Sam Pink - Hurt Others

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.

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.