The news is on the breakroom tv.
Everyone gets quiet as a story comes on about a kid getting beaten to death at a high school yesterday.
They show a video someone shot on a cell phone and it shows the kid trying to stop a fight and then some people turn on him, and punch and kick him many times, until someone comes up from behind and kills him with a wood board to the back of the head.
“Oh my gut-ness,” says a woman at the table. “Is that little G.J.” She’s looking at a picture with the people on either side of her. “My gut-ness.”
She passes the picture to the person next to her.
It makes its way around the table, from woman to woman as they all start to talk at the same time, laughing and smiling.
“Yeah, he two now,” says the woman who started the passing of the picture.
The picture comes to you.
You take it from the sharp entanglement of one woman’s artificial fingernails.
It’s a picture of a young boy.
He’s like, a baby, and he’s wearing baggy jeans, a blue bandana, and big work boots, posed in confusion in front of a backdrop that’s supposed to look like a building with graffiti on it.
You smile at the picture and say, “Shit” and pass it around to a woman just sitting down. “You want to see this?”
She looks at the picture and snaps her fingers and says, “So so fresh.” Then she points downward and looks to the side away from everyone and says, “This right here — this a little hunter right here. Hm!”
Everybody laughs.
The woman who called him a hunter looks up at the people laughing, and says, “Ow k?”
And you’re laughing.
Which transitions to thinking about whether or not you’d be able to play a violin if you had one.
Maybe you’re an amazing violin player and you don’t even know yet.
For the last few minutes of break, you think about how it seems like you can already play the violin even though you’ve never held one.
Yeah, it could be.
Always having been this amazing without knowing it.
The women continue to talk.
You feel glad that this — and everything else — is happening.
But you’re also feeling a weight inside your body at a location triangulated using the backs of both eyes and a point inside the brain, and that weight is called: Nothing more to contribute.
A weight that never seems entirely retired.
So you want to try and start liking it.
You need a fucking violin.
After break, you’re in the loading area of the store, breaking down boxes with another stockroom employee, nicknamed Sour Cream.
You’re ripping boxes apart and stacking them in the compactor.
There are three big cages full of boxes for you to break down and compact.
“Shit jo,” Sour Cream says. “I feel like such a bitch. Like, I feel like, just such a soggy-ass bitch on the inside.”
“Awesome,” you say.
Then he starts telling you about how his uncle has done work for a drug cartel in Mexico.
He says his uncle pays people thirty-thousand dollars in cash to drive a truck from Chicago to the border of Mexico.
He says his brother was in jail for going to a guy’s house and knocking on the door and then just firing a shotgun into the house when the door opened.
Then he says, “So what’re you doing tonight, guerrito.”
“Probably just going to go home.”
“And how does that make you feel,” he says.
He says that sometimes after random shit.
You’ll be like, “It’s busy in the store today.”
And he’ll say, “And how does that make you feel.”
A cardboard box cuts a big cut on the side of your finger.
It bleeds dark blood.
“You know what I’m saying though,” he says, ripping a banana box into pieces, “like, just a little bitch deep down, guerro.”
“Yeah a soggy bitch,” you say. “You feel like a soggy bitch.”
“For real. Hey did you see that new trainee. He looks like a little bitch too, jo.”
“No man, no, you’re the bitch,” you say. “I’m going to hold you down while he fucks you and then I’m going to look you in the eyes as you’re getting fucked and I’m going to say, ‘You’re the soggiest bitch.’”
Sour Cream laughs really hard.
He walks away a few steps and leans his forehead on a shelf, as if the laughing is too powerful.
He rubs his eyes and claps once.
“Bogus ass, guerro,” he says, wiping his eyes.
Another stockroom employee walks up, carrying some broken-down boxes.
He’s friends with Sour Cream.
You look at him, but can’t remember his name.
The first name you think is “JuJu The Elder” but that doesn’t seem right.
Whenever they’re scheduled together they stay together the whole day.
“Aw, look at this bitch,” Sour Cream says, grabbing his friend by the shoulders. Then Sour Cream seems to remember something. “Oh wait man, hold on,” he says, holding the other employee in place by the shoulders. “Do the teeth thing, bitch. Like where you put your teeth together, all fucked-up-looking and shit. Do it man, show him. Show El Guerro your, your magic.”
They’re both looking at you.
You feel cornered.
You look at Sour Cream’s friend and say, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want. Think about it.”
“Come on bitch, do it,” Sour Cream says. Then he looks at you and says, “This pussy got some diced-ass teeth man, no joke.”
The other employee bends over laughing, and covers his mouth with his hand.
He’s acting like a seven-year-old girl.
It’s really dramatic.
It’s really embarrassing.
And how does that make you feel.
“Come on, fucking bitch,” Sour Cream says, hitting the other employee’s arm. “Why you always such a faggot, jo. Fucking do it.”
The other employee is still laughing, covering his mouth with his hand.
Then he calms himself and puts his teeth down together, keeping his lips apart so you can fully see the teeth.
His teeth don’t line up correctly.
And he’s barely able to keep from laughing as he’s showing you.
His nostrils twitch open and close and then he starts laughing.
Him and Sour Cream hit each other back and forth.
You say, “Wow those are fucked-up teeth.”
Sour Cream looks at you, with his thumb gesturing towards the other employee. “Shit is so fucked-up right man,” he says, eyes open wide. “Freaky as hell. Fucking freak-teeth, thass what it is. Oh shit. Thass it. Nigga got some freak-teeth.” He laughs loudly at a high pitch and says, “Oh shit, freak teeth.”
“Aw shit,” says Freak Teeth, boxing Sour Cream’s arm.
Sour Cream says, “First time I saw them I’s like, ‘Shit is freaky.’ Like a goblin or something, you know.”
“Freak teeth!” yells Freak Teeth, with his hand up to his mouth like he’s calling out to someone.
They both laugh.
You’re smiling.
Like a goblin.
And for some reason you think about a cardboard cut-out of Sugar Ray Leonard, on fire. And flaming cardboard Sugar Ray Leonard yells, “Freak teeth.”
Sour Cream laughs another high pitched laugh.
He says, “Got those freak teeth from all that dick in your mouth, little bitch. Eating all that dick up like some salad.”
“Your dad’s dick, maricon,” says Freak Teeth, stepping back and guarding his body with his hands.
They’re both laughing.
“Wait, why are you sucking his dad’s dick,” you say to Freak Teeth.
But they’re both laughing and not paying attention.
They hit each other a little more before walking on towards some other work.
As they walk away, you put your hand up to your mouth and yell, “Freak Teeth!”