—my head bleeding down my neck and face, my hand holding a blue plastic razor with pink foam all over it.

  It felt really sexual.

  It felt like practice.

  At one point I made direct eye contact with myself.

  I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out.

  Like, I’m thinking what if there is a secret organization of people who just make small changes in my life without me knowing it, like folding a page or two in a book I own, or putting a fingerprint underneath some clothes in my room.

  What if someone is leaving me messages in small pieces of folded paper.

  What if I’m actually a flower or some kind of plant but I don’t realize it.

  The grocery store I interviewed at a while ago has asked me to come to a second interview.

  For bagging groceries.

  They said there might be a third interview too.

  For bagging groceries.

  At the first interview two people were called from the breakroom when a boss wearing a headset said, “I need two team managers out front.”

  One of the team managers, as an interview question, asked me what I thought of as a strong quality of mine.

  I said, “I am good at things.”

  And so I was invited back for this second interview.

  For bagging groceries.

  That’s why I am in my room buttoning my shirt right now.

  Because there is more chance of me getting the job if I don’t go shirtless to the interview.

  Because I want there to be a third interview and I want to be hired.

  Because everything else.

  And also because I remember the legal requirement of being clothed outside.

  Oh my.

  Hopefully I can convince the people at the grocery store that I can bag groceries with sustained success.

  That is my goal.

  I want to have money so I can buy food and not die.

  And I want the world to see my ability as a bagger.

  I want people to hear my name and say, “You mean the bagger?”

  I want customers to see me bagging groceries and regain all hope for themselves because of how inspired I am.

  I want people to almost faint when seeing the beauty of my ability to bag groceries.

  Lastly, I want to accidentally overhear a customer talking to the manager and mentioning my ability as “swan-like.”

  My roommate walks down the hall.

  He comes up to my doorway and stands there and he watches me finish putting my shirt on.

  He’s smoking a cigarette with a brand name like “Highway” or “Eagle” and he is ashing the cigarette into an empty glass jar of shrimp sauce.

  I am cornered.

  No I don’t know.

  He says, “Hey I need some help.”

  I agree by saying nothing.

  He puts the cigarette into the glass jar and lids the glass jar and puts it on the ground.

  Then he stands rigid.

  “Which half of my face looks stupider today,” he says.

  He moves just his head side-to-side, once, still standing very rigid.

  “Seriously tell me,” he says. “I want to take a picture of myself and give it to my girlfriend. I just feel dumb-looking right now.”

  I stand there.

  My shirt is almost all-the-way buttoned.

  Just like a grown-up.

  I touch my chesthair and a pimple beneath somewhere.

  This is my destiny.

  Everything leading up to right now has destined me for this.

  “Just look,” he says. “Just, take your time, and tell me. Which half do you think looks stupider right now. I already decided what I think, but I won’t tell you yet.”

  He turns his head side to side to show me both halves of his face.

  “I need to know,” he says.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I like them both.”

  I feel doubt that I will actually go to the interview now, for some reason.

  Then I almost retch because I imagine having a stomach full of nail-bitings for some reason.

  That seems terrible to me.

  Why am I thinking that.

  My roommate stands in the doorway turning his head side to side

  and I finish buttoning my shirt.

  “This side,” he says. “Or this side.”

  If I ran into him I could push him down and get out of here.

  Ok, so do that.

  No, I don’t want to—I’m scared.

  Fine, do what you want.

  “Both sides look so wonderful,” I say. “I wouldn’t be able to choose. I couldn’t possibly choose. Don’t put me in that position.”

  Somewhere someone is teaching me to another person.

  And the teacher uses a metaphor involving a garbage truck that has run out of gas halfway to the garbage dump.

  And the student nods.

  “I just can’t decide,” I say again. “I love everything about you.”

  My roommate stops turning his head side to side and looks at the ground.

  I look at the ground.

  It feels like practice.

  Leave your apartment.

  Your apartment is bad.

  Ok I will.

  Ok good.

  “I have to leave,” I say.


  I leave.

  Outside, I experience a bad feeling and I realize it is because I haven’t been outside for a few days so now it’s uncomfortable.

  On the way to the Blue Line train, I pass an apartment with a dog in the frontyard area, walking around unchained.

  I stop and stare at the dog.

  The dog stares back.

  We are in love yeah.

  It is love.

  For some reason I want the dog to attack me.

  Yes, please attack me.

  Will you attack me dog.

  Dog, attack me.

  I want you to try to kill me.

  I want that.

  Don’t be afraid dog.

  Just, attack me.

  The mail carrier comes around the corner down the block.

  I hide behind a bush until she passes, whew!

  The word “secret” scrolls through my head in neon letters and I

  am happy.

  My heart is beating very fast.

  When she’s fully gone down the block, I take the mail from the entryway to the apartment building last visited.

  I walk the mail to the post office.

  At the post office I buy a large envelope and put the mail inside.

  I mail this new mail to the address on the original mail haha!

  And somewhere, someone is forging a gold medal in honor of how I have lived my life.

  I leave the post office and walk to the Van Buren Street Bridge a few blocks away.

  The bridge overlooks the expressway, and I stand there and watch the traffic for a while.

  Feeling like shit.

  I decide not to continue my walk to the interview.

  It is not necessary.

  Feels good to just quit before trying.

  Feels like practice.

  No one is out now and I am cold on the bridge watching traffic.

  Not sure what month it is but it is cold yeah.

  Probably January.

  And I’m still one person and I have nothing to do.

  No one expects anything of me right now.

  It’s weird but really comforting to say that.

  And it is hard to decide things.

  I want badly to take off my clothes and walk down the street, but I remember the legal requirement of being-clothed.

  (And plus I think I would get sick from not having clothes on).

  Whew!

  I don’t want to get sick and die.

  On the walk back I stop and stare at the same dog again.

  Now, in various places in the snow where it walks, there are rust-colored piss holes.

  Piss holes.

  I stare for a long time and I feel discharged.

  No I don’t know.

  I see a long version of the word “No,” one with many many o’s, scrolling through my ears holes, in one then the out the other and I’m the pilot of it.

  Alright.

  I’m standing by the front door inside my apartment, putting on my boots.

  It is a cold-sunny daytime and I have to leave.

  Crucial interview with a grocery store for a bagger position.

  My roommate sits on the couch doing something on his laptop computer and I look at a half-filled coffee cup on the livingroom floor while I balance on one leg, left boot going on.

  Staring at the halffilled coffee cup keeps me from falling.

  Thank you for being there for me, halffilled coffee cup.

  I appreciate you, you silly fuck.

  Behind me I hear there are mildly loud vacuuming sounds in the hallway outside our apartment.

  And I try not to let them scare me into staying inside.

  Trying to be brave.

  It is important for me to get this job.

  It is also very easy for me to get scared and stay inside.

  My roommate says, “Hey, you want a candy. It’ll help you get the job or whatever.”

  He tosses a piece of candy over.

  The candy hits my knee and falls in a shoe by the doorway.

  He puts a similar piece of candy into his mouth and threads his fingers behind his head.

  He clears his throat and says, “Careful, it has some liquid stuff inside it.”

  Then when I put the candy in my mouth, he says, “What flavor is yours.”

  Little radios on my tongue report the message to my headhole.

  There are beeping sounds and I hear the message.

  “It’s grape,” I say.

  I stare at the coffee cup and we eat our candy, vacuum sounds in the hallway making me feel tired now, not scared just tired.

  It occurs to me to say, ‘I wish they made grape-flavored coffee.’

  But I don’t say that.

  I don’t say that because I believe he will not understand.

  I watch him continue to look at his laptop computer.

  And he changes the candy from one side of his mouth to the other.

  Then notices I am looking at him.

  He moves his head side to side so his ears keep almost touching his shoulders, making a face he must intend to be funny.

  He is trying to make me laugh.

  Oh.

  I look at my roommate.

  Just say it.

  Say that you’d like it if they made grape-flavored coffee.

  Tell him.

  No, he will not understand.

  He won’t understand you.

  Just tell him.

  No, the statement will leave your mouth as a small void, hanging in space, growing larger at a very slow rate, until it has consumed everything, me first, willingly.

  “See ya,” I’ll say, putting my hands on the rim of the void, taking entrance headfirst.

  Just say it.

  No, I can’t.

  Ok, if you can’t then you can’t.

  My roommate says, “Why do they need to do a second interview anyway.”

  He takes his laptop computer off his lap and puts it next to him on the couch.

  He sits back.

  I stare at the halffilled coffee cup.

  Just walk out.

  Just say you wished they made grape-flavored coffee again then walk out and be free.

  You want him to know that you’d like it if they made grape-flavored coffee.

  So, tell him.

  Tell him and leave.

  No, I can’t.

  “I wish they made grape-flavored coffee,” I say.

  The room remains exactly as-is for a moment.

  And the moment is large enough to slay.

  I get slain by the moment.

  My roommate says, “What. I didn’t hear you over the vacuum.”

  When I don’t respond, he says, “What’s up, why are you staring.”

  I open the door quickly and run out, kind-of tripping on the doorstop into the hallway.

  In the hallway my roommate becomes only vaguely memorable.

  Part of a greater disliking, little different than the couch and all the other things, real or imagined.

  Part of the void to be carried around.

  I almost fall and hit my head on a light in the hallway but I am able to stand and the apartment door shuts hard.

  My landlord is vacuuming in the hallway.

  She shuts off the vacuum.

  Through its detune, she says, “Hey mister. I thought you’d want to make sure to have—”

  She attempts to lean on the vacuum and it starts back up and she finishes saying something that I can’t hear over the vacuum.

  She smiles and stares up past my area of eye contact, raising her eyebrows to emphasize something I can’t hear.

  It’s insane.

  I entertain the idea that if my present life is the punishment for a former life, then I would never want to meet myself as the self of this former life.

  Goddamn.

  She continues leaning on the vacuum, staring at me.

  I find myself looking at the words “San Francisco” on her sweatshirt and the odd look
ing breasts that are probably behind.

  I walk away from her and go somewhere that is an extension of where I’ve just been.

  A bigger “right-there.”

  In the tiny courtyard area outside, there’s a small plastic tricycle, almost entirely buried in snow.

  I think a thought that is something like, “Keep track of who owes you nothing.”

  And I get on the train but don’t go to the interview.

  Instead I have conversations with other people in the train, only I don’t do it out loud.

  Chicago Blue Line train.

  My roommate and I are on the small concrete deck outside our apartment, two floors up, looking out across the parking lot.

  It’s cold.

  I only have a t-shirt on.

  He’s smoking a cigarette and I’m scratching my elbows.

  We just saw a woman smacking her kid in the face as they crossed the parking lot.

  It was beautiful.

  It felt like practice.

  I look at my roommate.

  “Hey can I borrow your car,” I say.

  “Why.”

  There is a very long interval between sounds.

  I contribute by realizing I’m pinned to it.

  “I need to get some hangers from the store,” I say.

  “You need to get hangers,” he says.

  “Yes. For my shirts.”

  “For your shirts,” he says.

  He puts his cigarette in his mouth and leans back, one eye shut, trying to get keys off his beltloop.

  He hands me the keys.

  I go to get back in the apartment through the sliding door, but I only open the sliding door a little and when I try to go sideways through it I have trouble fitting.

  I’m sideways and I can’t move.

  My roommate watches.

  “Almost man,” he says. “You’re almost there.”

  Then, I’m through.

  It hurts, but I’m through.

  And I drive my roommate’s car around and go nowhere.

  His car smells bad.

  I get on the highway for a while.

  Everyone is staring at me when they pass.

  I hate everyone.

  Don’t go back home.

  Ok I won’t.

  All existing humans hate you.

  Yes, I know.

  Well then ok, keep driving so they can’t find you.

  Yes sir.

  I exit somewhere I don’t recognize.

  I drive different streets in the same direction and at one point I am convinced I am the person speaking on the radio and eventually it’s dark out and I park the car in an empty parking lot by an office building.