Sam Pink: The No Hellos Diet

It’s the end of summer in Uptown, Chicago.

You start working in the stockroom of a major department store.

The store hasn’t opened to the public yet.

When you go for orientation, there’s already a bullethole in the front window.

As you walk into the store, a manager and a custodian stand there looking at the bullethole.

The manager says, “Just — that can’t be there for too long.”

The store is one of only fourteen stores — out of 2000 in the country — to be labeled “Ultra-high risk.”

That’s what the security guard tells you in the office area, while you wait with a group of people for your appointment time.

“Yeah man,” he says, talking to you (the only one looking at him), “Since we’re right by fucking Blood Alley, we’ll get all kinds of assholes in here. Fucking Uptown. Just wait.”

Blood Alley is two blocks of alley in the area.

Where there are prostitutes, drugs, and violence.

You nod at the security guard.

Need to get some sex and drugs and a little violence too — you think, considering you can’t tell which order would be best.

Considering that almost every time period in your life looks really appealing a certain amount of time after it passes.

The security guard tells you that when the store was being built, the corporate headquarters sent down Human Resources representatives from Minnesota, and they parked their car in Blood Alley.

When they got out, a homeless guy walked up and said, “Welcome to Blood Alley” and then took his dick out of his pants and shook it at them.

“How did he shake it,” you say.

Someone else says, “Yeah like up and down, side to side, what.”

“Just waving his dick,” the security guard says, making a motion with his hand. He smiles. “The corporate employees fucking ran down the alley screaming and shit, be all scared.” He looks downward, touching his earpiece, “Ok. Yeah.” Then he looks up and says, “You all can go in now.”

You follow the group in, looking at the gun on the security guard’s belt.

Everyone sits around a conference table while a Human Resources employee talks.

You immediately have the urge to raise your hand and say, “Yeah when’s this going to be over I don’t want to be here.”

The Human Resources employee puts on a stockroom safety video then leaves the room.

In the video, past employees talk about safety.

They sit under dim lighting and describe how they got injured, and how they could have avoided it.

You sit quietly and listen, more and more unsure if you’re hearing scary music in the video.

You consider asking the woman next to you if she hears scary music.

Then reconsider.

Whatever she answers, it will be weird.

What will you say: “Oh ok, so I wasn’t just imagining that scary music, thanks” and then nod and turn back around.

In the video, this one employee talks about how she stood on a lower shelf and went to reach for something on a higher shelf, and then her wedding ring caught on the higher shelf and she fell off the lower shelf and it ripped her finger off.

She says, “I just thought I could get up and get it real quick. Just, real quick get up there and get it. Oh, but I learned. Never stand on the bottom shelf.”

She tells the story with her hands in her lap and then when she gets to the part where her finger rips off, she holds up the hand and shows what remains of her finger.

Looks like a baby carrot — you think.

You consider asking the woman next to you if she thinks it looks like a baby carrot.

Then reconsider.

Across the table, an effeminate man with a ponytail and large hoop earrings says, “Oh hell no, look at that thing. Jesus Mary and Joseph.”

When he notices you’re looking at him, you both smile.

The employee supervising the orientation comes back into the room.

She’s carrying a box of fruitsnacks and a package of juice boxes.

The tops of her breasts shake over the package of juice boxes.

Hot diggity — you think, unsure if it’s for the shaking breasts or the juice boxes.

Either way.

“Ok everybody, here you go,” she says in a whisper, passing around fruitsnacks and juice boxes.

Everyone says thanks, passing things to each other.

You’re sweating.

You want summer to be over.

It’s almost over.

It’ll never be over.

You eat fruitsnacks, thinking — I’m going to bring my hammer to Chicago.

Unsure of what it means.

In the video, another person talks about how he was attaching a bungee cord to something and it snapped back and hooked his eye out, shattering the bone around the eye too.

He says, “So, I go to hook up the cord up there and, woosh”—slaps his hands—“Right back at me.” He makes a hook with his finger and puts it near his eye. “Got right inside there.”

His glass eye drifts sideways.

He’s going to cry — you think. Maybe he cried right before the filming. Maybe right after. Either way, it’s hard to tell. He’s a good actor.

Other employees and stories follow.

Some narrated over video showing the safest way to do something.

For example: if a tv is on a high shelf, don’t try to pull it off and catch it.

Instead, get a ladder.

And don’t lean while high up on a ladder, or you might fall and hit the back of your head on the stockroom floor, resulting in severe braindamage, like what happened to this one guy in the video who can barely talk now.

And don’t reach into the box compactor because it could rip your arms off.

Don’t touch your eyes after handling an open box of detergent.

You nod, sitting at a conference table with other recent-hires.

You eat fruitsnacks and drink juice boxes together, silently aware that for as long as you all work there, you’ll remember each other as being trained the same day.

Another employee tells a story about breaking his back.

You find yourself worried.

Something bad is going to happen.

You’re going to get hurt.

Are you ready.

You can’t possibly be ready.

You will touch your eyes after handling an open box of detergent.

You’re going to get your finger ripped off or your eye messed up.

You’re going to get mangled.

Mangled death.

Hot diggity, mangled death — you think, absolutely sure of what it means.

Eating another fruitsnack, you stare at the wall just past the television.

A tiredness so tired it’s like being dirty.

Like dirt is floating from inside your body outwards out of the skin, up and out through the scalp.

Water is needed — you think. Sleep is needed. Sluts, guns, and drugs are needed.

The air conditioning activates in the conference room.

It calms you.

Almost cures every problem you’ll ever have.

Almost makes you realize that you have no problems, or that problems are a giant lottery of people winning and losing, adding and subtracting — and that everyone should give him or herself preferential treatment when engaging with others, who do the same, creating justice.

You swallow a fruitsnack, thinking — Justice.

Someone taps your arm.

You turn around to the person behind you.

He says, “Ey. What’s good, kid.”

He’s smiling.

He has small teeth, spaced widely in his gums, and small eyes, spaced widely on his head.

He has bad breath and so do you.

His is worse — you think. But it’s close. Too close.

“I’eard they finna get a food place in here too,” he says, still smiling. “F’sho.”

“Shit,” you whisper, smiling.

“Yeah, uh huh,” he says. Then he lowers his head and raises his eyebrows. “S’good on account of can’t be going to no Mack Donald’s erry day now.”