Sam Pink - Hurt Others

And then that somehow transitions into thinking about holding your lips open and exposing your teeth for someone to throw darts at (why not).

You’re careful not to make a face so she doesn’t ask you what you’re thinking.

Outside there are a few loud booms, then squealing tires.

Your girlfriend looks at you.

“Were those gunshots,” she says, holding a plastic holder halfway down.

“Yeah, I think so,” you say.

She slowly flips down more holders.

You yawn and say, “Hey did you eat the rest of the peanut butter I bought.”

She flips down more holders. “Uh huh.”

“So it’s not on the counter anymore. I just don’t want to be surprised in the morning.”

“No, it’s gone,” she says. “It’s all gone.” Then she yells, “It’s all gone.”

Someone pounds on the ceiling.

“All gone,” you say, looking at the board and scratching your chesthair.

It’s your turn.

It’s your turn to crush her with a casually-stated question that completely characterizes the reality of her person, putting you one guess (not even a guess) away from finishing her forever.

Think hard, says Jeffrey. You can do this.

Rows of little cartoon faces look back at you.

Your head feels swollen, stretching slowly in different directions without any direction.

Tomorrow when you move out, you’ll continue to stretch in different directions.

You see yourself in a field with your hands on your head, eyes-closed, spinning around, saying, “I’m finished! I’m finished!”

Your girlfriend is looking at her board.

You decide to lie next time she asks something.

Because you want to win.

Want to make her feel bad.

Want to win and piss on her spirit.

Yes.

You can do this.

Believe in yourself.

There’s nothing left to lose.

Your peanut butter is gone.

“Does your person have — a weird head,” you say. “No like, a falcon-head.”

She looks at the board for a little bit.

“I don’t know,” she says. “They all have weird heads. They’re drawings.” She grabs one of her breasts and says, “Hell-oh” shaking the breast to the syllables.

She is very pale and her nipples are orange/pink.

You keep playing the game.

Neither of you tries to win.

Because when someone wins, it’s over.

Outside a plane passes.

Nearing to land.

You imagine the sound of the plane nearing to land as the falling of a bomb.

Just, a huge bomb of no-fun.

You’re standing in an empty field and a bomb that has “No-fun” painted on it lands on your head, detonating.

It happens to the sound of the plane nearing to land.

And it feels good to admit it.

Always feels good to admit it.

No close relationships of any kind.

And no satisfying goals.

Good to admit it.

Like it all makes sense.

Like everything always makes sense in some way, and you either see it or you don’t.

Right now someone is guessing who you are, and you are the one who has guessed.

And it makes sense no matter how you think about it.

“It’s still your turn,” she says. Then she raises both her arms and says, “We playing or what.”

You let the bomb of no-fun detonate over you.

Asking questions that have already been asked.

Asking unanswerable questions.

“Is your person diabetic.”

“Does your person look suicidal.”

“Does your person wish he or she had a fucking dartboard.”

“Does your person maybe have a falcon-head.”

She adjusts her tepee, checking her person. “No, my person looks more like a Croatian hockey player with lung cancer.”

“Ok, what about a shaved asshole, does your person have a shaved asshole,” you say.

No one wins.

Both boards go back in her purse.

You start the shower.

You stand naked in the bedroom waiting for the shower water to warm up.

You lightly pinch her nipple and say, “Beep-beep.”

She lightly pinches your dick and says, “Honk-honk.”

She gets into the shower, then you do.

Taking turns standing beneath the warm water.

You think about how showering with someone else is another thing that’s no-fun.

The bomb is falling on you.

You think about how maybe you just need to get a dog.

You see yourself hunched over the dog, to protect it from the bomb of no-fun.

You exit the shower before her.

In your room you dress in your work clothes.

Because that’s all you have there still.

And because it’s better to eventually fall asleep in your work clothes so you can wake up later the next day.

Sitting in the bedroom, you feel acutely dispirited and tired.

Listening to her shower.

Youth.

How have you lasted.

The best days put together wouldn’t even amount to a week.

Your girlfriend comes back into the room, drying her chest off with a t-shirt you keep in the bathroom when there’re no towels.

The t-shirt is yellow and says “Antigua” on it and people always ask how you liked Antigua but you always have to say, “I haven’t been there.”

“Are you hungry,” she says, pinching her nose clear of some water.

“Yeah.”

“Want to go and maybe get some food.”

“Yeah fine.”

“Are you all right.”

“I’m fine,” you say.

Then there’s silence for a while.

Where it becomes clear the silence always says it better.

She says, “Oh, you got your work clothes on again. Ha, nice.”

You look at your shirt and touch your nametag. “Ha, yeah.”

You leave the room together.

You look back into the apartment for some reason while shutting and locking the door.

Maybe it will be completely filled with bricks when we get back and we won’t be able to get back in — you think.

In the back stairway to the alley, there’s a single piece of bread in an individual package.

The bread is moldy.

A single piece of moldy bread in a plastic package, lying on the staircase.

“Is that just one piece of fucking bread,” your girlfriend says, jumping down the last few stairs.

You say, “Yeah I think so. I’ve never seen that.”

She says, “Jump the rest of the stairs. Let’s see that.”

There are seven stairs left.

“I’ll do four,” you say.

“Five.”

“I’ll do four.”

“That one time you did seven, but then you’ve never tried seven again.”

“I can’t do seven ever again.”

“Is it because it was too amazing.”

“Yes. No it’s because of the broken ankle I got later on, trying a different jump.”

You walk down three steps and successfully jump the last four.

Outside, it’s snowing a little.

And farther away, there’s thunder and lightning.

About once a year Chicago gets a lightning/snow-storm.

You like it.

It reminds you you’re young and still have a lot of time to waste.

A few blocks away you get chicken from a fastfood place.

After the fastfood employee gives you the order, she follows you and your girlfriend outside, lighting a cigarette on the way out.

You watch the weather with each other, just outside the restaurant.

Thunder and fog-dulled lightning.

After some thunder, the fastfood employee exhales smoke and says, “The fuck kind of crazy-ass weather is this we be having.”

“It’s crazy,” you say. “It’s fucking crazy is what it is.”

The fastfood employee laughs. “Ok?”

Your girlfriend is looking in the bag.

“Really hope there’s napkins in here,” she says. “Oh what — no napkins? Wait, oh, here we go.” She looks up. “There’s napkins.”

The fastfood employee nods and says, “Mmm hmm” as she takes a pull of the cigarette. She breathes in and exhales slowly. “I put plenty of napkins in there now,” she says. “People always ‘bout them napkins. S’all I hear in this motherfucker, napkins, napkins. More napkins.”