Sam Pink - The No Hellos Diet

Then you throw the balled-up wrapper against the wall as hard you can from a seated position.

You do push-ups.

On your last fifteen-minute break today you go out front of the store and sit on a concrete ledge by the bus stop.

The stockroom is at least fifteen degrees warmer than the rest of the store, and you’ve been sweating all day.

It’s been really hot for a while but tonight it’s supposed to cool down again.

A man in some kind of plastic wheelchair device rolls himself up to the bus stop.

He brakes near the ledge and starts talking to you.

You can’t understand what he’s saying.

It’s like he can’t think of words, or how to say them.

He’s just sitting in an unstable wheelchair, mumbling.

You stand from the ledge to get closer.

There are bad dandruff things in his hair.

He keeps talking but you can’t understand what he’s saying.

Eventually, it’s agreed that what he’s asking is for you to go into the store and buy him one gallon of milk and three bananas.

You just guessed.

You know that’s not what he’s saying, but every time you say, “So, a gallon of milk and three bananas”—he nods his head yes.

His body odor smells like burnt motor-oil, and he holds out some money to you with a shaking hand, fingernails cracked.

You spend the rest of break buying him a gallon of milk and three bananas.

You bring him the gallon of milk and the three bananas and put it all in his lap.

He mumbles something you can’t understand.

“My break is over,” you say. “I have to go back.”

You return to work.

*

An hour later when you check for carts out front, the same man is still there.

He’s on the ground now, gripping the plastic wheelchair device and trying to get back up into the seat.

The bananas and milk are on the sidewalk.

Two women at the bus stop make concerned looks and gestures, pointing.

They stand there watching.

You look at the man and say, “Hey man, do you need help.”

He just keeps mumbling.

Keeps trying to stand but his legs look all numb and useless and his arms shake when he grips the armrests, trying to climb back in.

Keeps falling.

You grab him by the armpits and lift him.

It’s difficult.

He’s very heavy and the plastic wheelchair is unstable.

He’s saying something to you the whole time you’re lifting him, but you can’t understand him.

His body odor is strong and you keep your face away from the bad dandruff things in his hair, afraid they’ll get on your lips.

You lower the man back into his plastic wheelchair then wheel him over by the garbage cans where he’s pointing and grunting.

You leave him there and walk back towards work feeling strangely bothered.

But this is freedom — you think.

The milk and the bananas are still on the ground.

You leave them there.

It’s cooling down fast outside and there seems to be another sheen of light over the already existing light of the city.

When you try to focus on it you fail.

A planes flies past, nearing to land.

Fuck you — you think.

There are no carts out front.

You go back into the store and continue working.

*

When your shift is done, you exit through the front of the store.

The man in the plastic wheelchair is gone.

The milk and bananas are gone.

It’s around one a.m.

You walk home.

The sidewalks are quiet.

Besides you, the only thing moving is wind.

Fuck you, wind — you think.

Then you think about how even if you walked all night, the edge of the city would still just be an unaccomplished distance.

Only the dark would eventually escape.

Only the dark, having shown itself, would then retire.

And you wish that same opportunity was yours.

That same chance.

Back inside your apartment, you kneel in the doorway to untie your boots.

Your hands smell like body odor from lifting the man up by the armpits.

You make guns with each hand then point them at the wall, doing gun-sounds with your mouth.

It’s your twenty-eighth birthday.