by Sam Pink
Annotation
I noticed it was beginning to get dark. And for a couple seconds, it was scary — like that meant the world was breaking, or expired, or bruised, or something worse. It was really scary for a couple seconds but then I calmed down. Up above, the moonlit clouds looked rippled, like the ribcage of some giant thing digesting me.
And I wondered if the direction I was going went down into the digestive system or up out of it. Wondered what difference it made. There was a bug hovering over a small pool of ice cream on the sidewalk. Like a firefly, but it wasn’t a firefly. And I could’ve stepped on it and killed it. But I didn’t. Be thankful, little bug. For in my world, you are just a little bug.
* * *
Sam PinkIN THE DOORWAY OF AN ABANDONED BUILDING
DANNY, DUKE, SPIDER-MAN, AND EVERYONE ELSE AT THE WIG PARTY
PIÑA COLADA
SPIDER-MAN AND JANET AND HAPPINESS INC
RED JELLY
FUNG BUSSY
IN MY CASTLE/ FUCK THE WORLD
BED THRONE, PISS JUG, VICELORDS
THANK YOU FOR WAKING ME UP TODAY, JESUS
TENTS
S’MORES
SUNBEAM SWORD
* * *
Sam Pink
Witch Piss
IN THE DOORWAY OF AN ABANDONED BUILDING
There was this guy who lived in the doorway of an abandoned building near me.
And we’d become friends.
I saw him whenever I was out walking around trying to avoid my room or find a job.
Every time I walked by, he’d smile and wave and say, “Oh hey”—always in a good mood and willing to talk.
He had a couple blankets and a backpack and some cups.
I don’t know, I guess I liked him because he was like, “I live in a doorway but I’m still in a good mood, hey.” (He never actually said that, I just thought he might.)
Plus I had no friends.
One night when I passed by the doorway, he sat wrapped up in his blanket, arguing with someone on the sidewalk.
“I’ll get money from someone, watch,” said the guy in the doorway. “Someone will give me a dollar. Screw off, man.” When he saw me, he held out his hand. “Hey man, c’I please get a dollar?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just going to say, you want some food? Some beers?”
“Yeah man, please. Would you?”
The person he’d been arguing with stared at me.
“Alright, be right back,” I said. “What do you want?”
The guy in the doorway laughed. “What’s the limit?”
“Whatever you want. Have some beers with me, man.”
“No beer,” he said. “Seagram’s.”
He said it like “Theegram’s”—tongue through his missing front teeth.
“Gin or whiskey?” I said.
But he’d started arguing with the other person again. “Screw off man,” he said, making a ‘shoo/get out of here’ motion with his hands.
“Be right back,” I said.
The guy in the doorway said, “Hey man, thanks,” and held out his fist.
I hit my fist against his fist.
The person he’d been arguing with followed me when I left.
It made my neck itch and I felt pissed.
Inside the 7/11, I watched through the window as he gave me one last look above the ads, continuing down the sidewalk.
Fuck you.
I grabbed a King Cobra 40oz. and asked the cashier to get me a plastic pint of “Dmitry” gin from behind the counter.
Couldn’t remember if the guy said gin or whiskey.
Felt like gin was wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Everything wrong!
Back outside, the homeless guy was crossing the street, coming towards me with his blanket wrapped around him.
Cars sped around him, honking.
“Motherfuck!” he said, dodging the last car and hopping onto the sidewalk.
“Boom,” I said, handing him the pint. “Sorry, I forgot, did you say gin or what?”
“Nah, not gin,” he said, then smiled and waved his hand. “But anything’s fine, man. Thanks. I’m just glad that fucker’s gone, haha. Fuckin asshole son of a bitch. Hate that guy.”
“I thought he was your friend when I came up. I didn’t know.”
“Nah, I asked him for money and he said yeah at first but then started giving me shit about how I should have a job, and how I’m physically fine, and this that and the other bullshit. I’m like, ‘Let’s see you spend five years in my shoes, bud. Try it.’”
“Yeah, fuck him,” I said, smiling. “Hate that guy.”
I decided then to only ever encourage people, no matter what they wanted to do.
To get through life by saying yes to everything, so no one could say I didn’t get what I wanted, and also so nobody would dislike me.
The homeless guy opened the door of the 7/11. “Let me get some soda from the place here. They give me free soda.”
Thoda.
Free thoda.
He was holding the door for me.
“No,” I said. “I was just in there.”
So I waited outside.
Thoda.
Thoda thoda thoda.
Smelled like it was going to rain.
Rain down your worst rain, you bastard-ass motherfuckers, I thought, squinting at a vague area across the street.
Yeah.
Yeah, drown me.
Kill me, come on.
The homeless guy came back out and poured the gin into the plastic cup.
We started to cross the street with the stoplight still yellow, but I stopped halfway for a car approaching.
Homeless guy said, “Don’t worry”—pulling on the shoulder part of my shirt.
But I stayed back and so did he, and the car sped through the light.
The force pushed my clothing against me.
“Fucker blew right through that shit, see that?” he said, watching the car. “Holy fuck, haha.”
“Yeah, shit,” I said, smiling.
I imagined how my body would’ve reacted to the collision.
Maybe like, shot backwards into the air where my spine breaks at the waist and my heels kick my own head and then I open back up until my toes kick my face and it repeats until I’m gone up into the sky.
A perfect departing.
A goodbye kiss like I mean it!
“Yeah, so that guy was saying how no one would help me, and this that and the other fuckin shit. I mean, I’m not going to work some bullshit job for three dollars an hour like a fuckin immigrant. I’m a citizen. Fuck that. I’m American.”
“Yeah man,” I said, undoing the cap on my 40. “Fuck him.” I took a pull, put my bottom lip over my moustache area and sucked foam out of the hair. “Let’s go find him and kill him.”
The guy laughed and got back into his doorway.
I stood on the sidewalk and talked to him as he sat there staring out at the street, hood over his head, blanket wrapped around him like a tepee.
He talked about the various Chicago neighborhoods he’d lived in.
“Yeah, Little Village is real nice,” he said. “Humboldt Park too. Oh yeah, but I’d a problem with a group of people around here, though. They’re called cops.”
He said “cops” like “copth.”
“Fucking pigs,” he yelled out into the street, retching at the end of the yell.
I laughed, took a pull off my 40.
Just wanted to drink until I was brave enough to get into a dumpster and hide beneath some bags.
To be collected and crushed with all the other garbage.
All the same.
Take me with, I thought.
I looked across the street and saw some paper blowing ar
ound the gutter.
Take me with.
It was the part of summer when temperatures drop at night and it gets kind of cold.
And you can think things and not admit them to anyone else, and that’s what makes those things so good.
Like what if there is an exact amount of this very 40 that I could drink — and not exceed — to make me soundlessly and painlessly disappear.
Things like that.
Things that seem sometimes possible but only at certain times, and only if you didn’t tell anyone.
Because your thoughts are all you have.
I don’t know, fuck it.
The guy in the doorway adjusted his blanket tepee. “Man,” he said, laughing. “Those fucking cops, they push me around, fuckin punch and kick me n’shit. Hate those fuckers.”
Fuckerth.
“Motherfuckers,” I said, grinding my teeth.
And I meant it.
Imagining myself enlarged, inhaling the smoke off a burning cop as he screamed “no no no”—unable to even touch his agonizing face because his skin’s so blistered.
Chicago Police.
Murderers, torturers, gangbangers.
Die and go to hell, you motherfuckerth.
Just kidding/everyone makes mistakes!
Thoda thoda thoda.
“Yeah but, I can live here no problem,” he said, “I know the guy who owns the building. I thweep the block for him every couple days. Private property, motherfucker”—waving at some imaginary person. “Thee ya.”
“Fuck yeah,” I said, looking at the doorway. “This is really nice.”
I squatted and took a pull off my 40.
People passed on the sidewalk.
He asked them for money.
“Hey sweetheart,” he said, to a girl with a big ass.
She said hi, smiled at us as she passed.
I took a pull off my 40, waving to her.
And we were there for each other.
For however many seconds, we completely justified each other.
“It’s nice out,” I said.
The guy in the doorway said, “Hey, yeah, that’s ok buddy, because I gotta hit the bed anyway.”
He held out his hand through an open flap in the tepee.
I looked at him for a second.
“Oh, ok,” I said. “Night, man.”
We shook hands and locked thumbs.
He lay down, curling up under his blanket.
I walked off, drinking the rest of my 40.
Imagining myself in the homes I passed.
Using the furniture.
Walking from one room to the next.
Smelling the kitchen.
Sleeping in the bedrooms.
Hearing the sounds.
Touching the walls.
Why not.
My 40 was down to the bottom eighth.
Mostly backwash.
Witch piss.
I threw it into a dumpster behind a gas station and walked the rest of the way with my hands in my pockets and my head down.
A nice method.
Ah yes, very very nice.
By my apartment this rat came out from beneath a car and ran down the alley.
Gone.
Take me with.
Things like that.
Things that seemed possible but only if you were desperate enough.
DANNY, DUKE, SPIDER-MAN, AND EVERYONE ELSE AT THE WIG PARTY
Next time I walked by the doorway there were a bunch of guys there, and also a dog lying on the sidewalk.
Everyone except the dog was wearing a wig.
They all introduced themselves, starting with the guy who lived in the doorway, who said, “Eyyyy, you remember me, right? I’m Danny.”
But he’d never told me his name.
So it was Danny, Troy, who just stood up and walked away drunk, Spider-Man, Too Tall, and another guy sitting in the doorway holding a leash on Duke (the dog).
Danny’s friends.
Listening to the radio and wearing wigs.
“What’s good, man?” I said, slapping hands with Danny.
He had a blanket over his legs, drinking fruit-flavored malt liquor.
“Shit, just drinking,” he said. “Lissnina Sox game.”
Thox.
The Thox game.
Said they’d been celebrating earlier for some other guy’s birthday.
Which meant he had more friends than me.
And a better social life.
And more wigs.
This one guy — Spider-Man — he tapped my arm and touched his blue-tinsel wig.
He laughed, raspy.
“Ey, aren’t ch’gon ask about my beautiful hair?” he said. Then, a little quietly, he said, “Y’gotta be kiddin me”—giving me a look that meant “Y’gotta be kiddin me.”
“Yeah, what is this shit?” I said, touching his wig.
Danny laughed, ashing his crooked handrolled cigarette.
He was wearing a black-haired wig sideways, bangs on one side and long curls on the other — his toothless smile and gray-stubbled cheeks laughing beneath.
He said, “Somebody left me a bag with some sweaters and some wigs in it this morning.”
“Somebody left you wigs?” I said.
“Yeah, thith morning,” he said.
He laughed, tongue through his missing front teeth.
Everyone else laughed.
Spider-Man yelled, “Wig time! Wha’s really goin on? Woo!”
Duke stretched his legs out on the sidewalk and licked his lips.
I wanted to grab Duke by the cheeks and kiss the top of his head, holding my lips against his head for a little while, going, ‘mmmm’ then ‘whaa!’ when I finally released the kiss.
Duke, who loves ya!!!
“What do you guys want from the store?” I said. “I’m going.”
Everyone said yeah, and get this, get that.
“I’m just getting a case of beer,” I said. “What about Duke. Does he need anything?”
Spider-Man yelled, “DUUUUUUKE!”
Duke lifted his head off the sidewalk, licking his lips.
The owner barely had his eyes open, rubbing his face.
He took off his wig and set it on Duke’s head, but it slid off immediately.
“Nah, Duke’s good,” he said. “He just sleepy from walking around all day.”
“No, I’ll get him something,” I said. “What does he need?”
“Ok. Some treats, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding.
Yeah, fuck yeah.
Everybody needs treats.
I went to the 7/11 and got a 30-pack of beer and some dog treats.
The dog treats were designed to look and taste like bacon.
The package had a crazy-looking cartoon dog on the front, its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth, eyes sticking out.
Fuck yeah.
Duke, are you even ready for this shit?
Back at Danny’s, I gave everyone a beer — except Danny, who wouldn’t drink anything except his watermelon-flavored malt liquor.
I gave Spider-Man a beer.
“Hayo yeah,” he said. “Thanks, du.” He opened the beer and took a pull. “Mmm! Spicy! Ey so I went and saw [recently released comic book superhero movie] again. Maaaaaan, gah be kiddin me, woo! Fuckin amazing. Fuckin bananas.”
He talked about the movie, which everyone but me had seen.
Most of them had seen newly-released movies at least once.
They celebrated birthdays, had get-togethers, saw movies, owned pets/wigs.
Jealousy.
The burning jealousy.
“Luh that movie,” said the guy standing next to me.
Too Tall.
Too Tall was wearing a wig of like, silver/old-lady hair.
He had on a huge T-shirt and corduroy pants and Velcro shoes.
He was only a little taller than me and everyone else there, with a big stomach.
He’d just bee
n standing with his hands and back against the building, humming to himself.
I handed him a beer.
“Man, shoot,” he said, smiling. “Thanks enough, jo.”
He opened the beer and finished it in two pulls.
Spider-Man did little dances for people who passed by on the sidewalk, letting his long tinsel wig flip around in front of his face and mumbling, “Y’gah be kiddin me.”
Too Tall gestured at Spider-Man with his can and said, “Ey, that man, shoot, he a great artist. F’I had some money, I mean, when I get my break, I’ma support him. Because what he do, he great.”
Too Tall put his can on the ground and stomped it, catching the gray wig before it fell off his head.
I put the crushed can into a plastic bag with a few others.
Too Tall said, “Yeah, man. Shoot. He get hisself some paper, he draw anyone that passes. Tell you.”
“Gah be kiddin me,” said Spider-Man, stopping his dance.
He raised his eyebrows up and down, smiling.
He mimed shooting a basketball, jumping backwards, wig waving.
His clothes — if washed — were nicer than mine.
Plus he had a good attitude and his jumpshot looked better.
Overall, I liked him more than me.
Too Tall said, “He see yo face one time”—splayed his hand over his own face—“an he draw you exactly perfect.” Shrugging. “He do.”
Spider-Man lit a handrolled cigarette and told me about some comic book characters he’d created.
“Oh, I got heroes, gah be kiddin me.” He held one wrist with the other hand and said, “Ice Man.” He was staring straight forward dramatically. He pointed his hand forward, still holding it by the wrist. “Shing shing. Gotta be kiddin me. Got ice powers. Shing shing. Boosh.”
He did really good sound effects.
Over 75 % of what he was saying was just sound effects.
Doing moves on the sidewalk and shooting ice at imaginary enemies, his wig waving.
He held out one hand in front of his face and made a fist then jumped and turned in the air and went, “Shing shing.”
“Some people got sport skills, they do hole-in-ones,” Too Tall said, as we both watched Spider-Man perform fight maneuvers on the sidewalk. “Some people smart, they do algebra. But this du, he a artist. He amazin. Tellin you. When I get some money.”
Spider-Man said, “Dahhhh. Wha’s really goin on?”
