Sam Pink - The No Hellos Diet

And you think about yelling a yell that you don’t stop until it feels like you’re about to vomit from the scratching sensation in your throat and/or you pass out from exhaling.

Your shift is 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. tonight.

Not bad.

*

Take the Red Line train out of The Loop and get off at the Wilson stop, a block from where you work.

The Wilson stop has been voted the worst stop two years straight by the people who live in Chicago.

Worst of all the stops made by the eight different-colored train routes.

A news station holds a vote every year and the people voted the Wilson stop the worst, twice.

The reasons were: piss-smell, shit-smell, the homeless, and violence.

This winter will be the winter of shit, piss, and violence — you think, turning onto Broadway Ave.

In the back of a car stopped at a redlight, a small girl looks at you through the windshield.

You stare at each other as the car drives away.

Passing.

One long forward float.

You walk the last block, admitting to yourself that your life sometimes feels like a floating that’s no-fun.

Looking blankly out at a future.

Going into it.

Already happening a certain way.

An off-balance float.

People are entering the store through the front entrance, and some stand around out front trying to sell magazines or just asking for money.

You go to the loading alley of the store.

The stockroom entrance.

On the side of the store facing the Red Line train-tracks, there’s a big banner of the company’s logo.

The banner is composed of many smaller reflective pieces, so that when the Red Line train passes nearby on the bridge structure, the banner waves.

One of your co-workers is shaking off a dust broom underneath the reflective banner.

“Hey hey. What’s good, faggot,” he says.

You don’t say anything.

Walking up the loading ramp.

Going into the stockroom.

One day when you get to work, maybe you’ll be brave enough to just keep walking.

Maybe one day, you’ll just keep walking and see what happens.

Probably not though.

Either way, when you enter work today you’re comforted.

Thinking about the high schoolers from the orchestra on their bus-ride home, and the lives they’re living with each other.

It’s comforting.

*

On your first fifteen-minute break, you’re drawing on a papertowel in the breakroom.

The tv is on very loud, showing a remake of a movie about a giant gorilla.

A microwave dings behind you.

A woman named Chavon takes a plastic tray of food out of the microwave and sits down at a different table.

Half her head is braided.

The other half is puffy.

She’s been calling you “Texas Ranger” ever since you shaved your beard and left the moustache.

A few days ago she asked if she could be your “black sidekick.”

“What this shit, Texas,” she says, nodding towards the tv.

You look at the tv.

“It’s some gorilla shit,” you say.

“This some crazy-ass rainforest shit?” she says. “Ey. Ey, you think I cook this wrong.”

She holds up her plastic dinner tray, fingertips on the edges.

The plastic is shriveled.

“Yeah,” you say. “If the plastic gets hot enough to make that happen then it’s poisonous, I think. I don’t really know though.”

“Should be fine I bet,” she says, setting the tray on the table.

She reaches for a plastic bag by her feet and unscrews the lid to a gallon of orange juice.

She drinks some of the orange juice, tv screen reflected in her glasses.

“The fuck is this shit now,” she says, capping the orange juice. “You see this. Fuck is this. Damn. Look at those.”

In the movie, a man wakes up surrounded by huge, toothed worm-things.

“This some nonsense, damn,” Chavon says. “Fucking run! How come he ain’t run yet.”

You yell, “Run, idiot.”

The worm-things attack the man.

Every time a worm-thing jumps at him, he punches it on top of the head, yelling, “Yah.”

It happens many times in a row.

“Yah. Yah. Yah.”

You and Chavon start laughing.

Off-screen, another man screams.

The camera cuts to him.

There’s a huge bug on him.

It scares you.

“Oh shit,” Chavon says.

You look at Chavon and say, “Fuck, that scared me.”

“Hell yeah,” she says. She peels off the plastic cover on her dinner. Steam burns her. “Shit,” she says, shaking her hand. “Oh what that worm do to him. I miss it?”

You say, “Fucking worm went to bite him again.”

Chavon stands from her chair a little and yells, “Punch that motherfucker then!”

“Punch that motherfucker,” you yell, losing enthusiasm halfway through.

More people walk into the breakroom.

Chavon leans back in her chair and says, “Hey, any you all want the macaroni and cheese in this thing. They’idn’t have the one with the mashed potatoes like I like. I know it sound crazy, but I’on’t like no cheese. Fucking taste bad to me. Finna give it to someone at least.”

She’s holding the shriveled plastic tray up in the direction of the people who have just entered the breakroom.

One person says, “Nah Chavon. Thanks though.”

Another, “Yeah I don’t want it, thanks.”

Another, “No, thank you.”

Another is a skinny guy with his hair dyed blond and black, and a piercing through the middle of his nose and a tattoo covering his entire arm.

He shrugs and says, “If nobody wants it.”

Chavon hands him a paper plate with the macaroni and cheese on it.

He leans against the countertop by the sink, blowing on the plate.

Chavon says, “I’on’t know what it is, but I’on’t like no cheese. It be fucking irritating me.”

The guy gestures to Chavon with the food in his fingers and says, “Thanks. Thank you.”

“Oh, you welcome,” says Chavon. “Glad somebody wanted it.”

“Chavon you’re so polite,” you say.

During a commercial break there’s a commercial about an upcoming episode of a show where people live in a house together and get drunk and then argue and fight.

Chavon leans back in her chair. “Shit,” she says. She laughs, makes a clicking sound with her front teeth. “Give me a motherfucking show — I act a fool fo ya. I’on’t need no script neither.”

Another woman in the room laughs the word “Shit” in agreement. She has an extremely large ass and she’s wearing a bronze-colored weave. “Chavon, let me buy a cigarette off you,” she says. She’s eating a candy bar, and switches hands to lick her thumb. “Let me get two actually.” She waves at you with the hand of the thumb being licked, raising her eyebrows at the same time.

You say, “Hi Lawanda.”

“Heyyyy,” she says.

“How’s Greg Junior,” you say.

That’s her son’s name.

She told you a while ago.

“Did he like his birthday party,” you say.

“Oh G.J.?” she says, smiling. “He fine, he fine.” She’s holding out a dollar bill between her first and middle finger, waiting for Chavon. “Yeah, he good,” she says. “He always wanna be whining ‘bout when I leave. He say”—she poses and uses a whiny voice—“‘Don’t go mommy, don’t go.’”—then back to normal tone—“He miss his mommy that’s it.”

You nod and say, “Yeah.”

Chavon leans back in her chair, going into her pocket. “I’on’t need no script neither. Just give me the show and I act a fool. Shit. Fuck it.”

Lawanda says, “Chavon, you always acting a fool anyway. Talking ‘bout.”

Chavon makes a clicking sound with her front teeth.

She takes out a pack of cigarettes.

She says, “I’on’t need no script neither,” with her eyes open wide looking at the floor.