Sam Pink - The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home

QNNQR stares blankly. He looks down the alley in the direction of the parking lot. He vaguely offers the cigarette pack to KWWKQ, divided between appearing uncomfortable and appearing to care.

KWWKQ: He had glasses and black hair combed like, straight down — remember him? Really big eyebrows? [moving on] He’s gone too [toneless, slow] They are all going to be gone.

QNNQR: [offers cigarette pack] He’s gone?

KWWKQ: Yeah he’s in jail now [each word equally] For life. He will die in a small concrete room [takes cigarette] That makes me want to laugh, but for some reason I can’t actually do it. I can’t laugh right now [lights cigarette] I thought I was going to but I can’t. Fuck. I’m going to keep trying I think.

QNNQR exhales slowly and kicks a stone into a puddle. He looks up at the head of the inflatable gorilla.

KWWKQ: He fucking beat some kid to death. TYYTE did. He was at the park just walking around and some kids yelled at him. Remember, he walked kind of weird? Remember that?

QNNQR: [crunching rocks with shoe] Yeah I do. Like a duck.

KWWKQ: You remember like a duck?

QNNQR: [looks at KWWKQ] No, I remember he walked like a duck. Unless, do ducks remember the same way as we do or what? Sorry man, I’m trying not to look at the gorilla. It’s fucking scary for some reason.

KWWKQ: Yeah [looks at half cigarette, then tosses it into the puddle by his feet, a hiss] he was walking through the park, and there was a group of kids there. He walked through their game of Frisbee or whatever and one of the kids yelled something at him. TYYTE kept walking and then the kid threw the Frisbee at him. The Frisbee hit TYYTE in the head and — I guess — he just turned and ran at the kid. And beat him to death in front of his friends. Just knocked him out and then started slamming his head against a bench. The kid’s friends didn’t do anything. They were probably shocked or whatever. They probably felt weak and stupid. I guess. I guess they felt weak and stupid. They watched TYYTE pounding this kid’s head into the bench until he died. I heard from one of the kid’s friends that when TYYTE was beating the kid, that the kid’s head actually like, cracked open and they could see his fucking brain. They could see his fucking brain I guess. They didn’t put that in the paper, the part about the brains coming out of the broken skull. And then, TYYTE just sat there until the police came. He didn’t do anything. He just sat there. He had on a Ghostbusters shirt, and there was blood all over it. I read that in the paper. And he just sat on the bench, the kid’s dead body right near his feet. He just put his bloody hands at his sides and waited for the police. And that was that [pause] I bet TYYTE held in a lot of piss too.

A lot. There is a lot of piss. There is an amount that is bigger than the earth inside the earth. There is an amount that is bigger than a human inside each human.

He takes another cigarette when offered. As he lights it he realizes he has lit the filter. Tosses it to the ground. Both men are quiet for awhile. They watch cars pass by on the street across from the alley. Too fast to make out faces. QNNQR looks at the inflatable gorilla again.

QNNQR: [toneless] Beating flesh.

KWWKQ: [still watching cars] Even though TYYTE is a murderer, I think he was my friend. I consider him my friend. I remember he helped me clean up my piss after school once. I would wait until everyone left the classroom at the end of the day to put up my seat because there was always piss pooled on my seat. And I didn’t want people to see it run off onto the floor. So I’d wait until everyone left the room. Then like, TYYTE stayed after to try to catch a bee that was in the room, I think. When he saw my piss falling off the table he cleaned it up with his backpack and left quickly. Then he kept helping me. Every day. Every day he would help me. So I had him over once because I felt bad for him. It was awkward at first. He didn’t say anything. I kept calling him retarded. I kept punching him in the temple and calling him retarded. He just kept staring at me. Then he started calling me retarded [taps toe in puddle] We were drinking juice boxes in the basement and he saw the glass cages I had on the counter. I had like two or three glass cages on the counter in the basement where I’d keep spiders that I’d caught. I’d catch spiders and put them in, and they’d make webs — it was nice to watch — that’s why I did it. And I liked to come home to the spiders because I knew something was waiting for me. It was nice to talk to someone after pissing in my pants every day. Staring at the teacher with a hard dick, pissing on myself [shakes head] I didn’t like that.

A car drives by, in slow bumps through the alley. QNNQR tries to look through the windshield but the windshield is black and he can’t see the driver. He returns to staring at the gorilla.

QNNQR: I don’t know what’s going on.

KWWKQ: [watching car drive away] I loved the spiders. After they’d build their webs, I’d grab like an ant or some other bug from the basement floor and toss it into the web. Then I’d rescue it right before it was going to be killed and let it go.

QNNQR: [puts hands in coat pockets] You are so considerate. You are the ant savior.

KWWKQ: Helping them made me excited. The excitement made me want to hurt myself [pauses] I used to breed the spiders too. I would put a bunch of spiders together and they made more. That felt good to me. When TYYTE was over he kept staring at the cages. He got all excited. Started asking questions. I got tired of answering his questions, so I decided to show him the bee-trick. He liked bees.

QNNQR: The bee-trick?

KWWKQ nods his head and spits into the puddle by his feet, taps the puddle with a toe. The white spit moves to the center of the puddle and floats.

KWWKQ: Fuck [wipes spit off mouth with sleeve] Yeah, the bee-trick — you know? — if you catch a bee and put it in the freezer? — you don’t know this?

QNNQR is staring at the spit in the puddle. He taps the formative ice fringe on the puddle and breaks it down.

QNNQR: No. I don’t know it.

KWWKQ: If you catch a bee and then put it in the freezer, it gets paralyzed and kind of dies — but you can tie a little string around it while it’s paralyzed and then when it thaws out you can walk around with it like a kite.

QNNQR: I am thinking you were a sad child.

KWWKQ: [ignores] When I told TYYTE about it he asked me to show him. I fucking had to show him. We caught a bee and put it in the freezer. He kept asking me, ‘Are you sure it’s not gonna die? Are you sure it’s not gonna die?’ He looked really worried. It was weird. I told him that this was how we controlled everything that God made. I told him to pay attention. So we eventually get the string on the bee and TYYTE is standing over it on the counter. He had his face like an inch away from it. Then he yells, ‘It’s moving, it’s moving.’ Starts laughing and pinching his crotch. We went outside and walked around with the bee until it died like, an hour later. A kite is something you can’t really control. That was the only time I ever saw TYYTE smile. What an asshole. Just walking around the backyard holding a string with a bee on the end of it. I resent everyone. Sharing memories is the worst way to live. Sharing memories with someone else is terrible. Sharing memories is a kite. My entire life. Fuck everything that I can see and even the things that have yet to become. People are disappearing from my life. And they don’t announce it. Not sharing memories with someone else is the only way to lose them.

They are silent. They stare at the gorilla. The air is late afternoon blue. They walk across the street, one after the other, to KWWKQ’s truck.