Sour Cream scratches at his chest.
He says, “Damn son, I been eating a lot of peanut butter and shit, and it’s making me get these big-ass pimples on my chest. Shit hurts. I can’t pop that shit either.” Then he affects an overly Caucasian voice and says, “It’s excruciating. I think I just need an organic chai tea and my slippers.”
You both laugh.
“Can I borrow your keys,” you say. “I have to go do the garbage before lunch.”
“Yeah,” he says. He throws the keys. “Oh, hey man, check this out.”
He presses some buttons on his phone and shows you a picture of a girl.
The girl looks really young.
She’s smiling and making a face that other people have probably told her is cute.
“Had this bitch suck my dick three times last night,” he says.
Looking at the picture, you say, “I’ll sweep later too, I don’t mind. After I do garbage I mean.”
He nods, pocketing his phone.
“That’s right, babygirl,” he says. “’Cause you a big-dick hustler.”
“Thanks man.”
You walk away, feeling self-conscious about your butt.
Earlier, Sour Cream complimented you.
He said, “No homo shit, but — you work out man? You exercise? You look nice and fit, you know” and then said other things to make sure you understood it in an objective way.
Walking to the garbage area, you hit the keys against your leg and imagine a mummy walking out from behind an aisle then coming towards Sour Cream with its arms out.
And in a dusty and decayed voice, the mummy says, “I’m gay”—and Sour Cream dies in terrified silence as he’s strangled to death by the gay mummy.
*
After doing the garbage and going on lunch, you pass time in the main office staring at a list of the month’s birthdays.
Shit, it’s Daisy’s birthday tomorrow.
Who’s Daisy.
Daisy is a nice name.
You consider changing your name to Daisy.
You take the escalator upstairs and go to a remote bathroom unknown to most non-stockroom employees.
It’s your secret bathroom.
Whenever you use it, you feel like you’re being followed, until the overwhelming relief of getting inside and locking the door.
You get inside and just stand there breathing the fake fruit scent from the air freshener.
Today you take off all your clothes and fold them, putting them on the ground next to your feet.
Sometimes you’re only able to shit if completely naked (socks and untied boots still on).
And to the tune of “This Is The Song That Never Ends” you sing, “This Is The Man With No-o Friends”—lightly picking a scab loose on your shin the whole time.
A lot of shit comes out of you.
It lands in a clay pile above the water on a mass of toilet paper someone left in the bowl.
Smells truly sickening.
You sit there, staring at the shitty water.
The walkie talkie on your equipment belt goes on.
“Eyy Billy here, just talked to a customer for a while about potting soil for a while but, um, I’m coming to the backroom now and I’m by the hygiene aisle so I’ll be there up there soon. It’s so hot in the store today isn’t it. Jesus frickin Christ knock it off with the heater, right? Heh heh alright.” The walkie talkie goes off. It comes back on. “Oh one more thing, if anyone needs a lawnmower, I’m try’n sell one. So”—he pauses—“Okee. Wahhh.”
Flushing away the shit, you wonder about when you’ll not be paying attention and end up dying at work — like in a machine, or falling off a ladder, or meeting a vengeful skeleton that has risen from entombment in the concrete of the stockroom floor.
*
Outside the bathroom, Sour Cream is unloading a palette of small Christmas trees onto a shelf marked “Clearance Items.”
He always makes sure to follow you so he can keep talking about things you don’t want to talk about.
He always finds you because he doesn’t like to be alone.
If he’s alone he probably just imagines dicks — you think. Dick pandemonium all around him. A rotating tower of dicks coming at him. “Get the fuck away from me, dicks!” he yells, as the shadow of the dick machine covers him.
“Alright man,” he says, lifting a box and stacking it. “What about. Alright, shit. What about the girl at the front desk. Vanessa. Listen to the whole thing before you answer now, guerro. Would you, lick her asshole for a million dollars.”
It seems like he’s going to say more, so you wait.
He doesn’t say anything else.
“Is that the whole thing,” you say.
“Yeah,” he says, pushing a stray Christmas tree limb back into a box. “A million for the asshole. Just like, go buffet on that shit, jo.”
He’s been on the ‘million dollars’ thing a lot.
‘Buffet’ too.
You say, “I’d do it for a lot less than a million. Probably even for free. Actually yeah, for free.”
“Damn, jo, you’d do that?” he says. “Total asshole though. All around it, bro. Like the whole radius and shit.”
He makes a gesture with both his hands like he’s framing a painting or a camera shot for a movie then he puts his face by the frame and opens his mouth, tongue flipping all over.
The sound of his tongue flipping around hurts your chest in some weird way.
“Same answer, yeah,” you say.
He claps and says, “Damn jo. El guerro like eating some ass? That fucking ass buffet? You do that?”
“You’re saying you wouldn’t do that, even if someone was going to give you a million dollars.”
“What. Nah man. Hell nah.”
“So you’ll come here four or five times a week and make an incredibly small fraction of a million dollars, but you won’t lick a cute girl’s asshole for the money. That’s your stance.”
He makes a clicking sound with his teeth. “You fucking bogus, guerro. Entirely fucking bogus.”
He hydraulically forklifts down another palette of Christmas trees.
You take turns stacking the boxes on lower shelves.
“How do you say ‘octopus’ in Spanish,” you say. “I feel like an octopus when I’m working hard, like—” and you make a swirling motion with both your arms going around your waist.
“Pulpo,” he says.
“It’s like I’m El Pulpo sometimes here.”
He laughs twice in a high pitch, and claps once. “El Pulpo, witcha greasy-ass mullet. You fucking sick motherfucker.”
You continue stacking boxes.
Some of the boxes are open along the sides.
Staples and wire treelimbs scratch as you lift.
You say, “Tell me how sexy I am again, you little shithead. I want to hear it again from those pretty lips.”
“Chill faggot,” he says. “Fucking kill you.” He clicks his teeth and says, “Man, hope I get out early tonight, jo. Finna fuck this one bitch that live by my gramma’s place.”
“Nah, you’re a virgin,” you say.
“Nah,” he says. “Nah, big-dick style, babygirl. Thought I told you.”
You’re looking at his rat tail.
Not bad — you think.
“How long did it take you to grow your rat tail,” you say, nodding backwards and pointing at the back of your neck.
“Like, three months, nigga,” he says, holding down his pointer-finger with his thumb and spreading out the other three fingers.
His pinky nail is really long.
“What if I grow a rat tail and let it get way longer than yours,” you say. “How would that make you feel.”
He doesn’t answer.
He checks his phone, holding a box upright with his other hand.
He needs to be demeaned by a bigger rat tail — you think. He needs to be shown his place on the rat tail foodchain. How long is the longest rat tail ever. Doesn’t matter. It can be exceeded. It can be done.