Sam Pink - The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home

MAN: I’m confused and scared [holding up the gift] Thanks for the calculator though [reads front of the package] “With both addition and subtraction features.”

WOMAN: Look how happy that boy on the front is, doing his homework.

MAN: I see. Thank you.

WOMAN: [toneless] You’re welcome, Arnold. You’re welcome. Do you want to come home with me and play a board game or some cards with me? We don’t have to go to bed. There’s a wonderful board game where you get to be a little mouse. Sometimes I get angry playing the games but sometimes they make me smile and cry but I only cry once I get back to my room. Everything is leaving you once you are born. There’s a wonderful board game where you get to be a little mouse. But you’re lost. Will you help the little mouse out, Arnold? We can do it together and help the little mouse out. He’s nice I’m sure. Do I look pretty today, Arnold? — do I? Do you want to sleep in my bed with me [coughs] You know, only a certain amount of people get into Heaven. They do. Every time you do something, you have to ask, ‘Will this get me into Heaven? Will it?’ There has to be a loser.

MAN: [smiling] There is too much garbage in Heaven for God to want more. There’s too much garbage [types some numbers on the calculator] Twelve multiplied by eight is ninety-six.

More wind. Metal sounds of shopping carts drifting.

WOMAN: Can I have a hug?

MAN: [still typing on calculator] Can I just let you hug me or do I have to put my arms around you too?

The hug happens. The man, arms down.

MAN: That was one of my finer, more emotionally-convincing hugs I think [looking out window] I don’t know why I got in here with you [to himself] This will never stop. This happens all the time.

He watches the shopping cart through his window. He is staring. The woman reaches into her pocket and takes out a switchblade. She grabs his hair with one hand and with the other hand she cuts his neck open, sawing deep.

MAN: [bleeding into lap, where both his hands are palms up] Why did I get in the car?

He looks at the clock.

WOMAN: [wiping knife off on her shirt] You are calculating the hours remaining before you will get tired and go to bed.

The man turns from the clock to her.

WOMAN: [puts knife up to his face] And you regret even calculating because you know any answer will upset you. Tag.

They wait to be buried in snow.

Daytime. Three men drive down a road that threads a forest preserve. The man in the passenger’s seat is loading a shotgun. His neck is cut deep, bleeding pumps he sighs out in slow intervals onto his lap. He is very weak. The windows are all open.

THE DRIVER: [scratching sideburn] I am thinking something.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: [rocking back and forth] Hold on, stop talking. I can’t remember what my mom looks like [panicked] It’s difficult to do for some reason and I’m getting scared [stops rocking] I keep trying to remember. I can’t do it. It’s impossible [then louder] It’s impossible.

The man with the slit-throat pumps a cartridge into place. He looks at his hands. They are pale. He wheezes something that he thinks probably isn’t a word but should be.

THE MAN WITH THE SLIT-THROAT: [sitting up weakly, keeping chin down] God bless America. I really mean that.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: [composed] Ok, I remembered what she looks like [to the driver] I believe you were thinking something. Sorry I interrupted like that. It helped though. Fuck, that was weird. What were you thinking? Come on. Tell us.

THE MAN WITH THE SLIT-THROAT: [quietly] Yeah. Tell us.

THE DRIVER: Yeah, can I say it now? After I think things, I have to say them.

The man with the slit-throat positions the gun in his mouth. He secures it with his legs. Then he flicks fuzz off his pants.

THE DRIVER: [looking at the man with the slit-throat] Hey, you’ll ruin your appetite for dinner mister [stops] I don’t know why I said that [looking into the rearview mirror] Anyway, what I was thinking before was that Santa Claus is probably the invention of a pedophile [looking forward again] Think about it. It’s a perfect way to keep a kid quiet about breaking into his or her room and then assaulting them. Also, the whole milk and cookies thing is genius right — I’m always hungry after a sexual assault [pauses] and for one.

They all laugh.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: [rubs chin] This explains why I always got bruised wrists for Christmas.

The man with the slit-throat mumbles something. The gun in his mouth holds him up, neck open in wet flaps. Blood pumps onto his limp hands, both lapped.

THE DRIVER: Hey [pauses] Quit being rude [laughing]

They all laugh. The man with the slit-throat takes the gun out of his mouth. He wipes his mouth. Then he looks out the window, chin down to clamp the slit-throat together. He is weak.

THE MAN WITH THE SLIT-THROAT: [quietly] Sorry. I was saying that that explains why I always got a face scraped up by beard hair and a neck covered in bite marks.

THE DRIVER: Yes, and that explains why I always got nothing because I was an unattractive child.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: I got my mom a sore neck for Christmas last year but it was the wrong size. I don’t respect anyone else’s life. That is my main problem. That and never really knowing whether or not other people like me, or if I like them. I am very angry. Believe that I am very angry [looks out window] There is no one thing that is important. And I am very angry.

They drive. Climbing a slight hill, the sun blinks in rapid clips, trees blacking out strobes. All three squint against the machine-gunning of the sun.

THE DRIVER: [squinting through the window] I was also thinking something else, you know, before you interrupted me [bites nails] I was thinking the sky is the big breath that everyone ever made has breathed. Does that make sense to anyone else right now?

The man with the slit-throat puts the gun back into his mouth and pushes it in deep. He pulls the trigger and his head explodes, flapping open with wet heat. The other two grimace from ringing ears, and they taste burn in their mouths.

THE DRIVER: [takes a few looks at the exploded head] His head looks like orange peels.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: Huh? [blinking to restrain watering eyes, hands over ears] My fucking ears are bleeding. I can’t hear you.

THE DRIVER: [eyes in rearview] I was just saying his head looks like orange peels — that’s how I would describe it.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: [examines exploded head] Yes, in one sense, but not in terms of the smell. I don’t like oranges — they’re too much work to peel. It’s not worth it [insistent] I hate when you have to do things to make other things happen. Like, for instance, as stated, peeling an orange.

THE DRIVER: [sniffs] Looks like he had an easy time.

They both laugh and the driver taps the steering wheel.

THE DRIVER: [to himself] I do really like oranges though.

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: [not listening, still laughing lightly] Shit. You were always the funny one. How do you come up with that stuff? Seriously.

THE DRIVER: [adjusts himself in seat, excited] I don’t know man, it just comes to me. I swear. I swear it’s just out of nowhere. I remember this one time I was at the supermarket and I was walking down the aisle and I almost ran into this lady — so we kept sidestepping in the same direction. Want to know what I said? Do you want to know?

THE MAN FROM THE BACKSEAT: [wiping some blood off his face onto the car seat] You know I do, big-guy.

The driver pushes the body in the passenger seat, so the wound hangs out the window. The wound sprays the backseat through the open windows.