This will be a good memory — you think. Can’t wait to remember it.
You put the bed directly on the floor in your room.
No frame, no boxspring.
The second or third night after buying it, you wake up to the sound of two people fighting in the alley across the street.
The sound of feet scratching against ice and alley rocks.
The sound of some yelling.
Then hitting sounds.
Then someone saying, “Stop stop stop, ahh — ahh.”
Then quiet.
You lie there on the “Kiiiiiiddddzzzzz” bed, listening.
People.
Places.
Things.
Kiiiiiddddzzzz.
Happy New Year.
February 2011
There’s this other guy who works in the stockroom and everyone calls him “Sour Cream.”
Because one time he got stopped by a customer in the store and when asked for the location of sour cream, he just panicked and said, “Sour cream sour cream sour cream” repeatedly into the walkie talkie.
You became friends when you were both in the breakroom one time and the news showed an old woman throwing the first pitch at a baseball training camp.
She tried to throw the ball and it looked funny and you both looked at each other while laughing.
Sour Cream wears fake diamond earrings.
His real name is Jesús.
He has three lines shaved into the hair on the side of his head, and a longer area of hair on the back of his head, like a rat tail.
Today you’re unpacking boxes of underwear and t-shirts in an upstairs stockroom, and he tells you about a hat he bought off the internet, a hat that has a built-in ponytail.
“I’ma fucking rock that shit, jo,” he says. “Ponytail hat. I wanted to get it expedited shipping or whatever but that shit was fit-teen dollars.”
“Fuck that,” you say.
“Fuck that, jo.”
“It’d be funny if they sent you a blond one,” you say.
“Nah son, I got the black-colored one. It’ll look fucking bad-ass.”
Then he starts talking to you about female co-workers, and what he would or would-not “do to them.”
While he’s talking about what he would do to the females in the store, you entertain yourself by thinking about running out into the store screaming, exaggerating the cords in your neck as you scream — hands at sides, all fingers curled.
Sour Cream says, “Hey man would you let Janisha straddle your face and shit, like backwards and shit and rub her ass all over your face.”
You think about it.
The part about “letting” is confusing.
Plus 90 % of the people he’s mentioning aren’t familiar.
You say, “I’d have to like, be in the situation to know. It’s hard for me to say.”
Sometimes instead of sexual things, he suggests situations with two unfortunate choices, to see which one you’d pick.
Like: “Alright man, would you rather drink piss — like, right out the dick — or, get raped in the ass with a screwdriver. I’d drink the piss.”
He likes to talk about things so that he’ll have a chance to give his own answers and the reasons behind the answers.
Seems to like mentioning dicks too.
Like whenever you tell him you just swept or threw out garbage or whatever, he’ll say, “That’s big-dick shit right there, man. We some big-dick hustlers”—and then he’ll hold up his forearm and you hit forearms together.
Sour Cream has the skyline of Chicago tattooed on his forearm, with “Chicago” written beneath in cursive.
“Alright what about Charlotte, bro,” he says, nodding upwards once. “Would you fuck Charlotte for a million dollars, bro.”
Charlotte works the fitting rooms.
She was born a man but surgically became a woman.
That’s why he’s asking you.
This, like, means something to him.
He’s evaluating you.
Looking for a good opportunity to call you gay/faggot/bitch/pussy.
“Charlotte, man,” he says, “And you have to fuck her until you jizz an’shit.”
You scan a package of underwear and put it on a shelf in the stockroom.
“I have to jizz and shit,” you ask. “What are the terms here.”
“You have to nut, jo. A million dollars though man, come on,” he says. “It’s crazy huh. Too gross. I don’t even know. I don’t even know, jo. Can’t even say.”
“Let me make one thing clear, man,” you say. “I’m going to destroy the United States, ok. Fucking destroy it. Did you hear me. The whole thing. Every state, every person, every dog, cat, and dream. Listen to what I’m saying, now. This is important. It’s time to start over from nothing.”
“Ell yeah, son,” he says, snapping his fingers once. He hits your arm with the back of his hand. “That’s big-dick shit, son. That’s some big-dick shit right there, guerro.”
“The final destruction is still to come. You’re either in my army or dead.”
He nods upward and says, “Who the big-dick hustlers. Let’s just clear this shit up right now, guerro.”
“We are.”
“That’s it,” he says.
He holds out his hand.
You slap it, move into a shake, then pull each other in for a small hug — patting each other’s backs before continuing to stock packages of underwear.
The laser guns make beeping sounds through the quiet.
Every time the laser touches a barcode, the gun beeps twice.
Beep-beep.
You barely notice it anymore.
But it used to sound like mocking-laughter.
Beep-beep = Ha ha.
You used to be worried the beeps were a way for the company to implant messages in your head to control your behavior — but then realized you’d never know because that very thought could’ve been put in your head by the company.
Fear.
“Big-dick hustlers,” Sour Cream says, filling up a shelf with packages of underwear.
You want to ask Sour Cream if he thinks there are messages in the beeps, but he might be put here to spy on you.
He could be one of them.
Nice try, you fucking spy — you think.
You think about a map of the U.S.A., a fist punching through it from behind.
Sour Cream lasers a package.
Beep-beep.
“Some big-dick shit,” he says, scanning and stocking another box. “Must be big-dick shit all day today, I’on’t know. S’crazy.”
You shoot the laser at his eyes a few times but keep missing.
The laser crosses his face in a straight line, on and off.
“Quit it bitch,” he says.
He checks messages on his phone, holding it next to the laser gun to make it seem to the security cameras like he’s working.
He sings, “Big-dick hustlas — it’s who we are, son — we fucking awe-some.”
Then he does a dance where he holds his arms a certain way and then just bobs up and down.
Good singing voice — you think. Good dancing too.
You say, “Hey man, are you ever worried about getting bit by a spider while you’re stocking bananas in the produce cooler. That could happen. Have you thought about that at all, or no. Like a spider from South America could be in the bananas and fall asleep or get paralyzed by the cool temperatures on the way to the store and then come to life and bite you and you’d die. Stocking bananas for minimum wage, you’d get bitten by a spider and fucking die. Is that what you want.”
Sour Cream scans a package and stacks it.
“Damn, jo,” he says. “I’m worried about it now, little bitch. That’s scary as hell, man. I hate spiders. Why you think about that type of shit, El Guerro.”
He starts scratching at his chest, laughing.
Laughing, but clearly worried now.
Worried about the spider.
Your plan is working.
Always be worried about the sleeping spider — you think. But how long will the spider sleep. Ah, yes.