Rontel by Sam Pink

crib.
    “Ah, ah,” I said, loudly. “Fuck outta here.”
    The cat meowed and looked at me.
    My cat is better than you—I thought.
    My cat is the only cat I like—I thought.
    Which means, I don’t like you.
    I stood there feeling so tired, waving the purple duck and pinching the baby.
    Every few minutes, I checked the tarantula cage.
    One time the tarantula was out, looking at me (seemingly) like, “Ey, fuck you, bitch. I’m Roy.”
    My neighbor came back fifteen minutes later.
    He put some shit away in the kitchen and came into the bedroom carrying a thin tinfoil pie tin.
    He held it out and said, “Here man, take this. It’s pumpkin pie. My friend made it. Thanks for coming over and helping.”
    He was paying me in pumpkin pie.
    I said thanks and went across the hall.
    I locked my door, ate two pieces of the pumpkin pie—holding the pieces in my hand like pizza—then went back behind the bedsheet into my room.
    I was thinking something like—My life, it’s not terrible, I won’t be dramatic, but it’s something that, if offered, I’d say, “Nah,” and I’d be smiling a little but totally secure in my choice.
    *
    When I finished my sandwich I went out to look for jobs.
    Took the Red Line to Addison and walked around shitty Wrigleyville—with all the bars and restaurants—half looking for dishwashing jobs, half just walking around.
    I felt a little happier than usual though because of how much I liked the pants I was wearing.
    Recently bought them at the Salvation Army.
    They were really good.
    They were grey and a little smooth, like sharkskin.
    Soft and slick.
    Cost me six dollars.
    Felt such fulfillment.
    Usually when I buy Salvation Army pants, I get home and they almost fit but then there’s like, a huge extra area of space (or lack of space) by one knee, or something else random, like tight thighs or something else I’d never think of.
    But this pair fit so well.
    The way they fit seemed to enclose my genitals and ass so nice as to be sexual.
    Felt caressed.
    Caressed in foul delight.
    Such foul delight.
    Oh North America, how I want to show you such foul delight!
    *
    When I was at the Salvation Army buying the pants, I folded them over my arm and walked around the store for a while—just to delay buying them, to prolong the feeling of anticipation, the sex.
    And out from the toy aisle, an overweight homeless man walked up to me, smiling.
    He was holding a few board games, each a decade or two old.
    He was a foot shorter than me and had a huge stomach that hung out of the bottom of his shirt.
    His shirt read:
    “I
    (image of heart)
    America”
     
    Only one side of his top teeth were present—and those angled off to the side, making his head look slanted.
    Like his face had collapsed.
    Like a house with a wall knocked out.
    He had a cartoony voice too.
    Made phlegmy sounds.
    He pointed at my beard and said, “I yike how y’have dat. I yike ew beewd.”
    “Oh, thanks,” I said.
    “When y’have beewd-uh, don’t haffa cut ew face in duh mo’nin,” he said, and made a shaving motion with the hand not holding boardgames.
    Smiling, he still hadn’t blinked.
    Felt like he was giving me a “naughty” look.
    I wanted to shake my finger at him and say, “Don’t get naughty with me, man.”
    Couldn’t tell if his eyes were light blue or grey or silver or something else I didn’t know.
    Couldn’t tell if he was looking at me, or slightly above me.
    Fuck.
    Like he was lifting me off the ground by looking directly at me with one eye and slightly above me with the other.
    Holding me up just a little.
    Paralyzed.
    “Yeah, I hate shaving,” I said. “It sucks. I really hate it. I seriously—I hate it so much.”
    He laughed and got a little closer.
    His laughs had a honking-inhalation and/or sniffing-sound at the end.
    Like, he laughed then breathed-in through his nose or mouth.
    He said, “Beewds mate ew lutt smawter. O’der and smawter.”
    “Hell yeah,” I said. “Thanks. That’s