Sour Cream throws a box up onto a shelf and pulls his pants up. “You all right man?” he says. “You look like, sick or some-shit. You ok? You getting skinny on me, guerrito? What’s good. Don’t get skinny on me now, babygirl.”
“I’m good,” you say. “As long we’re together, I’m good.”
He puts a box up on a shelf and some fake pine needles fall out of the box onto his face. “Chill faggot,” he says.
You lift a box and stack it on the one he just stacked.
“Sour Cream, it’s time to destroy America. Don’t you think. It’s time. You either help me or I kill you first.”
“It’s big-dick time, babygirl,” he says, snapping.
“Big-dick time,” you say.
“Ell yeah,” he says.
And you watch him stack another box.
His rat tail shakes.
*
You pass the last ten minutes of your shift standing by the punch-out clock.
There’s a girl on her cell phone, yelling at someone.
She’s openly crying, walking around the locker area.
“No but that’s because you an asshole,” she says, looking intensely at the ground and pointing her finger down at the same time. Her hand is tattooed. “Ass, hole. Like, you the very part of the asshole where the hole touches at all points.”
“Asshole,” you yell, in the direction of the phone.
The girl on the phone raises her hand.
You high-five her.
*
Outside it’s windy.
Your infected ear clicks and goes close to deaf while you’re walking home.
At the corner of Broadway and Montrose, a sick-looking man stares at you until you stare him into not staring.
You pass a section of Blood Alley that goes behind a pizzeria.
You see a group of men in wheelchairs, gathered in the alley.
They hide small pipes in their sleeves, smoking crack.
They’re from a retirement home nearby.
They’re veterans.
You recognize them from Census work you did at a soup kitchen.
Maybe you should become friends with them.
They seem fun.
The only friend you have is your ex girlfriend and you don’t actually like her and she doesn’t actually like you.
Smoking crack in the alley with the wheelchaired men might be the needed alternative.
You’ve smoked crack before, three or four times.
Each time acquired for free, each time smoked alone.
Like the first time, you went with a friend to get his oil changed and a guy at the oil change place asked you for a ride home and gave you crack for driving him.
You thought it was ok.
Wasn’t anything more or less than ok.
Just something that happened.
Just you high on crack cocaine in your cold bathroom, sitting fully-clothed on the toilet, staring at the exhaust fan and rubbing your face.
That’s it.
Then back to life.
Which is always the exact opposite of high on crack.
Which isn’t anything more or less than ok.
Just something that happens.
Maybe you need a wheelchair for crack to be fun.
Maybe you need to find out.
On the block before your apartment building, you see your ex girlfriend’s car parked by a meter.
She used to smoke crack when you were in high school.
Your ex girlfriend and you transferred to the same high school from the same place, and started at the same time, as sophomores, all without knowing each other.
That’s where you first met.
You were both the new people at the same time.
In high school, you went out a lot to vandalize homes.
And one night you and some other people drove to this remote subdivision. At the first house, you broke windows, some lawn furniture and then lit the trampoline on fire in the backyard.
It was a big trampoline.
You slashed the top of the trampoline with a butterfly knife then poured lighter fluid all over it and lit it on fire.
Before you even got to your friend’s car — idling a block away — the fire was already too high.
You found out it was her house later on, after vandalizing it but before moving into it.
And everyone talked about how you lit the fire, but no one ever found out for sure.
The only people who knew were the people there.
And they blamed you too, to remove themselves from being there.
But nothing ever happened.
Then years after high school you saw her again, at a New Year’s party.
You kissed her hand at one point, because you vowed to kiss someone’s hand before you got there, and it resulted in a relationship, even though she still thought you burned down her trampoline.
You watched her cry the first few weeks, still upset about the trampoline.
But you never told her you did it.
You denied it.
Then finally one night she said, “Alright. It was just so bad because that trampoline was like the only time me and my dad would get along. It felt bad when someone took that, you know. And I thought it was you. It felt so bad. I hated you. You were cute though.”
To which you silently agreed, looking at your lap and nodding — reminded of how exciting it was to be close to a fire that big.
Walking upstairs to your apartment, you know she’ll be inside.
You see a very small hole in the stairs that opens into light and the first floor hallway below.
And for a second, it’s genuinely thrilling.
Because it seems like the discovery of a hidden floor.
Where new people live.
People who could only be important in the effort to change your life fundamentally.
March 2011
This morning, your ex girlfriend says she’s walking with you to work.
“I need tissues,” she says. She lifts a drawing off the ground and looks at it. “This is scary.”
“You need tissues,” you say.
“I need to keep some in my purse because of Babe.”
Babe is her dad’s toothless dog.
She’s allergic.
“How is Babe,” you say. “He was a good friend.”
“He’s good,” she says. “His ear still smells like the inside of a cowboy boot.”
“Did he lose any more teeth.”
“Yeah like, all of them are basically gone,” she says. “Are there any good sales on tissue then.”
“Sales on tissues,” you say. “I don’t know.” Running your tongue all over the inside of your mouth. “If you wait until we get to the store and then ask me though, I have to find out for you. Just wait until I clock in and then ask me. You can even try to get me fired if I refuse. We can make a big scene in the store and then get thrown out and come back here and go back to sleep and feel bad for ourselves.”
“I want to drink something blue,” she says, looking at the sock that’s partially hanging off her foot.
You find yourself staring at her sock, then at one corner of the room where there’s an old aluminum can that contains a large amount of fingernail rippings (and boogers) from just pacing around at night.
Probably going to throw it out soon — you think. Who knows.
“I’m going to take a shower,” you say.
While you’re showering, your ex girlfriend brings you a cup of coffee leftover in the fridge, mixed with hot chocolate mix.
You thank her.
She watches you shower for a little bit then leaves.
Your arm still hurts from trying to hold onto a heavy box while standing on a ladder last week.
It fucked up some forearm muscles.
Fingers are hard to control.
And you laugh about it, trying to hold the cup.