Sam Pink: Person

He tries to push the mail through the bottom of the door and the mail bends a lot and it takes him many pushes to get it through.

He walks down the hall and I am one person being one person again.

Last night at four in the morning, I went to the ice cream place across the street from my apartment and I bought an ice cream cone.

The guy behind the counter seemed really excited that I was there doing that.

I wanted to ask, “What day is it.”

I judge my health now by how hard my fingernails feel.

And I find myself grinding my teeth all the time now.

The front window of the place I buy my dinner at tonight has this shitty-looking computer-designed logo of a man in a chef’s hat, winking.

Underneath the logo it says, “Jimbo’s.”

The place is called Jimbo’s.

And here’s Jimbo, all his features drawn in circles on the front of a window, for the city to see.

It’s terrible; I hate it.

And I can barely stand I’m so sick opening the door to go in.

A man somewhat resembling the logo works the register.

“You must be Jimbo,” I say, pointing to the logo on the storefront window. “You have the same circle face and everything.”

The man at the register wipes his hands on his apron and he nods.

“Yup,” he says.

He turns and gets the order from an oven behind him.

Paying, I say, “Wink for me man.”

The man behind the register winks.

I smile and nod.

He says, “Bingo, baby.” Then he winks again and says, “That’s Jimbo, baby.”

He wipes his hands off on his apron, smiling.

He hands me my order and I hold it and I don’t remember what it is.

“Alright,” I say, looking back and forth a few times from my order to the man at the register. “Bye, Jimbo baby.”

“Bye.”

At home I eat.

When done I take out my phone and dial.

Someone answers.

“Hello, Jimbo’s, how can I help you.”

I can barely breathe.

I say, “Jimbo baby—”

There is a pause.

“Yeah, what is it,” he says.

“Nothing man, what’s up with you.”

He says, “Who is this.”

It’s very hard to breathe.

“Jimbo, it’s me. Jimbo baby, it’s me. I was in before. Come on. Just — I’m calling to say, I really fucking appreciate the quality of the tomato you used in my sandwich.”

“Who is this.”

“Jimbo, baby, just, for real. Just listen. Most of the time when you get tomato from somewhere, it tastes like pencil erasers smashed together. Not yours though, Jimbo. Know, Jimbo baby?”

He clears his throat.

“Fuck that,” he says. “I’m Jimbo baby. Believe it.”

“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.