Rontel by Sam Pink Read Free Book Online Page A

and it makes me want to vomit. Please, it’s bad. Thanks!”
    I took the note inside and sat on the couch.
    My brother was sleeping on the floor—his shirt off and underneath his head for a pillow with Rontel curled up on his chest.
    I read the note again.
    It hurt.
    Hurt so bad I almost threw my sandwich against the wall.
    “… Thanks !”
    The exclamation point stung.
    Neither my brother nor I smoked.
    We’d been wrongly accused.
    Now wait just a second, hold on there.
    Just because there are birds and flowers on your stationary and your handwriting is nice don’t mean you can come to my floor and just shit in my mouth.
    I’m innocent, muffucker.
    Stop shitting in my mouth like this with your damned lies!
    I graphically imagined myself stomping someone’s face, yelling, “This is my floor, muf fucker .”
    Then I grabbed a red pen off the windowsill and wrote “die” on the note in big scary letters and put the note halfway underneath the door of my neighbor across the hall, for him to find and worry about, haha!
    (Plus I’s pretty sure the note was for him.)
    *
    Without any real effort I’d been able to avoid meeting and knowing a single person in my building except Enrique and Big Moms.
    Oh, and the person directly across from me.
    Doug.
    I always saw Doug coming in and out of the building—usually with a rolled cigarette in his mouth, carrying some kind of motorized bike he’d created from a mountain bike and what looked like a lawnmower engine.
    Every time I encountered him he was already saying something, as if we’d been talking.
    Like, “Fuckin’ has to be here somewhere, fuckin’ lost my cellphone you know cuz I borrowed it out, ha.”
    Or: “So now I have to get a new stroller at the fuckin’ flea market.”
    My only extended interaction with him was one morning, really early.
    There was a knock at my door.
    It was Doug.
    He was talking fast already.
    He said, “Oh man, so’m fuckin’ trying to pack to go to Boston and shit—me and the kid have to meet the grandparents there—and my wife’s already there, fuckin’ and I gotta pack and get going but I have to go out and get some things and I don’t want to get my kid ready and take him to the store, can you, do you think you could watch him for a little bit while I go out.”
    I looked at him.
    I was trying to think about how many times I’d interacted with him.
    Did I know him.
    Did I really know anyone.
    Just kidding/who gives a shit.
    I said, “All right yeah. I’ll be over.”
    And I thought about how low my voice was and how bad my breath was and how that might be scary to a baby—like, just this thing with a deep voice and bad breath, watching over him.
    Would the baby internalize the experience as a monster that then followed him throughout life in different forms.
    Just kidding/hope so.
    Doug looked confused.
    He said, “Oh ok, yeah, you can watch him over here I guess. I’s going to bring him over, but yeah.”
    “You were going to bring your baby over here,” I said.
    Rontel was at my feet with his forehead against my leg, twisting his head over and over.
    My neighbor said, “All right man, hurry up and come over. He’s a little sweetheart but I gotta get going too so, ha,” and he tapped my chest with the back of his hand.
    I put on a shirt and pants and went over.
    Doug was walking around his apartment, moving shit around, knocking shit over.
    He said, “Man, my wife would fuckin’ kill me if she knew what this place looked like when I showed it to you ha, but no, it’s fine man.”
    The crib was in Doug’s bedroom.
    He showed me into the bedroom and said, “Here, let me introduce you t’is lil shithead here.”
    The baby immediately looked at me and smiled.
    A few months old maybe.
    “Aw look at that smile,” Doug said, touching the baby’s chin. “He’s just fuckin’ witya though.”
    I thought—This baby is fucking with me.
    Doug returned to walking around, looking for something.
    I stood by the