Sam Pink - The No Hellos Diet

“Theodore?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think he works Thursdays.”

“Shit,” she says.

Stepping outside, you find yourself thinking — They’re all over my face.

Unsure of what.

*

On the walk to the store the sidewalks are still a little icy from an unseasonable snowstorm.

You and your ex girlfriend walk just off the sidewalk on the dirt.

She’s a few feet behind you at all points except for crosswalks, where you watch opposite sides of traffic go opposite ways.

Talking about how when her mom still lived with them a long time ago, the mom always walked around naked and she had a huge bush between her legs.

“Like, it’s just full in the front when she’s wearing underwear too, and like, coming out the sides,” your ex girlfriend says. “Like a diaper. Like imagine a chicken-legged woman with no ass and just these old, saggy-ass underwear on. With a giant bush in the front holding the underwear up.”

“Shit,” you say. “I just imagined it and it made me dizzy.”

The only things you know about your ex girlfriend’s mom is what your ex girlfriend told you — that the mom made your ex girlfriend and her sister run around outside with garbage bags taped to them to lose weight when they were really young, and made them dress up and participate in beauty pageants, and that she also instilled in them (at a young age) the fear of getting raped by their dad, because when the mom was younger, she got kidnapped and gangraped in Mexico.

That’s all you’ve been told.

That and now the huge bush thing.

“Yeah a huge bush,” she says, catching up behind you. “She had really nice boobs though, I’ll give her that. She’d always call me into the bathroom to talk while she was in the bath and her boobs still looked really good. Why don’t you want to walk with me. Are you thinking about my mom’s boobs.”

You don’t say anything.

You’ve been just not answering people sometimes now.

This is becoming normal — you think. The highest freedom. To not say anything. To let it pass.

She says, “Why are you walking that fast, are you trying to ditch me.”

“I’m just walking normal. It’s how I always walk.”

“I want to hold hands though,” she says.

“I don’t want to hold hands.”

What you want is to walk into a giant bush of pubic hair and never return, to be taken in.

By the front entrance of the store, a homeless woman in a wheelchair asks for money.

She has a sweatshirt on with a sparkly American flag on the front and she’s wearing post-eyesurgery sunglasses.

There’s a golden retriever laying by her feet, smelling garbagey.

You give the woman a dollar.

“Two’d be better,” she says, still holding out her hand, looking up with her post-eyesurgery sunglasses.

“No problem,” you say, and give her another dollar. “Is two good. I have three more dollars but I was going to use them on my lunchbreak.”

“No, two’s good,” she says, putting the money into a fannypack. “Thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah honey, thanks.”

“Alright have a nice day,” you say, noticing yourself as an ugly face on her sunglasses.

She wheels herself towards the bus stop.

The golden retriever follows.

Inside the store, a couple of the other backroom employees are up front.

Sour Cream is there.

He says, “Hey hey, what’s going on what’s going on”—typing things into his laser gun.

You don’t say anything and neither does your ex girlfriend and everyone just stands there like assholes.

The store is loud.

A lot of people are shopping.

It creates a single sound.

Fluid leaks from your ear and you’re dizzy.

Goddamnit — you think.

Another employee walks up, dropping off his keys at the front.

He has an earpiece walkie talkie on.

He works in electronics.

“Fucking done,” he says, taking out the earpiece. He nods upward to your ex girlfriend then looks at you. He points at you, narrowing his eyes. “Oh hey,” he says, “Did you know Timothy — we were all talking about him before — backroom guy, started here in the summer same time as you?”

“No, I didn’t know Timothy,” you say.

“Oh,” he says, pushing up his glasses. “The guy who had all the seizures.”

Sour Cream laughs twice in a high pitch and says, “Oh yeah, that guy. We found him having a seizure in the electronics stockroom once, right. That bald-ass white dude.”

“Yeah,” says the electronics employee, gesturing, “Then he got moved to the overnight shift. Well, he died today.”

No one says anything.

You think about the punch combination George Foreman landed on Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Two punches in close succession.

Left right.

The electronics employee says, “Yeah he had another seizure and swallowed his tongue, so—” he looks at the earpiece in his hand, folding his lips inward a little.

You find yourself folding your lips inward too.

Seems like what you’re supposed to be doing.

No one says anything.

Hearts beat.

Blood does whatever it does.

Sour Cream says, “Shit,” to himself — typing in more numbers on the laser gun, beeping sounds. “Wait, he died here you mean? Like, in the store.”

The electronics employee looks up, his lips still folded inward. He raises his eyebrows and says, “What — no, somewhere else. Not in this store.”

Your ex girlfriend says, “Alright guys. I’m going to get some Kleenex then.”

You look at her and say, “Ok, go all the way down that side of the store, and they’ll be on your left, towards the corner.”

“Thanks,” she says.

“Yeah.”

She makes a very subtle motion forward with her face as if to kiss you and it’s almost undetectable but you see it and counter by moving backwards, keeping the same distance the whole time.

“You lose,” you say.

She looks at you like she’s telling herself something.

Then she walks away.

Sour Cream watches her. He says, “Man she’s fucking pretty, jo. You’re lucky. I bet her pussy smell good as hell.”

And you find yourself nodding, but also silently terrified you won’t be able to resist the urge to try swallowing your own tongue throughout work.

*

After punching in, you walk back to the stockroom.

You pass by the section of the store where there’s romance novels and magazines.

There’s one called “The Rebel.”

You stop and look at it.

On the front cover, there’s a guy wearing a tanktop and sunglasses.

He’s sitting on a ledge with his elbow on his knee.

The blurb at the bottom refers to the male character in the novel as ‘…scrumptious….’

Walking to the stockroom, you just want everything to be scrumptious from now on.

You don’t want to be brave, honorable, reliable, important, significant, likable, trustworthy, confident, or anything other than scrumptious.

*

In the stockroom, someone comes out of an aisle, rolling a garbage can in each hand.

“N’Hey man, hm, what’s up,” he says, monotone.

“Hey Theodore,” you say.

Theodore is the person who walks around the actual store area mopping things and cleaning things.

He pushes a large device that holds a lot of cleaning products and towels.

Theodore always has pink eye.

He’s short and on the back of his head there is a large growth.

It’s like a really big mole — flesh-colored and hairless.

The size of half a plum maybe.

You’ve wanted to bite it for so long.

Just once, to test the consistency.

Theodore.

He adds an “n” or “m” sound to a lot of words.