Hurt Others Read online

  I ate some of the lamb they made.

  I had a brief vision of me and the wife, sitting naked in a field, with our hands on the back of a lamb, me and the wife looking at each other.

  “I don’t like football,” I said.

  “What do you like,” the husband said.

  “I like boxing.”

  He said, “No one watches boxing anymore.”

  The mom continued, “And um, she can bathe herself.” She laughed and put some hair behind her ear. “Please, don’t bathe my child. Also, you don’t have to clean the apartment or anything.”

  “I can do that if you want,” I said.

  Both parents looked at me.

  They thought I meant, “I can bathe your child if you want” but I was referring to cleaning the apartment.

  “Cleaning the apartment,” I said.

  They seemed upset.

  The mom said, “Why don’t you and Juliana play in her room for a little bit.”

  I said, “Ok. Dinner was good. Thank you.”

  “Spank you,” the husband said, looking off somewhere, before getting up.

  Juliana and I went to her room and we played with a huge dollhouse.

  I was given a doll

  I was told what to do.

  I did what I was told.

  The dollhouse was big and we played an extremely vague game with the dolls that involved a lot of walking around and not understanding what was going on.

  It was fun though.

  Then at one point Juliana smiled and said, “What about this” and she made her doll shit and then eat it, saying something like, “Chup chup chup”—laughing.

  “I don’t know,” I said, laughing.

  Then she was laughing hard, almost without sound, her eyes watering.

  “Chup chup chup.”

  She made the doll shit again and then eat it and then she rolled her eyes all around and said, “Mm mm, I love it.”

  I was laughing.

  I said, “Man.”

  Then the game with the dolls transitioned into making the dolls jump off the roof of the dollhouse and hit the carpet and die.

  The mom told me it’d be a regular thing with regular pay but it turned out only me being on call for whenever they wanted to leave the apartment.

  Which turned out to be barely at all.

  It was bullshit.

  Almost two months, a day or two each week.

  Like, seven visits total.

  Picking Juliana up from school was weird because it was a bunch of middle-aged women waiting for their children and then me, a big dumbass with a shaved-head, looking tired.

  On the walks home from school, Juliana would tell me about her classmates and about toys she wanted.

  I would ask her questions about the toys.

  Like, “Why do you want that toy.”

  Or, “Why is it good that the toy does that.”

  When she finally noticed it was a regular thing I did, she stopped explaining anything and would just say, “Stah-opp, I’m trying to tell you.”

  At home I helped her with homework.

  It was easy.

  I knew all the answers immediately.

  We traced letters and colored pictures at the dinner table, overlooking the entire skyline of the city and the lake.

  All of Chicago opened up, even the factories along the outside, the traintracks, highways, Chicago River, Sears Tower, State Street, everything.

  I’d look out into the skyline and feel good feelings, even though there was nothing to feel good about.

  “I handed out invitations for my birthday party today at school and I didn’t give one to stupid Larry,” she said, tracing over her vocabulary words.

  She bit a grilled cheese sandwich I’d made her.

  She said, “I hate Larry, he’s so gross.”

  “Why is Larry gross,” I said, putting my legs up on another kitchen chair.

  “He always has boogers in his nose and he pinches everyone. He’s stupid. Larry is so stupid.”

  “So he’s not coming to your birthday party,” I said, checking over a packet of homework her teacher had returned graded. “I see a lot of stickers here, good job.”

  “Um, yeah thanks,” she said, still trying to stay mad. “No he’s not coming because he’s retarded.”

  “Larry is retarded.”

  “Yeah I hate him. Charmene is coming and I told her to buy me a Littlest Pet Shop toy. It’s a squirrel named Rodney and I don’t have him yet but I want him.”

  “Rodney is a squirrel.”

  “Yeah he’s insane.”

  “Wait is Rodney a person coming to your birthday party or a squirrel.”

  “Stah-opp, Rodney is the squirrel. My mom said you can come too if you want.”

  “I can come to your birthday party. Thanks. I can probably make it.”

  “Yeah, we’re getting pizza and cake.”

  I leaned forward and said, “You’re going to have pizza and cake there—” then I made a fist and punched upward into the air and yelled, “—yes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What is ‘Littlest Pet Shop,’” I said.

  “Here, let’s go play.”

  She closed her book and put it in a folder and put three more stickers on the folder.

  Then we went to her room.

  She took out a plastic case.

  She opened the case and inside there were a lot of small plastic animals.

  I looked at a picture of her and her dad in a frame by her bed.

  It scared me.

  Turned my shit to stone.

  No I’m lying, I didn’t react much at all.

  Juliana got on her knees and sat on her heels, dividing the toys.

  I got to be a rhino and I made up a voice for it that Juliana really liked.

  She kept laughing.

  Which meant I had to keep doing it.

  In the few times I visited, we played Littlest Pet Shop, dolls, “camera woman” (where I acted like a camerman filming her doing the news), cards, and legos.

  We colored in coloring books, painted, looked at toys on the internet and ate together.

  Sometimes the dad would be there, sleeping in his room because he worked at night.

  Sometimes he’d wake up and come out of his room to the kitchen, where I’d be cooking a grilled cheese and quizzing Juliana in math.

  It felt weird.

  Working for the family added to my general feeling that everyone I encountered (for good reason) didn’t like me.

  It was ok.

  Juliana and I went on walks.

  I took her to a playground once and we kept putting snow on the slide and then sliding down the slide really fast.

  At night, Juliana would be in bed and I’d just sit at the dinner table and look out the windows—from the twentieth floor—out at the entire city.

  The last time I ever worked for them, I took Juliana to the Chicago Field Museum.

  We saw an exhibit called “Underground.”

  The exhibit was enlarged displays of insects and things that lived underground.

  Juliana held my hand the whole time and we walked through a “shrink ray” which was just an optical illusion where you go into this room and can watch yourself on the screen, shrinking in order to go “underground.”

  “Are we really shrinking,” she said, looking at me.

  “Yeah we’re really shrinking.”

  “No we’re not,” she said.

  “It felt like I was shrinking,” I said, looking at my hands.

  “Me too,” she said.

  We walked through a dark tunnel into the exhibit.

  There were field trips, little kids with a few teachers/moms.

  There were kids in wheelchairs.

  “How old are you,” Juliana said.

  We were looking at a diagram of dirt from the Midwest.

  “I’m 26.”

  “Are you married,” she said.

  “No.”

&nb
sp; “Do you have kids.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have any kids,” she said.

  “No wait, yeah. I had a kid and then I lost him after he walked through a shrink ray and wouldn’t hold my hand.”

  “No you didn’t,” she said. “Do you have a girlfriend.”

  “No.”

  “Why not.”

  “Shrink ray,” I said.

  We looked at a diagram of how other things become dirt and then that dirt makes other things.

  We walked through a tunnel of dirt, where it was supposed to be like we were in the root system of a tree.

  We stopped and stood by a display of huge plastic parts meant to look like a burrow and some kind of insect that was motorized with an opening and closing jaw.

  Then a hissing sound happened.

  A big spider came out from behind a tree-root.

  Its fangs were motorized and they squealed back and forth.

  “Scary,” Juliana said.

  I looked at the fangs of the motorized spider and realized that after this day, there would be another one.

  Here is a list of some of the scars I have and how they happened and what I feel each scar looks like. (This list is not complete):

  1. Middle of forehead, by hairline—I fell and hit my head on a rock that was part of someone’s fireplace. This one looks like a single grain of rice smashed into my forehead (I know it’s not an actual grain of rice though).

  2. Right kneecap—I accidentally slid while running through an alley. My right leg went beneath me. This scar looks like a tiger clawed my knee. People younger than nine years old have statistically always believed me when I say tigerclaw caused it.

  3. Both feet (various areas)—From not wearing socks. These are just purple areas in different locations on my feet. One time I got an infection in my heel and it was really bad. My friend’s mom was a nurse and when I was over at her house she had to drain it because I got a fever from it and I felt all fucking weird and dizzy. Wear socks!

  4. Forearm—My friend pushed the top of a lighter into my forearm while I was talking to someone at a Halloween party. He came up to me, said, “Let me see your arm” and then did it. This one looks like a dinosaur footprint. It happened pretty quickly. My friend was laughing. It didn’t hurt until the first time I showered.

  5. Below left nipple—Someone put a cigarette out on me. This one is just a circle.

  6. Smallest finger on right hand—Washing a chalkboard in gradeschool I hit the metal thing that held the map and I remember I used my tongue to clean the cut because I noticed the metal thing was rusty. This one looks like the letter u.

  7. Other forearm—Jumped to do a pull-up in school as the kid in front of me turned. His braces went into my arm. Which means my skin was in his mouth. Thinking back, it felt good to feed part of myself to another person and be able to watch it. But also, it hurt. This one looks like three lightning bolts.

  Last year I was walking around a forest preserve outside of Chicago and I met two crackheads and I stood and talked with them while they smoked crack. We were by the picnic area, sitting on some tables. The crackheads were really nice and funny. They kind-of acted like a comedy duo where one guy is the “controlling, mean-guy” and the other guy is the “gullible but also more comically-lovable guy.” I don’t remember their names. But it was nice. Everyone was in a good mood because it was nice to talk to each other.

  I worked in a department store warehouse.

  Which meant I had to use a hydraulic forklift.

  Which meant I had to be trained.

  Which meant I had to watch a slightly more executive employee do it.

  The slightly more executive employee was a fat guy and he seemed to act the same way every fat comedian/actor did.

  I recognized every part of his behavior from something I’d already seen.

  Part of his behavior was responding to almost everything I said, with his eyes open wide, nodding, and saying, “Right on, right on.”

  He showed me how to use the forklift machine.

  He made the forked arm go up beneath a palette of merchandise, high up by the ceiling.

  The hydraulics made a droning sound.

  He looked at me, raising one eyebrow a few times in succession.

  “This is the way of the master,” he said, tapping the fingers on his other hand against his fat stomach. “Pay attention, son.”

  It was amazing to watch him navigate the lift.

  Beautiful and amazing.

  The way he worked took me soaring to beautiful heights.

  I wanted to buttfuck him.

  “Here, you try,” he said, pausing the lift up high beneath a palette. “Show me the way of the master.”

  I accepted the controls and slowly lowered the palette.

  There was no trouble.

  It was amazing.

  Basically, I fucking reigned.

  The other employee clapped and whistled for me and I imagined myself controlling a larger machine that I could use to rip the entire planet into smaller pieces.

  “Look at this fucking guy,” the slightly more executive employee said. “Just, raw power.”

  On the dashboard of the machine I noticed a dial that had a turtle painted on one side and a rabbit painted on the other side.

  I touched the dial of the machine.

  I asked about the turtle and the rabbit.

  “One means slow and one means fast, buddy,” he said. “Turtle goes slow and rabbit goes fast.”

  He took a bag of chocolate-covered peanut candy out of his cargo pants pocket and held the bag upside down until half went into his mouth.

  While pouring, he kept his lips open in a concentrated ring, and his eyes were open, looking upward and determined.

  The candy clicked against his teeth and he seemed to be doing some type of throat clench to keep from choking.

  “But the turtle eventually beat the rabbit right,” I said. “The turtle won the race I think, right. Hey does my voice sound weird to you. It sounds weird all of a sudden.”

  He was chewing the mouthful of candy.

  “I don’t know—is that how it went,” he said, clearing his throat after gargling a few words. “The turtle won? Is that right.” He looked at the ground, and then opened his eyes wide. “Wait—shiiiiit—you’re right.”

  “Yeah I think so,” I said. “Does that mean the turtle setting is better then. Should I just keep it on turtle.”

  The conversation was dying.

  A gigantic asshole slowly opening itself around the planet earth—quieting all conversations.

  “No wait, how could a fucking turtle win,” he said. “That’s impossible. Turtles like, live forever because they never move, right.”

  His mouth was open, crushing chocolate candy with his teeth and when he talked, he kept the pool in the bottom part of his mouth.

  He said, “Wha’d he do, catch the rabbit sleeping or showing off or some-shit, then bite through his leg tendons with that powerful turtle beak. I mean, come on man.” He honked the horn on the hydraulic lift. “The horn’s right here, by the way,” he said. Then he honked the horn like seven times. “What happened exactly. What did the turtle do. Tell me. Did he fuck him up. Fuck his rabbit-ass all up.” Honking once to each word, he said, “Fuck, him, all, up.”

  I said, “I’m not sure. He might have fucked him up. I think he won the race, so that’s like fucking him up, right.”

  “Yeah man, true,” he said, looking off like he was thinking. He sniffed while making a face. “Like, I could easily imagine the turtle walking up to the rabbit right after the race and putting his hands on his hips and saying, ‘I just fucked you up.’ And he’d be right about saying it.”

  Suddenly I couldn’t tell if he had a southern accent or not.

  He looked at me again, smiling.

  There was chocolate on his teeth and gums.

  I said, “Fucked him straight up to the fucking moon and then fucked him in
to one of the moon’s craters I think.”

  “Sho ‘nuff,” he said loudly, scratching his eyebrow with his thumb. “Alright, here, practice again by lifting the palette back up and putting it down into its original spot. I want to see your best shit here, guy. No holding back. Then I’ll sign off on this training sheet right here.”

  My training checklist was almost complete.

  I imagined myself rubbing my hands and saying, “Soon I will be certified.”

  I raised the palette back up to where it went, and lowered it there.

  Boom.

  “Holy shit,” said the slightly more executive employee, “—you’re good, guy.” He was sniffing a lot and licking candy pieces off his molars. “I think it’s about time I take a look at that checklist, son,” he said.

  Looking just past his face at the unpainted concrete wall, I said, “Check the shit out of that shit.”

  My co-worker held my training checklist up against the side of a shelving beam and signed the bottom.

  He cleared his sinuses a little, inflating his cheeks.

  He gave me the training checklist.

  It was completed and signed.

  I was certified.

  I looked up and down the list—all checkmarks.

  “I have become certified,” I said.

  The slightly more executive employee said, “Welcome home, son.”

  And he lowered the forklift.

  I imagined hiding until everyone left the store and then using the machine to mishandle a palette from up high, make it fall on my head.

  Just expertly dropping a big wooden palette on my head while placing my head sideways against the unpainted concrete floor.

  I could kill myself and make it look accidental.

  The best of both worlds.

  Fucking certified.

  No, think I’d only drop a pallet on my head though if I were able to live through it—and watch the first person to find me.

  That was the promise I made to myself, as the other employee was talking to me again.

  He said something about “Re-stocking” but I wasn’t listening.

  Because I was trying as hard as I could to fully feel the pain I’d experience—as if living through the experience of getting my head crushed by a wooden palette.