by Sam Pink
He never sold the gun because it got stolen during a 4th of July party we had.
The night after that same 4th of July party, Carmen was in the basement standing over my bed.
“Hey man, come upstairs I want to show you something,” he said.
There was still some shaving cream around his earlobe and his hair was slicked back and wet from a shower.
I stretched out over my twisted blankets and looked up through the window-well.
I’d slept all day.
The basement was quiet and dry and Carmen looked dead.
He sat on a cardboard box of mine, filled with books.
I slowly woke up and got out of bed.
There was a huge bruise and cut on my knee and I didn’t know why.
We went upstairs and I poured myself some cereal before we went down the hall to his room.
“I made a porno,” he said.
He was bent down by his vcr.
I ate a spoonful of cereal. “I get to see you naked.”
“You bet,” he said, taking a remote control off the top of the vcr and getting into his bed.
“Awesome,” I said. “I can’t wait to see you naked. I want to see your dick.”
I sat on the floor and ate the cereal.
My stomach felt carpeted and wrinkled.
The video opened with Carmen walking away from the camera, in his room.
The room was a blue that was almost black.
I checked the video, then the room, and gathered the camera was positioned on his bookshelf, hidden by some laundry.
Carmen had a bunch of other stuff on his bookshelf too.
Trophies from little league and what looked like a basketball trophy and a picture frame that said “Boyfriend” all over it with inspirational quotes.
In the photo, he and some old girlfriend smiled—their greasy faces idiotic with hope that the picture would one day remind them that for three seconds they acted happy and thought it final.
“Hey have you thought of a name yet,” I asked.
He turned and hung over the side of his bed facing me.
“What.”
“A name. For the movie.”
“No, I haven’t thought about it.”
I set the bowl down and put my elbows over my propped knees—then held my left wrist with my right hand. I said, “How about, Carmen Hopefully Doesn’t Reproduce Himself.”
He laughed.
“No wait I wasn’t finished,” I said. “It’s Carmen Hopefully Doesn’t Reproduce Himself, Because That Would Suck Because He’s An Asshole.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “I like it.”
“Nice soccer trophies by the way,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You should’ve put the camera on the other side of the room so people could totally see your trophies,” I said. “That’d make the whole thing so much more awesome. That way they could be like, oh man, and trophies.”
“They wouldn’t shine the right way in video, I think,” he said. Then he coughed once, loudly, and went, “ehh” to clear his throat.
“What are the trophies for, is that soccer.”
“Baseball,” he said. “Pretty much everyone on the team got one, if they showed up to the last practice and stuff.’”
In the video Carmen and a girl came back into the room.
They talked on his bed for a little bit and then Carmen started taking her clothes off.
The girl in the video wore a blue bra.
Carmen took it off her as she lay face down on his bed.
Both of their faces were poorly lit and there were circles around their eyes.
She laughed at something and pushed her hair back, folding her arms underneath her chin.
He took off his clothes and rubbed her ass with both his hands.
Then he put his dick in her from behind.
She looked behind her, eyes closed.
There was no sound in the video.
He said something in the movie, but it was soundless.
“Nice moves man,” I said. “I totally would’ve done that if I were filming myself having sex with someone and then knew I was going to show it to my roommate.”
“Yeah man,” he said.
In the video, the girl had her face down in the pillow and her hair was all over and it looked like her head had melted then froze.
Carmen cleared his throat and rewound part of the movie. “I wish I could draw on the screen like a sports broadcaster,” he said, lying back down. “Right here, I make the ‘West-side’ sign, see.”
In the video, he made the ‘West-side’ gangsign, looking at the camera.
I surveyed the trophies on his bookshelf.
Besides the trophies, there was also an old map of Illinois folded up on the bookshelf and some crossword/wordsearch puzzle books. And three volumes of an encyclopedia—the complete E and W and Br-Ch.
“Be right back I have to use the bathroom,” he said.
He went to the bathroom.
My stomach made sloshing sounds.
The video was paused—the girl’s head in the pillow and his hand on the back of her head.
She lay face down in her hair.
I was reminded for some reason that a long time ago I seemed to put off thinking about things and said I would come back to them, but never really caught up.
In the video Carmen was facing the camera—his mouth open as if screaming, “No.”
Static widened his face and the hole of his mouth, brushed them across the screen.
The video was paused in-between frames, and they flipped back and forth.
Blending.
Carmen’s open mouth and half-open eyes occupied two areas on his skull.
They whirred fast enough to almost glow.
His eyes and mouth and his expression too—everything in two places on his skull, whirring fast enough to glow.
He looked like a skeleton.
And so did I probably.
And almost everything else could be explained as an intersection between myself and something else, as a skeleton.
I scratched my shins with long loops of my thumbnail.
I moved closer to the screen and inspected the bones of his face and those around his mouth.
Each bone held tight.
But if asked why, they might not have anything interesting to say.
They might just intersect.
The screen buzzed quietly.
And I made a promise to myself.
I promised myself that, after last night’s rain dried off the grass, I’d mow the lawn.
I’d take my time, with Carmen’s shitty push-mower.
I’d get the push-mower out of the garage.
I’d grip the handles hard, pushing, sweating, taking my time to make the grass look nice.
I wouldn’t take any time to clear the fallen branches, I would just push the mower over everything, reducing everything—even if it’s a person sleeping on the grass—even three-hundred people sleeping—even everyone ever.
My feet inside whosever shoes I borrowed, greened, smelling vegetably, hot and sweating badly inside the shoes, without socks.
I’d allow myself no more or less than three breaks, to drink hose water and/or just sit on one of the three front steps, staring at the street.
And after I was satisfied with the way the grass looked, I’d clean off the blades of the push-mower—first with my shoe, then maybe a rag I find in the garage or if I have to, my shirt.
Putting away the mower in the garage, I’d take several deep breaths to enjoy the gas and oil fumes.
Then I’d get a broom if there was one, or borrow one from the guy who’s always sitting in a chair in his garage, four or five doors down.
He’d mention the Chicago Cubs, because they’d be broadcasted over a small plastic radio behind us in the garage.
And I’d broom the clippings off the sidewalk, back into the lawn, where they’d maybe get raked over the grass
again, distributed nicely.
Maybe then I’d hose off the sidewalk, drink some of the hose water and put some on my face and back of neck and sweat and feel good and sit on the front steps eating a bunch of those things that are like, frozen juice inside a plastic sleeve, where you push it up through the sleeve to bite it and always wait until the end when you can drink the fully melted juice and it’s so awesome, it’s so worth it.
And then probably the kids who live down the block would come over.
And I’d let them stand around and talk to me because I know at their house they get beat because at night it’s audible from down the block.
They’d stand around asking questions to keep me occupied while one or two of the others tried to get into the house or fought each other, or attempted to get me to buy lighters for them.
And every time I’d decline doing something bad for them, the kid who was like, maybe three or four (the most evil one) would say, “Tumm on, man. Peez. Peez man.”
Carmen walked back into the room and unpaused the movie.
We watched the movie and it was boring but I felt good on account of it being summer.
“The Midwest is beautiful during the summer,” I said, opening up the map of Illinois from Carmen’s bookshelf.
Carmen was on his back, lying in bed.
Without turning, he said, “It’s the fucking greatest.”
Eventually, we damaged so much stuff in the house, we all had to move out.
A couple weeks before we moved out, I was out walking around, looking through the garbage.
This was around the time people from the college started to move out of apartments and find new ones, throwing out shit that was still ok to use.
In one of the alleys I passed, someone had thrown out a chair.
The chair looked nice.
I went to look at it.
While I was looking at it, there was a yell from down the block, and then the sound of something moving.
Out from between some garages, a teenaged person came at me in a jogging trip.
He was yelling.
He had on an old, dirty Chicago Bulls wintercoat even though it was like ninety degrees out.
He came up to me and stood there, breathing hard and smelling like piss.
Old piss.
Under one arm he held a brown paperbag.
He put it on the ground.
The brown paperbag was wet and crumpled.
He also held a bulge in his coat as his breathing calmed from the run.
He wore Velcro boots on the wrong feet, and all over his face there was bad acne.
It was a boy from the abusive family down the block.
“Muh. Motooz,” he said. “Motooz.”
Sounded like, “Motooz.”
I couldn’t tell.
Yolky stains covered his black sweatpants and it looked like there was something retarded about him.
I couldn’t tell.
I stayed where I was, just standing.
Transferring weight between his Velcro boots, he said, “Motooz,” over and over.
“Muh, motooz.”
Over and over, pointing to himself.
Smelling like piss.
“Motooz. Motooz.”
“Motion,” I said. Actually, I was asking.
“Mo-tis,” he said slowly, pointing to his chest. “Ah Mo-tzis.”
I couldn’t understand him.
“Moat-ziss,” he said.
“Moses,” I said. Actually, I was asking.
He nodded and smiled.
“Ah Motooz,” he said.
One of the pimples on his chin looked very swollen and painful.
It was yellow and full.
Birds lined the telephone wire.
“Motooz. Twigk,” he said. “Motooz twick.”
He reached for his pocket.
“Twigk,” he said.
“Trick,” I said. Actually, I was asking.
He nodded and smiled.
“Z, uh twigk,” he said, licking at the bad chapping around his mouth.
And I thought about Michael Jordan.
Thought about a transparent projection of Michael Jordan, and the projection went into my body and I absorbed it.
“Twick-uh,” the teenager said. “Z twick.”
He unzipped his coat.
Out from his coat fell some small beige bodies, into his hands.
Baby rabbits.
Their eyes were still swollen closed.
They moved around in his chapped hands and he yelled, smiling.
A bad smell came from the Chicago Bulls coat again and I thought, “Michael Jordan” and saw Michael Jordan’s face inside my head, smiling at me and saying, “Die, Die, Die” and all his NBA championship rings were floating over his head.
“Nice bunnies,” I said.
He pulled back.
There was a thick moment of distrust between us.
Holding the rabbits, he stared at me.
I thought—Michael Jordan is a baby rabbit.
“Motooz,” the teenager said.
He seemed confused and upset, trying to control the baby rabbits.
Then the wet paperbag on the ground moved a little.
It felt to me like the situation had already happened and I was being sent back to review what I’d missed, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d missed.
“Motooz,” the teenager said again, kneeling.
He was trying to keep my attention.
He set down the baby rabbits on the edge of the alley.
The baby rabbits were on their backs, moving in place, and trying to get on their feet.
I wanted to be in one of their bellies sleeping.
But I wasn’t.
The paperbag moved again, just a little.
“Twick, twick,” the teenager said, kind of nervous.
He undid the twisted paperbag, and took out a huge toad.
The toad was dark green and puckered—kind of moldy looking.
Looked heavy in his hand.
“Twick, twig,” he said. “Motooz, twigk-uh.”
He was getting upset.
“I’d like to see a trick, yes,” I said. “Show me a trick.”
He set the toad down on top of the paperbag.
“Twigk twick,” he said loudly, pinching the crotch area of his sweatpants.
The smell of piss and shit got stronger.
The toad breathed slowly, ribcage expanding on either side of its face.
And I couldn’t help but associate the piss and shit smell with the toad.
The toad was garbage.
Shit and piss toad.
“Twick,” the teenager said, again. Then carefully, “Z, uh twick. Z, trick.”
“Ok do the trick,” I said.
He pinched a baby rabbit by the loose skin around its neck and then held the baby rabbit near the mouth of the toad.
The toad blinked.
Nothing happened.
Something wasn’t happening.
Something wasn’t working.
Something was wrong.
I felt gravity happen inside me.
A different gravity from the one happening outside my body.
The teenager in the Chicago Bulls coat cried, and scratched his face with his free hand.
What a pussy—I thought, unable to tell who I thought that about.
Who’s who.
He pushed the baby rabbit against the toad’s mouth again.
“The trick isn’t working,” I said.
He flicked the toad’s eye.
The toad tensed.
Another flick to the eye.
The toad jumped forward, eating the baby rabbit.
Only the baby rabbit’s hind-legs remained, sticking out from the toad’s mouth.
“Motooz,” the teenager said. “Twick.”
And he calmed down, smiling.
He stood and clapped, looking at me.
I joined in the clapping.
It was hard to tell who’s who.
Everything smelled so bad.
We watched the toad finish the rabbit in labored swallows.
I thought—This is the world at present including everything that has ever happened.
And I felt entirely the same.
“Motooz,” the teenager said. “Motooz twig.”
Then he stomped down hard, missing the bulk of the toad, but snapping both its hind-legs under his Velcro boot.
And the hind-legs hung there, stripped and broken.
Soft looking bones came out of the skin.
Trying to move, the toad could only circle.
Its front legs scraped the ground, grabbing wet dirt but getting nowhere.
This is the toad’s entire life, including everything that has ever happened—I thought.
And it was hard to tell who’s who.
The teenager in the dirty Chicago Bulls coat scratched his face again, upset as he watched the toad circling.
He yelled and ran away, back down the alley gone.
Gone as he came.
Backwards along the same path.
Only the toad remained, circling pathetic, with some very small stones sticking to its skin.
And I thought about how someone seeing all of this from very high above sees something with its legs stripped and broken.
Just circling.
And I thought about how it would be hard to tell who’s who.
Table of Contents
Bees
Love
Twizzler
Thing About When I Worked at a
Socks
Shoes
Ryan Francis
TV
Summaries of Two Walks I Went on Recently
Juliana
Thing That Lists the Scars I Have
Crackheads
TRAINING
MOONSHINE
Neighbors
Section That was Edited Out of the Novel
Fun
Two Things About Living
