by Sam Pink
The freezer stockroom was ten degrees below zero, and its engines were loud.
I later made a habit of going in the freezer stockroom and making a noise with my throat that exactly reproduced the tone of the engines.
I’d stand there and do the exact same tone of humming.
Making the same sound as the freezer.
I liked to do that.
Every time I did it, it seemed like that layer of humming stayed in my head.
Getting louder every time.
Yes and I’d stand there in the freezer, knowing that one day when I went into the freezer to get something I’d come back out but no one would be in the store or anywhere else I looked.
Just humming.
And having given myself repeated reminders about how this feels, it wouldn’t surprise me.
And that’s comfortable, to never be surprised.
To come into command of something already happening a certain way, and not be surprised.
Harmlessly in command by just not needing solutions.
That’s comfort.
Letting myself become something that’s already happening a certain way.
Humming along with the freezer.
The pay was seven dollars and thirty five cents and I spent most of it on food at work.
One of my first nights there, a really drunk woman came in and bought a bunch of things, and then asked me to carry it home for her.
I looked at Charles, the manager, and he said to do it, so I did it.
I carried the bags a few blocks to her apartment building, and we went up twenty some floors.
She opened up her apartment door and I went in and put the bags on the ground, while she went into her room—right down the hall—and lay face down on her bed.
There was a picture of some guy on the wall by the doorway, and I found myself staring at myself in it.
I’d focus then unfocus, letting my face and the guy’s face blend.
On the walk back to work, I sat on a curb by a sprinkler going off, and stayed for ten minutes, trying to stop sweating.
A prostitute walked down the sidewalk and when she (?) passed by, we smiled and waved to each other.
The job was fine.
I just did what I was told.
I went to work and bagged groceries.
After working there for a month, the manager said he liked me and moved me to the deli, where I got paid thirty five cents more.
I sliced meat and cheese on a deli slicer and cleaned.
I had to disassemble the meat slicer, and the cheese slicer every night, and clean every part of them.
One of the main guys at the deli cut the top of his thumb off right after I started in the deli.
His thumb bled a lot and he kept saying, “Oh shit oh shit” almost quietly.
Working in the deli was ok.
It made me smell weird.
I had to wear a hairnet.
Plus the bathroom in the breakroom sucked for shitting because it was always cold for some reason and the door didn’t lock.
And for whatever reason, around that time, my dick looked a lot bigger than it usually was.
Charles was the manager.
I felt bad for him for some reason, so I liked him.
One time he paged me over the p.a.
I went to his office and he asked me to clean up outside.
He was staring at an invoice of some kind, in quiet terror.
“Ey can you sweep ah-side, out front,” he said.
He didn’t look up from the paper.
I said, “Yeah, I’ll go do it now.”
Then he turned to me like I’d just entered the room. “Ey,” he said, “I wanted to ax you—” he reached under his desk and opened a mini-fridge. He pulled out a small plastic bag and extended it to me. “You want this roast beef?” He shook the bag. “I bought it the other day and the expiration date is tomorrow. There’s like half a pound left but I been eating it f’the last week. Can’t eat no more. I’m afraid I’ma have a stroke because of it or something.” He jabbed it at me. “Here. You want it?”
“Sure,” I said and grabbed the roast beef. I looked at it then back to him. “Thanks. Thanks for the roast beef.”
“No problem. Sweep under the ice machine too, please.”
He smiled and winked and clicked his teeth.
Then he returned to staring at the invoice.
There was a juice-box on his desk, fruit punch.
The roast beef felt heavy in my hand.
Out front I set the broom down and sat on the curb.
Somebody drove by and yelled “Cocksucker” and I watched the car get smaller.
I swept, pushing dead leaves into the street.
There was a huge puddle along the curb.
Inside it was a broken pencil, bobbing.
It floated past.
I threw the roast beef into the street and a car ran it over.
I was still young.
My shifts were mostly at night, up until the closing of the store at midnight.
At night, the overnight cleaning crew would come in.
There was this old man named Gilberto.
He worked for the cleaning company hired by the store.
He was like, in his 60’s, and he worked over eighty hours a week.
He’d work a twelve hour shift, go home and take a three hour nap and come back.
Sometimes I couldn’t understand him with his accent, but Gilberto was fucking awesome.
We always acknowledged each other the first time on any particular day.
I’d always say, “Hey man” while doing a single, precise upward-nod.
That was my thing.
Every time.
And he’d say, “Mijo.”
I’d developed several relationships like that with people at work.
Just a single performance.
A single nod while saying, “Hey.”
And then slowly I noticed I started using “Hey” more in a way that sounded like “Ey.”
Slowly, it became more and more like “Ey.”
I’d become an “Ey” guy.
And Gilberto knew it.
And he loved it.
Today after our regular greeting, he motioned me over, and we talked for a little while next to the floor waxer.
We had a conversation.
He leaned on the floor waxer.
“Lot of pretty girls here shopping huh,” he said, speaking carefully. He made a circling motion with his finger, “Everywhere, they come in today.”
I nodded.
He was right.
In fact, just earlier, I had had the thought, “Sea of tits.”
He smiled and said, “I always been ugly though.” He looked at the floor waxer. “I always been ah ugly.”
There was silence.
Neither of us did anything to interrupt it.
The silence spread between us, became boss.
“I always been ah ugly though, so, doesn’t matter,” he said. “But they a lot of pretty girls today, hah mijo?”
“Yeah man,” I said. “You’re totally right.”
“Sorry,” he said, pointing to his mouth.
“No I understand what you’re saying.”
More silence.
Gilberto.
He kept smiling and nodding.
I did too.
His teeth looked triangular.
What some might call shark teeth.
His shark teeth were too powerful for me so I looked away, at the logo on his shirt.
The logo was a vacuum cleaner, winking.
A winking vacuum.
For a second I thought I had to wink back.
I almost winked back.
“I always been ugly though,” he said again, splaying his fingers and motioning them about his face. “My face—always ugly thing. S’okay though.”
I didn’t say anything.
The shark teeth.
“Ugly all the time,�
�� he said, shrugging. “S’okay though.”
“Nah, it’s ok man—don’t worry. No problem. I mean—”
“My daughter look pretty, though,” he said, pointing at me and smiling.
“Oh nice.”
We smiled at each other for a little bit more before I walked away to do whatever work I had to do.
Today I worked a nine hour, midday shift.
I spent the whole day taking down and restocking an entire beverage aisle.
After work I bought two bananas and some water and went out front, by the Clark bus stop.
A bus pulled up and a co-worker exited.
She nodded to me and had a cigarette, standing outside with me before her shift.
“I’m going to be frickin late,” she said, rolling her eyes like it was someone else’s fault.
There was some name tattooed in cursive on her neck.
And she always called me “Yogurt Man” because I bought yogurt to eat on break.
That was all I knew about her.
I also knew that I wanted to hug her around the waist and put my head on her breasts in a gentle, innocent way.
Without sexual intentions.
“Did you hear Marquita got shot,” she said.
“Who’s Marquita,” I said.
“Marquita, the cashier,” she said. “She works here. She got shot in the face yesterday, right around here.”
“Ow,” I said.
I finished one of the bananas and whipped the peel at the metal garbage can, slapping the rim and going in.
She laughed and said, “Yeah, ow.”
I said, “Ow, someone shot me in the face, help!”
I cracked the end of the other banana open and started peeling.
She idly said, “Ow”—looking out at the street and blowing out smoke.
And it was quiet except for the collage of traffic, and some wind, and a plane nearing to land at Midway Airport—all somewhat dulled by my ringing ears.
I felt insane standing there.
Watching my co-worker smoke her cigarette.
Marquita got shot in the face.
Who shot Marquita.
I thought about a television show and/or novel called, “Code: Marquita.”
My co-worker started coughing, and a big vein surfaced underneath the cursive tattoo on her neck.
“Oh hey,” she said, coughing less. “Do you know what day it is, hun.”
“What day it is.”
“Yeah, what’s the date,” she said. “Like, the number, I mean.”
Then she coughed a single cough with her mouth open, her tongue curled along the bottom of her mouth.
The cough shotgunned into my face through her curled tongue.
Boom—the smell of her perfume, and the cigarette, and her cough—all of it shotgunned into my face.
A stream of germs, smoke, and perfume particles hitting me.
Boom, in slow motion, the cough rips my head apart.
“Yeah reason I was asking about the date,” she said, “Is I don’t know if I still have enough time to ask for this day off coming up. You have to submit a request like, what, what is it, what two weeks in advance.”
“Nineteen days,” I said.
“Great,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “Yeah so what’s the date, hun.”
“The first thing I thought when asked the date was, ‘249 Million’ for some reason. Is that right. Is it 249 million already.”
She said, “I wanted to ask for a day off. I’m going to this Christmas concert where they play Christmas songs with guitars and drums and synthesizers and shit. Should be awesome. I’m taking frickin boring-ass Ray though. Gonna get my tits sucked on, hopefully.”
“Sucking on tits,” I said, confused about why she used the name ‘Ray’ assuming I already know him, and also confused about why she thought Christmas time was that close.
“Yes sir,” she said.
She stared at the street.
She scratched the cursive lettered tattoo on her neck and coughed again, just once, through the curled tongue.
“I actually don’t know the date,” I said.
“I don’t either,” she said. “Thought you might. Shit. I just look at the boxes at the work schedule and know how many boxes I have left before I have to go back. I never actually know the name of the day it is, or the number.”
“Me neither,” I said, feeling distinctly stupid-as-hell.
“That’s how you know you’re truly losing,” she said, laughing to herself a little. “When you can’t figure out the frickin date.”
She coughed.
I said, “Oh wait, the date is: the 14th of Time To Get My Tits Sucked On.”
We laughed together a little bit.
My laugh sounded really fake to me.
Her laugh sounded fake to me too.
Her smile looked pretty though.
Mine, I never liked.
“Let’s rock this shit,” she said, taking a last pull on her cigarette.
“I’m done actually,” I said.
“Well fuck you then,” she said, smiling.
She put her cigarette out on the pole for the bus stop sign.
The cigarette smeared.
Some embers hit a movie ad on the bus stop bench area.
The movie ad showed a man up close, smiling, with a woman kissing his cheek.
“Alright, I’m late,” she said. “Bye sweetie.”
She turned towards the store.
“Wait, let’s get a hug,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Come here,” I said, with my arms out.
She said, “Yeah, alright.”
We hugged.
I had to bend down a little to properly hug her.
My right ear touched her right ear.
We let go of each other and she walked towards the store.
The front door opened out towards her and almost hit her.
She sidestepped it, coughing into her hand, her other arm holding down her purse.
Some people came out and she waited before going into the store through the door that had opened outward.
Plus, minus.
I walked in the direction of my apartment.
A bus departed from its stop going in the same direction alongside me.
A man sitting towards the back made eye contact until we were out of range.
And it occurred to me that maybe if I had a regular thing I did each day, like reading the newspaper, or going swimming, or a crossword puzzle, maybe then I’d feel rewarded.
Maybe then I’d be someone who consistently knew the date.
After about two months at the grocery store, I felt too depressed one day to go to work so I didn’t go.
And I didn’t call in.
I thought about calling and lying.
But that felt stupid. I thought about calling and saying I just didn’t want to go in. But that would’ve gotten me in more trouble than lying.
So I didn’t call at all.
The next day when I went in to work, my boss Charles said, “What are you doing here.”
I said, “I’m scheduled today.”
He said, “Nah I had to replace you. You don’t come in, you don’t call. Come on.”
He looked scared.
I looked at him and said, “Yeah, alright. I have no excuse. Thanks for the job.”
I walked out.
I went down the block and sat on the sidewalk.
It was still hot out.
It felt amazing not to have a job.
For a second, I felt confused about who I’d been at any point before this.
And I focused on the feeling.
It thrilled me.
It made me realize I’m an individual, but not because I’m special, or unique or any other empty idea, but because I could never share my thrills and disappointments.
It was all mine, but in a way that wasn’t by choice.
I could walk up to someone on the street,
and I’d be containing this amazing feeling, without them noticing it.
I could be jobless and ecstatic, and walk up to someone and they’d think I was just another person.
I could look that person in the eyes and they’d notice nothing.
I could say, “Look at me, what do you see.”
And they wouldn’t see it.
But I’d still be feeling it.
And it’d be mine.
Outside, sitting on the sidewalk, I had thoughts that I left vague, undeveloped and unguided.
Like: “Somebody get these motherfuckers out of here.”
Or: “It’s time to kill these motherfuckers.”
On the walk home, the wind off Lake Michigan blew hard against my head and face.
I’d gone to sleep with my hair wet the night before, and now there were like, antenna on the back of my head.
The wind hurt, blowing through my antenna.
Near a bus stop, an old woman leaned against a mailbox, talking to another person.
The old woman had no teeth and she was wearing a large, all-blue baseball hat with no logo or words or anything on it.
She was drinking a green Beck’s 24oz bottle, waving it at the other person.
She said, “And dat wuss in 1977, I wunnda what dey sell me for now.”
Passing this bus stop meant only one more before my apartment.
What a grown up.
Walking home like a big boy!
At the next bus stop there was no one—just the smells of piss and shit when I walked by.
I breathed in the piss and shit smell.
In the year 2009, there will be a man who breathes in the same piss and shit smell, over and over.
You will not meet him but he will save your life over and over just by imagining himself dead.
He is, a dumbshit moron.
I thought half a thought about a movie poster for a made-up movie called “Dumbshit Moron.”
Back inside my apartment, I lay on my bed and opened my window a little because my room smelled terrible.
The people in the apartment below were out on their deck.
They were breaking up.
Some really great lines from both him and her—and in the slight happiness of just having gotten off work, they rewarded me with their fight.
It was really funny.
They criticized each other harshly, then themselves more harshly, then complained about smaller issues they neglected to mention when they originally happened, then ended up at a state of unstable understanding, where both realized the relief of saying insulting things might jeopardize the safety they felt in staying with someone, to retreat.