Hurt Others

by Sam Pink

  What would it be like.

  What if it felt exactly the same as eating like, a cracker with peanut butter on it.

  What if all experiences occurred from the same foundation of excitement, and it just registered in different ways, but each attempt was an attempt at it all.

  I saw the sight of my head getting crushed and coming inside-out.

  And it wasn’t painful.

  It wasn’t gross.

  But calming and quiet to see.

  I could appreciate it.

  I took the keys out of the hydraulic lift and returned them to my co-worker.

  “Here you go champ,” I said.

  Then I went to pinch one of his nipples.

  He backed away.

  “Look out champ,” I said.

  He covered both his nipples with his hands, backing up a little.

  “Good God,” he said. “Calm down.”

  I imagined his nipple between my top and bottom front teeth and then me ripping it off.

  Felt good.

  Calming and quiet to see, his holed-out nipple bleeding into my mouth.

  “What do you think you’re going to get for lunch, man,” he said, tucking in a part of his shirt that’d come out during my attempt to pinch his nipples.

  There were purple stretchmarks on his stomach.

  “Well,” I said. “I suppose, I’ll be getting whatever the fuck I want.”

  “Certified,” he said, miming a pump-shotgun motion then shooting it at me. “Boosh,” he said, and stepped back a little from the imaginary recoil.

  I touched my stomach with both hands then held both hands up and looked at them and said, “Fucking certified.”

  And we both laughed some fake laughing for each other.

  Then walked in different directions to different stock rooms to keep working on whatever we were supposed to be doing.

  I thought about a wooden palette dropping on my head.

  And how maybe it would be worse for the palette to fall from only a few inches up, rather than many many feet.

  Because then you would really feel it.

  Maybe.

  Maybe I hadn’t ever felt anything.

  Maybe the turtle won the race because he didn’t start, he just walked away.

  Fucking certified.

  After work I went across the street to a Chinese take-out restaurant.

  It was called ‘The Chinese Connection.’

  Inside it smelled like burnt oil.

  A Chinese man with mild gigantism worked the counter.

  “What I get you,” he said, combing his bangs to the side with his fingers.

  I ordered fried rice.

  He raised both his hands and said, “No rice any kind anymore.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  Then I realized the restaurant was going to close soon.

  I ordered something else.

  “Ok, wait little bit,” he said, and went back to the kitchen.

  I stood at the counter and noticed a small fountain by the wall, where water dripped down from a top rung onto a lower one, then onto another lower one and then somehow back up to the top, recycling.

  Looking at it felt really nice.

  The employee came back and added up the price on the register. “Nine dollar. Be ready ten minute.”

  I paid.

  I said, “Where did you get this fountain, it’s nice.”

  My elbows were on the counter and I was on my toes, lifting myself up and down.

  Without looking up, he nodded towards across the street at the store where I just started working, and said, “Over there, twelve dollar.”

  I said, “Oh, nice.”

  I thought about telling him how I work there, but then it didn’t seem to be important.

  It went from immediately seeming important, to definitely not.

  He walked back into the kitchen area.

  The fountain kept going.

  I watched, waiting for my order.

  It was so nice to watch and hear the fountain.

  A very tiny sound.

  I folded my arms on the counter and put my head down and started to laugh.

  I thought—Nobody knows I’m here except me and the guy who took my order.

  Walking home with my food, I passed a gradeschool.

  There was a light still on in one of the rooms.

  I walked up to look.

  The room was empty.

  On the chalkboard there were pictures of everyone in the class.

  Each picture was inside a construction paper balloon.

  I stood by the window looking in, but I couldn’t read any of the names beneath the pictures.

  I tried to read the names but I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t read the names.

  I drank moonshine once.

  I was at a party where I barely knew anyone.

  At some point, the guy who lived at the house came up to me and some other people and said, “Hey, would you be down to drink some moonshine. I have some.”

  The other people around me said no and walked away to do something else.

  But I said yeah.

  The guy said, “Yeah? Here, hold my beer.”

  He went to hand his beer to me and then took it back.

  “Wait, why’m I giving you this.”

  He looked confused for a second, then went to set the beer on the carpet.

  He stood back up and said, “Fuck.”

  He walked away.

  He came back with an unlabelled plastic bottle.

  He held it up to the light and looked at it.

  He said, “Shit’s actually eating through the bottle in some places.” Then he looked at me and said, “I got it from this guy at my work. His dad makes it. It’s not bad, taste-wise.”

  We went outside onto the deck.

  There was a guy and a girl kissing on the deck.

  I’d kissed the same girl earlier when she sat on the couch where I’d fallen asleep for a little bit.

  Me and the guy went into the yard.

  We stood behind a tall bush and he lit a cigarette.

  It was threatening to get light out.

  The house was across from a library.

  People who looked like employees started pulling up in their cars.

  The guy uncapped the moonshine and drank some.

  He closed his eyes and shivered and exhaled and it felt hot in my face.

  I drank a half-mouthful and immediately saw double.

  The library, the yard, a fence and some cars, all doubled.

  I talked to the guy a little bit about something I didn’t know anything about probably, then I think we each agreed to get punched in the face by the other.

  Then we went back into the house, where the only people left were sleeping or going to sleep.

  I tried to sleep on the same couch I’d slept on earlier.

  No one had taken it.

  Going to sleep at parties was something me and my friend Rabb invented.

  You just walk through a big crowd of people and lay down somewhere and try to sleep.

  I was still seeing double, and when I lay on the couch, I noticed the girl I’d kissed earlier was sleeping on the floor.

  I thought I’d be able to sleep right away.

  But I just lay there, feeling weightlessness and pinned-downedness at the same time.

  Dreams happened where I was basically still awake, watching a waving yellow color.

  At some point, the girl on the floor moved up onto the couch with me.

  We kissed each other for a while and when she felt my dick was hard, she undid her pants and mine and rubbed her bare ass on my bare dick until I ejaculated.

  We didn’t have a condom and she wouldn’t let me without a condom.

  I ejaculated hard, breathing out into the area between her breasts, which smelled good enough to remind me I was garbage.

  Later I woke up with my pants stuck to me and my jaw swollen.

&
nbsp; Probably around noon.

  People were talking in the kitchen.

  It was the girl who rubbed her ass on my dick and the guy who owned the house and someone else I didn’t recognize.

  We all went out onto the deck and stared into the brightness, not really talking.

  We drank some more moonshine and I ran around the backyard holding a bedsheet around my neck like a cape.

  I kept falling.

  Everyone was laughing.

  This afternoon I was lying on a sleeping bag on the floor of my room, waking up and trying to stay awake.

  The deck door opened for the apartment below mine.

  I heard it slam and then people were outside on the deck, talking.

  I kept hearing, “No, you don’t understand—”

  When I was fully awake, I got up and opened my window.

  I put my head out the window and looked down towards the deck.

  It was two women around my age.

  Tattoos covered their necks and arms and they had a lot of piercings and they both wore all black clothing.

  I’d never met them, but I’d seen them in the building.

  I only knew two of my neighbors: the crosseyed girl with the giant golden retriever, and the old man who worked nights somewhere and could barely walk, the one who always wore vomit stained shirts.

  “Hey,” I said, leaning out my window.

  The tattooed women looked up.

  “Hi,” one said, holding her cigarette-hand to visor her eyes.

  “Sorry, are we being loud,” the other said.

  “No I just wanted to say hi. I’m your neighbor. I live upstairs.”

  There was no response for a little bit.

  “Coo-wull,” one said.

  “It’s very cool,” I said. “Alright. Have a nice day you two. And enjoy this weather.”

  “We’ll do that,” one said, giving me a thumbs-up and adding a clicking sound with her mouth.

  “Yeah, you do the same, guy,” the other said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think I will.”

  I went back into my room and put on my work clothes.

  My workshirt still kind of smelled like deodorant, so it was ok to wear.

  I never liked wearing deodorant, so I didn’t use too much.

  Just enough to get by at work.

  Zipping my pants in my room, I winked to myself, and said, “Juuuuuuust enough.”

  A car playing loud rap music drove past outside.

  The word “Motherfucker” came from the car’s speakers.

  On your first break today you sit at a table with six or seven women at it.

  They’re talking loudly and eating little bags of chips, adding hot sauce.

  You listen, drinking the coffee left over from the overnight crew.

  The coffee is cold and has nothing else in it except coffee and you pull the grounds through your teeth.

  Like you’re sucking Satan’s infected dick.

  Between sips you swirl the cup.

  The grounds follow a circular motion, each right behind the other.

  Used-up.

  Someone’s walkie talkie goes off at the table, and she turns it down.

  She says, “Man, yesterday somebody took a walkie talkie into the bathroom with theyself and held it on while they peed, so everybody could hear that shit. Seriously.” She puts her hand on her thigh with her elbow out at a right angle. She says, “Seriously, took the motherfucker into the bathroom, and made it so everybody could hear his ass pissing.”

  Everybody at the table starts either laughing or yelling.

  Ass pissing U.S.A.—you think.

  You laugh, and the woman next to you laughs, hitting your arm.

  A woman across the table makes a face of disgust and says, “Uh uh. Thass nasty. How you do that shit.” She changes to a tone like she’s directly asking the person who did it. “I wanna know, how y’all do something like that. Tell me.”

  Others nod.

  You’re nodding.

  You feel the urge to take a chip out of someone’s bag.

  You’re pretty sure no one would mind.

  But still, you shy out.

  You always shy out.

  Ass pissing.

  The sunlight in the room gets incredibly bright then—lowering and coming over the tops of the other buildings outside.

  Coming in through the window facing Broadway Avenue.

  Coming in through a very strict angle.

  It’s getting dark out early.

  Daylight savings time.

  You want there to be a day you turn the clocks ahead twelve hours and then twelve hours later you move them back and everyone has to act like nothing happened in that time.

  Pretty much, that’s how it is now.

  You wake up when it’s almost dark, and then work, and after work stay up until it’s light.

  One woman says, “Who do that shit. Who want everyone to hear how you be pissing. I mean, is you stupid. Honestly. Some pervert shit.”

  Another says, “For real. That’s just gross. That ain’t funny at all. Trying to be funny, but that ain’t fucking funny.”

  You sit up a little.

  Your plastic chair makes a sound.

  It scares you and your heartbeat gets fast and hard.

  You wait for everyone to look at you but no one looks at you.

  Safe.

  And the sun becomes less bright, going below the strict angle.

  Gone from all angles.

  The room turns a darker blue.

  Another employee walks into the breakroom and stands there, pulling his pants up.

  He sees a box of free Styrofoam cups on the countertop.

  When he sees the cups, he says, “Aw, shit ch’yeah. Free cups, son.”

  He’s wearing a reflective vest so that when he collects carts in the parking garage, no one accidentally kills him with their car.

  You wonder if the person training him said, “Wear this vest to help prevent from getting accidentally killed. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about the on-purpose kills. You just have to be smart. And quick.”

  He takes a cup, then leaves the breakroom with the cup in his mouth, both hands pulling up his pants.

  You think—Why did he come in if he didn’t already know about the free cups.

  The women are still talking about the piss thing.

  One says, “I’on’t give a fuck. It just sound like water to me that’s all. Like a waterfall. Like a beautiful waterfall. Y’all like waterfalls, right. Just think about waterfalls.”

  People laugh.

  A woman across the table from you licks her thumb clean of some chip crumbs. She says, “I’on’t want to be thinking about no pissy-ass waterfall.”

  Another says, “Me neither. I can’t help but think about drinking it when I hear it like that. S’gross. Just going right into my motherfucking mouth.” She makes her hands into fists and brings them close to her body while shaking a little. “Oooooh. Jesus Mary and Joseph.”

  The woman next to you says, “What about them pee-drops getting on the earpiece. If you holding that walkie talkie by where you pissing, some of that shit get on the walkie talkie.” She taps the table a few times. “No no. What about getting all them little pee-drops on your mouth or ear. Them drops.”

  Another woman points and says, “Them particles.”

  Someone else says, “Mmm hmm.”

  “The particles,” you say.

  Someone else says, “Mmm hmm.”

  An older woman with thickly drawn-on eyebrows folds her arms and leans back. “Jesus in heaven, all them particles.”

  You can’t tell if she’s awake or talking in her sleep.

  She seems asleep.

  You try to focus more on her and then you can’t tell if her thickly drawn-on eyebrows are eyebrows, or her open eyes, looking at you.

  She uncrosses her arms and checks her watch and re-crosses her arms and says, “Hmm! Got-damn pee-drops. Who
do that.”

  “For real,” someone else says.

  Then they continue talking to each other about things—like which guys at the store are attractive, how much the least expensive appliances at the store cost, and why no one should ever reach into the garbage in the women’s bathroom.

  You look at your coffee, swirling it.

  The floating grounds.

  Almost empty.

  You’re constantly airdropped into a life that’s already passing.

  Passing like pee-drops into the ocean of time.

  You finish your coffee in small sips.

  The news is on the breakroom tv.

  Everyone gets quiet as a story comes on about a kid getting beaten to death at a high school yesterday.

  They show a video someone shot on a cell phone and it shows the kid trying to stop a fight and then some people turn on him, and punch and kick him many times, until someone comes up from behind and kills him with a wood board to the back of the head.

  “Oh my gut-ness,” says a woman at the table. “Is that little G.J.” She’s looking at a picture with the people on either side of her. “My gut-ness.”

  She passes the picture to the person next to her.

  It makes its way around the table, from woman to woman as they all start to talk at the same time, laughing and smiling.

  “Yeah, he two now,” says the woman who started the passing of the picture.

  The picture comes to you.

  You take it from the sharp entanglement of one woman’s artificial fingernails.

  It’s a picture of a young boy.

  He’s like, a baby, and he’s wearing baggy jeans, a blue bandana, and big work boots, posed in confusion in front of a backdrop that’s supposed to look like a building with graffiti on it.

  You smile at the picture and say, “Shit” and pass it around to a woman just sitting down. “You want to see this?”

  She looks at the picture and snaps her fingers and says, “So so fresh.” Then she points downward and looks to the side away from everyone and says, “This right here—this a little hunter right here. Hm!”

  Everybody laughs.

  The woman who called him a hunter looks up at the people laughing, and says, “Ow k?”

  And you’re laughing.

  Which transitions to thinking about whether or not you’d be able to play a violin if you had one.