Sam Pink: Hurt Others

A couple years ago, I lived in a different apartment, part of the same building as the one I’m in now.

My roommate was someone I didn’t know and almost never saw.

He was from India.

The landlord set us up when I emailed her about needing another person to split the rent.

Our rooms were right across from each other.

Sometimes I’d open my door in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and he’d be standing by his door, looking out its slight crack.

Other than that, I lived a year with him and our only exchanges were brief smiles in the kitchen while we drank water.

I saw the inside of his room once.

He was gone and he had left his door open.

I didn’t go into his room but I did look.

There was just a sleeping bag on the floor and garbage all over.

The garbage made a steep pile in the corner of his room.

It looked exactly the same as my room.

Three days before the end of our lease, he walked up to me in the living room.

I was reading.

He told me he had just finished his PhD and that he wanted to buy me pizza to celebrate.

He kept saying, “Ahm — do you like beesa hot? Beesa hot?”

I knew he was saying Pizza Hut, but it also sounded like he was saying, “Bees are hot.”

I was worried that he’d turn around with a back covered in flaming bees and then point to them saying, “Bees are hot,” in his tiny voice.

Flaming bees would’ve been nice to look at I bet.

Maybe too scary though.

I said, “Yes, I like Pizza Hut.”

He ordered pizza and we ate it, sitting very still on the couch.

We only looked at each other once, to nod and smile.

We didn’t say anything.

I moved out the next day, into an apartment on a different floor in the same building.

This afternoon I took the Montrose Brown Line train to go find out about getting a Link Card.

A Link Card is foodstamps but on a thing that looks like a credit card.

Someone at work told me I’d probably qualify.

I went to the office and the employee gave me a form to fill out.

I took the form and sat down with it and started to fill it out but then saw a magazine that was left in the sitting area and on the cover there was a weird-looking kid and I decided I didn’t want to be there anymore so I threw the form out and left.

On the Brown Line back, the car I was in had four other people in it.

To my left in the opposite aisle facing the opposite way, a woman talked loudly into her cell phone.

In the middle of the car — sitting on the sideways seats — there was a young woman on one side and her two kids, a boy and girl, facing her from the other side.

The young woman was taking pictures of herself with her cell phone, trying to look attractive.

Her kids talked to each other.

I couldn’t hear them because the woman across the aisle to my left was loud on her cell phone.

“That’s wh’I’m saying,” she said. “I’ll fucking break the bitch’s face she keeps talking. Uh huh.”

Then she stopped to listen, tapping the window with her knuckle.

She said, “No that’s why he hits her pregnant ass — because she playing games.” Then her tone changed. More friendly. She said, “Oh man, last night Ricky was trying to get up on my ass while I’s sleeping. I passed out after smoking this blunt and he was trying to get some pussy and shit. I’s like, uh uh. Not when I’m all sleepy and shit, feeling crusty and sweaty and shit. He annoying as hell that bitch Ricky, and girl, yup, I’ma fuck his brother.” She listened. She laughed. “Ha ha, girl. Telling you this, I’ma fuck him.” She listened again for a little bit then laughed aggressively, slapping her leg and the back of the seat in front of her. She said, “Hell-ell-ell-ell no. What — what. No girl, I’m saying me and you we should get pregnant together so we can be pregnant together and shit. That’s wh’I’m saying. I want to do it with you, sto-pid. No, we always sisters and shit — she the one — what — no — she the one ain’t in the family. That bitch ain’t in my motherfucking family.”

The train took a curve, leaving the downtown area.

All the buildings were tall and black, lights on in random windows.

Below, the Chicago River had the same lights in the same spots.

All together, it looked like a really expensive toy.

We passed the building for the Chicago Sun Times newspaper.

We passed slowly, in a curve that maintained the Sun Times building at its center.

The lettering on the building was lit yellow, and said, “Chicago Sun Times” in the same font they used on the front page of the newspaper.

I heard the boy and girl talking.

The boy pointed at the Sun Times building and said, “Wow, I want to live there, in that building.”

His sister looked.

She said, “You’d be lonely” in a tone of warning.

He lowered his arm and swung his legs back and forth on the seat so his heels hit against the bottom of the seat.

“I’d have a party in there,” he said, looking at the ceiling of the train, smiling.

Their mom took another picture of herself, looking into her cell phone camera and tilting her head sideways a little.

“You’d be lonely,” the girl said again.

The boy said, “Party up, nahhhh!” and then threw out his hands and feet while still sitting in the seat.

Their mom made eye contact with me.

She was pretty.

Her nose looked like it’d been broken before.

She went back to taking pictures.

Across the aisle, the loud woman on the cell phone said, “Aw fuck no — that bitch sitting next to you right now? Right now?” A pause. “Ey, tell me.” She listened, making a fist and putting the fist against her mouth. “Oooh I hate that bitch for real. What. No, I’ll come out tonight. Yeah I’ma go home and come out later. Girl we should get pregnant together for real. But no, I’ll break her face, fucking with me. Bitch got me off my square. No fucking games with me. Girl, I spike the bitch. Suh-pike a bitch.” She laughed. Then she yelled, “Suh-pike a bitch in the a.m. or the p.m.”

She laughed.

She leaned forward, stomping her feet against the floor of the train.

The floor of the train was gray, from snow and dirt.

I stared at the color and wordlessly promised something to it.

I didn’t know what I was promising, but it immediately felt gone.

Everything I got I always immediately wanted to give away.

Terrible kinds of weight, terrible colors, terrible people, all terrible weights.

The kids were still staring out the window opposite, into the downtown area and its buildings.

The boy turned sideways and looked at his sister.

They looked at each other as best as they could with their winter coats and hats on.

He said, “How high can you jump.”

“Really high,” she said.

He said, “We should see who can jump higher.”

“Yeah but we can’t do that now,” she said. “Because of we’ll fall over because the train is so shaky.”

“Yeah the train is too shaky,” the boy said, realizing he hadn’t thought of that. Then he swung his legs and the heels of his boots hit against the bottom of his seat. He said, “We can do it when we get off the train. Do you want to do it then.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, we can do it then,” he said.

“Yeah.”

The boy started chewing his scarf.

“I’m going to beat you,” he said, smiling with the scarf between his teeth.

“No you’re not,” said the girl.

Their mom was taking my picture, holding the cell phone so as not to look like that’s what she was doing.