Sam Pink - The No Hellos Diet

You and the dad never really got along.

One time, you and your ex girlfriend had an argument and she tried to kill herself with a razor and you grabbed her arms and took the razor away from her after she made a few cuts and later her dad threatened to kill you after he heard her crying and wouldn’t listen to why.

One night you got really drunk and woke up in the middle of the night, openly pissing on a couch upstairs.

Woke to your girlfriend behind you, saying, “Are you fucking pissing on the couch.”

You find yourself remembering all this with the understanding that the sound of her scratching her breasts is the sound of the thoughts rowing past.

She leaves the room.

On the videotape, there’s a commercial about something that gets rid of sinus germs.

The germs are personified blob-things living inside someone’s sinuses.

One of the germs walks into its germ house, takes off its outdated stereotypical hat and coat and yells, “Come on in, everybody!”—then the germ’s whole family comes in and crowds the sinuses, partying.

And even though the commercial is trying to make you hate the germs, it’s confusing.

Because you understand that the germs just want to live.

No one really seems at fault.

It’s like, what are you then, the germ inside this apartment’s sinuses.

Are you to blame too.

It’s confusing.

Your ex girlfriend returns, eating a peanut butter sandwich on a single endpiece of stale wheatbread folded in half.

Where did she find bread — you think.

She says, “Hey, so guess what, it’s almost sss — ahhhhk—” she chokes on the dry peanut butter and makes a cartoonish face with her eyes open wide. “Fuck,” she says, pulling at the skin on her neck. “Holy shit.” She swallows intensely a few times and then looks relieved. “Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” you say. “Can I rub my dick on your chest for a little bit.”

She lies down next to you.

Her cold feet touch your legs.

It startles you.

She says, “No I want to jerk you off and watch it go on me.”

She looks at the sandwich and licks an edge a little to smooth out the excess peanut butter.

“Your breath smells bad,” you say.

“Yours does too.”

“Thanks for telling me,” you say. “I’m going to do my best to fix it now that I know.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You know on those medicine commercials where like, they show the germs as living things with voices and personalities.”

“Yeah.”

“It’d be insane if that was how it actually was. Like you feel your sinuses get clogged and then you hear a weird voice and people start partying inside your face and all over your body and they won’t leave.”

She’s looking at you, chewing the sandwich. “It wouldn’t be too bad,” she says.

And you notice yourself as a blur of white light on her pupil.

“Actually yeah you’re right because it’d just be normal,” you say.

There’s one bite of the sandwich left when she offers it.

She holds out the last bite and raises her eyebrows and says, “Hm?”

You take the last bite.

Thinking about how right now you’re in the prime of your life in terms of arm and chesthair.

No this is your prime, overall.

Your ex girlfriend still comes over once in a while, but mostly you’re alone.

Prime.

You don’t have a relationship.

Prime.

You’re just people who need a small amount of company to periodically recharge from being alone.

To stay prime.

Just people who don’t want to meet new people.

Prime.

Having sex to remind yourselves you’re young and capable.

To stay prime.

That’s pretty much all there is.

Recharging.

More and more though, you’re getting used to not needing any recharge.

Slowly reversing that need.

Viewing yourself selfishly, as something that needs no help.

Priming yourself.

*

Next morning you wake up to a lot of crust and fluid in your left ear.

You’ve had an ear infection on and off for the last month after getting water in your ear while showering.

And for the last week or two, brown fluid leaks out at night.

And you use twisted-up toilet paper to absorb the brown fluid.

Smells a little bit bad, like a burnt match.

And the color is getting redder.

The company you work for won’t provide health insurance until you’ve worked there a certain amount of hours, which won’t be until the end of summer, because of how they cut your hours sometimes.

So this morning, when you trade spots in the shower with your ex girlfriend, you borrow her phone and call a clinic to find out what can be done.

You have a towel wrapped around your head to dry your hair without it dripping into your ears.

You’re eating string cheese.

The secretary asks a lot of questions.

You answer them.

Then you say, “I’m eating string cheese right now. Do you need to know that.”

She says no.

You say, “I have a towel wrapped around my head like a girl. Do you need to know that.”

She says no.

“But it’s kind of fun to imagine right,” you say.

She says yes.

After hanging up, you immediately miss her.

This morning you’re awake a few hours before work.

You decide to go downtown to The Loop.

The Loop is the most downtown area of Chicago, where the subway trains all converge and make a loop at a few stops and then go out different directions.

In The Loop there are stores, offices, some universities, television/radio stations, museums, libraries, expensive condos, businesses and people.

You leave your apartment, walk towards the Brown Line train.

You stop at the 7-11 down the block.

You walk around the store and eventually grab a stick of taffy and bring it to the register.

The guy at the register is very old.

He has red eyes and big crooked teeth.

He gestures at the taffy, and in a tone of true disappointment, he says, “Dude — Vy you not get ‘Mega Stick’—is two times size, and only tutty-tree cents more, man. Come on, man. Is simple.”

He points at where the ‘Mega Stick’ size taffy is, in front of the register.

It’s a neon-colored package with a small monster — eyes coming out of its skull — looking at the words “MEGA STICK” printed across the front.

You say, “Oh, shit man, thanks”—like he’s just stopped you from accidentally eating a razor. “Thanks. I’ll go with the Mega Stick then.”

You pay for the taffy, staring at the counter.

Remember, never eat a razor — you think.

The man at the register looks at your coat as he hands you the receipt.

“Shit’s reversible,” you say, showing him the inside pattern. “I bought it at a garage-sale like, fifteen years ago. It was only six dollars. Six dollars, that’s unbelievable isn’t it. That’s like, three dollars per coat, times however many years, so it’s like a dime a year I spend on having a coat.”

He nods, looking at your coat. “Is a nice,” he says. Then presses some buttons on the register and coughs into his hand. He refocuses his watery eyes on you. “Dude, is a icy out.”

“Some blocks, yeah.”

He says, “I saw a man, vuz broke his arm.” He grabs one arm with the other and makes a face.

“Man,” you say.

Man, I like this guy — you think.

“Ok — tenk you, sir,” he says, sniffing once then wiping his wrist across his nose.

He looks to his side and starts yelling in a different language, at someone who’s behind the door of the employee area.

You leave the 7-11 and walk towards the Brown Line train at Montrose.