Rontel Read online

  Electric Literature

  147 Prince St

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  www.electricliterature.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Sam Pink

  Cover art copyright © 2013 Electric Literature

  Cover design by Bill Smith

  www.designsimple.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  AFTER MY GIRLFRIEND LEFT FOR WORK THIS MORNING, I lay in her bed for an hour looking at the wall.

  Fuck, this is really good—I thought.

  It was good if you didn’t think about doing it as you were doing it.

  Sometimes I put my hands up to cover my face.

  That made it even better.

  *

  I went to the bathroom.

  There were flakes of my girlfriend’s makeup left in the sink.

  When I turned on the water to rinse my face, the water carried the flakes down the drain.

  And I saw a miniature version of myself surfing on one of the flakes.

  The miniature version of myself looked back up at me and smiled, yelling nonsense and pointing at me—then into the drain, laughing and yelling.

  And the normalsized version of myself watched, jealous.

  So very jealous.

  I put water against my face and rubbed my eyes.

  It made me feel better, but only for a few minutes.

  Then it stopped.

  No, like, it just blended into the terror.

  And I decided when it was my turn to be the smaller version of myself riding a flake of makeup down the drain—I’d wave to the normalsized me and yell “into the terror” before entering the drain, laughing.

  *

  I encountered my girlfriend’s roommate in the hallway.

  Her roommate disapproved of me being there when my girlfriend wasn’t. We didn’t say anything to each other as I went out the door.

  Just another person I don’t interact with.

  *

  An hour and twenty minute commute to get back to Uptown.

  I walked down Western Avenue to get to the Blue Line train.

  Blue Line to Red Line.

  Had to get back home.

  It was my last day of work at the department store warehouse where I’d been working for the last two years.

  And even though it was my last day, I didn’t want to be late.

  Because then someone would say, “Hey, why are you late.”

  And I wouldn’t lie.

  I’d just turn away and avoid eye contact and say, “I’m tired” or something similar.

  Something similar like, “I’m (scream in his/her face).”

  *

  Western Avenue.

  Not even summer yet and already hot.

  Fuck Western Avenue and fuck Chicago.

  Fuck the summer and fuck all these people.

  People going to work.

  People coming home from work.

  People without work.

  People going to his/her last day of work.

  People without homes.

  People just standing there.

  People selling drugs.

  People trying to buy drugs.

  People holding hands.

  People with credit cards, keys, and cellphones.

  People biking.

  People skateboarding.

  People walking dogs.

  People talking to themselves.

  People sleeping underneath doorframes.

  People under the Western Bridge, their mattresses between concrete support beams, right next to the street.

  People handing out fliers.

  People refusing fliers.

  People taking fliers then throwing them in the garbage five feet later.

  People on parole, cleaning streets and sidewalks.

  People sitting on milk crates on the sidewalk, staring.

  People with no idea how to spend the day.

  People who wished the day was already over.

  People whose day was already over.

  People.

  Hey people.

  Suck my dick.

  Thought about myself in front of everything.

  Thought about the nearly impossible idea that there was this many things and so many more, then endless things between them where they intersect, and mean something different to everyone.

  And how everything referenced me.

  Me, the most necessary part of all.

  No way to think of anything without the idea of me involved.

  Involved.

  The idea of me.

  Each thing needed me.

  I didn’t need them, but they needed me.

  And standing there breathing on the sidewalk, I did my job.

  You’re welcome, Chicago.

  No, I said you’re fucking welcome.

  And also, suck my dick.

  *

  On a side street, I saw a kid kicking an apple down the sidewalk.

  I watched him, not knowing what else I should be doing.

  Not having anything else to do.

  I decided I wasn’t going to work.

  What should I be doing right now—I thought.

  Watch the kid kick the apple.

  There is nothing that can’t be learned from this.

  Learn something maybe.

  Do that.

  Ok I’ll do that, thanks.

  I watched the kid kicking the apple, imagining it as my heart.

  My heart felt so hurt right then but I didn’t know why.

  Never knew why I felt so hurt for things I couldn’t explain.

  Or why feeling hurt was my commitment to others.

  Wanting to admit everything that was wrong about me—then hear the things other people noticed and admit to those things too.

  Admit to everything.

  At least I have that.

  Nothing could happen to me that I hadn’t already prepared myself to feel.

  Fully guarded.

  Making it so whatever actually happens, happens easy.

  Unafraid.

  The kid kicked the apple a few more times—his hands in fists.

  Yeah.

  Get it.

  Kill it.

  When the apple rolled to a stop by a fire hydrant, he went up and just stomped it.

  Blasted it, really.

  Down the block a woman yelled, “Jeffr’, get da fuck over here nah!”

  The kid stomped the apple twice more with his heel.

  The way he stomped the apple was funny.

  Balancing himself above it in just the right place to lift his leg and stomp the apple—both hands in fists at his sides, heel stabbing.

  “Jeff-REE—get—duffuck—ov’yere nah. Mam’said she gon keel y’ass, Jeffr’.”

  Jeffrey ran towards her.

  I stared at the stomped apple.

  What is the normal thing to be doing right now.

  What should I be doing.

  Having access to any and all options—what was the normal thing to be doing right at that moment, walking down Western Avenue in Chicago at the beginning of an extremely hot summer.

  What was the normal thing to be doing, as myself at that moment.

  Given all the qualities I embodied and could use to interact with the world, what was the right series of actions to begin taking.

  What if the first action to be taken was to return to the stomped apple and keep stomping it.

  What if I was supposed to protect the apple.

  Or what if it wasn’t even normal to be in this very moment, doi
ng what I was doing as this person.

  What if I didn’t even have the option for something great because I couldn’t even return to a situation that allowed it.

  I heard a spaceship captain in my head, and he said, “Original route, impossible. We now enter: Total Isolation.”

  Maybe the right series of actions led me back to where I went wrong and then to a whole new series, but I only had enough energy if I didn’t expend a single needless move or thought.

  Maybe no series.

  Nothing connected.

  Blankness responding to my sonar.

  No people to talk to.

  No signs.

  No things.

  No, there were things.

  But there was no single thing, only things.

  And I couldn’t get the things to work together.

  I’d make like, two or three work, but then I’d realize those two or three things were attached to everything else, which never worked.

  Because other things would say, “No, we’re not going to work with these things.”

  And the possibility of mishandling the events of my life or any life was so likely and so final, it stunned me from wanting anything.

  Which was terrible because I was always the furthermost moment in time, passing into the next furthermost moment.

  Chicago, Illinois.

  United States of America.

  2012.

  The latest in shithead technology.

  Breathing, on a street corner.

  Endless options, mine.

  *

  I stopped at a stoplight, where the “DON’T WALK” signal counted down twenty seconds.

  Two women talked, sitting on a bus stop bench nearby.

  One said, “Now dey trynna gemme for murda.” Pointing at where her one eye was missing, she said, “How you gon say a bitch with one eye”—still pointing at the other eye, which was open wide—“one eye, finna murda someone. I cain even see the motherfuckuh. Hah. Wh’I look like, muh fucking magician?”

  The other woman said, “Oh, so issa, like, issa real trial then.”

  “Yeah, they trynna get me,” the first one said. “Ain about ta happen like that though, girl. Uh uh.”

  Other one said, “Issa real trial then.” Higher pitch, “Y’all rilly going to trial?”

  “Yeah,” the one-eyed lady said, spitting through her top teeth and looking out at the street. “I hope they’ave them pot-pies at market today. Luh those. Shoo.”

  “Mm hmm. Me too.”

  “Them tarkey ones,” said the one-eyed woman, clearing her throat. “I’on’t like the chicken ones. They be putting that purple chewy shit in thuh.”

  Both laughed.

  I thought about walking up and putting my arms around them.

  Then look back and forth between their faces, yelling, “Me too, I love pot-pies, haha!”—and continue looking back and forth between their faces.

  I just wanted to be close to their faces.

  Kiss the one-eyed lady once—a quick kiss on the lips.

  Boom.

  How do you feel.

  I changed you.

  You’ll remember me.

  The thought of me will grow inside you until my head bursts out from the hole in your face and I kiss you again.

  Boom.

  Lovely faces.

  Lovely, lovely faces.

  Life is the equation for more and more faces.

  Addition.

  Everything getting added.

  Where the sum doesn’t change.

  A truly pointless equation where what happens happens and moves you towards the end where you supplement another section of the equation, faceless and weak and irrelevant.

  Scary!

  The “WALK” signal flashed and I continued down Western.

  I put my fingers in my ears and softly said, “Scary,” and it sounded loud and bass-heavy in my head.

  Then I said, “Uhhh” a few times, my fingers still in my ears.

  It was fucking funny.

  *

  97 degrees out according to a bank LED sign.

  Which meant with humidity it was like 110.

  I walked on down Western Avenue and found myself changing thoughts rapidly, attempting to stop each one before it happened fully.

  Saw thoughts coming at me like little birds on fire, and I dodged or parried each one.

  Some I dodged by moving my head to the left or right, some I dodged by lifting my right or left shoulder up enough to deflect them.

  Some came fast and some came lazy, undeveloped, and sideways.

  Others I ducked under with ease, smiling.

  Because few were ever helpful.

  Most just recurred and made me feel terrible.

  Episodes.

  Recycled in my head at frequencies causing great pain and discomfort.

  The terrible divide between trying and being ready to try.

  The training.

  Which never worked because it was never the thing actually happening.

  Sweating.

  Worried I could never be myself because of always having to account for so much else.

  An airplane flew low overhead, heading toward O’Hare.

  And I said “scary” again and the sound of the plane covered it.

  And I vividly recalled a scene from a fur-hunting video I saw where a man stepped on the head of a fox/lemur/something and his boot crushed the animal’s head and blood came pouring out both nostrils in perfect streams.

  *

  A block before the Blue Line I passed a tree on the sidewalk.

  In the square of dirt around the tree, a dead cat lay on its side.

  The carcass was beat the fuck up.

  Mouth open.

  Eyes gone.

  Tail stripped.

  The rest of the hair on it looked harshly slicked down in one direction.

  First thing I thought was that someone had “peeled out” on top of it—like in a car where you press the gas pedal down while idling, then put the car in gear to make the tires peel off on the ground.

  That seemed funny to me—someone “peeling out” on a dead cat.

  And for a few seconds, the thought of someone peeling out on a dead cat made me completely lose my mind.

  Anybody in Chicago could’ve robbed me or murdered me or whatever and I wouldn’t have known what to do.

  Insane!

  I turned to watch a person behind me discover the cat carcass.

  She looked at it and made a face and then looked back up.

  We made eye contact.

  I smiled and raised my eyebrows twice in quick succession.

  Couldn’t stop thinking about someone “peeling out” over a cat carcass.

  And how I’d have to watch, even if I closed my eyes to it.

  How the mouth of the cat carcass would shake terribly at me as the tire spun.

  And how, yeah, it’d be fucking awesome if a magic key came out of the cat’s shaking mouth—a magical key that took me on a magical journey and ended up, somehow, with me being born as a baby eagle but like, with the mind I have now (why not).

  Nearing the subway entrance, I noticed myself raising my eyebrows twice in succession again, but not to anyone—to the ground, to my feet, to Chicago, Illinois.

  My feet look weird—I thought, inhaling my first breath of piss smell from the subway entrance.

  *

  On the Blue Line towards the Loop, I sat down and took out a granola bar I’d stolen from my girlfriend’s roommate.

  Her roommate had accused me—to my girlfriend—of eating her food.

  Which was untrue.

  But then because of how hurt I was by the accusation, I started eating her food.

  Yes.

  Haha fuck off.

  I smiled to myself and stared forward, nodding.

  For some reason I kept the granola bar close to me, like I didn’t want anyone to see it.

  Felt stupid to eat in front of others maybe. />
  Not sure.

  Or no, it was because I kept expecting someone to walk up and say, “You should’ve brought enough for EV’ryone”—punching me on the “EV” syllable, hard enough to cause a bad cut on my face, and then the granola bar would drop to the floor of the train wherefrom nothing returned—and I’d sit in the seat, one side of my head against the window, hand covering the side badly cut from the punch delivered by a person upset about me not sharing—cowering against the train window holding my battered, cut face, grinding my teeth with my eyes closed.

  A few seats down, two kids and their mothers sang the alphabet song.

  A lot of people in the car clapped at the end.

  Minutes later the kids started singing it again and the moms only half sang and there was less clapping.

  I didn’t clap either time.

  *

  I got off the Blue Line train and went down the stairs into the transfer.

  In the long, tiled tunnel between the Blue Line and the Red Line, I imagined flames slowly building at each end of the tunnel, with no time or way for me to get out on either end.

  So I just stand there screaming and flames fill the tunnel.

  Quickly filling the entire tunnel.

  You should’ve brought enough for EV’ryone.

  *

  People could perform on the platform area between Red Line trains.

  Today there was a man singing.

  I’d never seen him.

  He was wearing a fisherman’s hat, two white gloves, and a denim vest with denim shorts.

  He sang through a microphone plugged into a small PA speaker by his feet.

  The PA speaker loudly amplified a slow drumbeat and bass guitar.

  There was a tip jar on the ground.

  The singer took a few steps forward.

  In front of the speaker stood a little boy who was barely able to walk.

  Singer said, “’At’s my son, eyr-one. Say hi.”

  Nobody said hi.

  I said hi in my head.

  The kid looked two.

  He was making unsteady single and double steps in front of the PA speaker, eating a small bag of chips.

  The music was so loud but he didn’t seem scared.

  He just danced, eating chips.

  Then he started bouncing up and down, bending at the knees.

  Classic baby style.

  I felt like turning to the girl next to me and saying, “Ah, classic baby style.”

  The singer wearing the fisherman’s hat and denim vest finished the song.

  He breathed hard into the microphone.

  He said, “Woo, Chi-town. We g’in too hot. Ish shit too hot. My hands burnin’ up on this mic hurr. Damn it.”