Breadcrumb #44

CHRISTIE DONATO

“You know how it feels when you focus a little too hard on the way your teeth are set? You move your bottom row a little forward, or a little backwards. You try to match up your two rows of teeth, but then it feels all weird and you can’t remember where your teeth are supposed to go anymore.”

     “Not really.”

     “It doesn’t matter. It’s just how I felt the day the sky ripped open and the golden ships came through with…well, we know what they are now, but we didn’t then.”

     “The ships with the raiders.”

     “Yes. They came through almost immediately. I know because I was watching.”

     Judy stopped speaking abruptly and stared over Ana’s shoulder. Judy behaved like everyone Ana had ever met who witnessed the universe split open. A little haunted. A little bit like they would never be the same.

     Ana coughed lightly, and pulled Lily — her small, floppy dog — onto her lap. Her mother had been right about the world beyond their small town in West Virginia. They hadn’t even known what was happening at the time. Some kind of nuclear bomb had wiped out half the town, she’d been told by the adults.

“Some kind of nuclear bomb had wiped out half the town, she’d been told by the adults.”

     “How long did you watch for?” she finally asked.

     “I couldn’t even tell you. Maybe hours. I didn’t know what to do.” Judy made eye contact with Ana once more. “I hid in an alleyway and just stared up. Finally, I worked up the courage to walk home. When I got there the apartment was empty. The lights were all off, and no one had even bothered to lock the door. I remember it was dusk, and there was still just enough light coming in through the gate over our fire escape window in the kitchen that I could at least see where I was going. I waited for them that night because I thought that maybe they were coming back. My dad, at least, would come back for me. I ended up waiting in that apartment for weeks. I thought that they would know I was there. I didn’t dare turn on any lights, or even look out the windows, because I was afraid someone would come and take me away. I don’t know why I thought that, but it seemed like a real threat at the time. Anyway, first I ate all the leftovers in the fridge. Cold. Then I moved on to the snacks and canned goods. Everything cold. My stomach was always upset.”

     “When did you leave?”

     “No one ever came for me. I ran out of food, and I knew I’d have to leave if I wanted to live.”

     “And you did want to live?” Ana prompted.

     “It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t.”

     There was a moment of silence while both girls mulled that over. Ana decided it was a subject best left alone for now.

     “You know why they never came back, don’t you?” Ana asked instead.

     “Yeah,” Judy said, but then shook her head. “I mean, no. I never actually looked for their names on the lists of the deceased. Sometimes I want to, but I can’t tell which scenario I prefer: my parents leaving me to die, or dying themselves.”

       “I don’t think it’s a question of preference. Don’t you want to know the truth?”

       “Does it matter? I don’t think it does. I don’t need to know, definitively, one way or the other. The outcome is the same. My parents are gone, and the world is different now.”

       Ana gripped Lily a little tighter in her arms, afraid she might say something she wouldn’t be able to take back. Judy, meanwhile, was playing with a loose thread in her sweater, twisting the string around her pinky finger over and over again.

       “Do you know how I found this place?” Judy said, as if she were a little bit proud of this bit.

       Ana shook her head.

       “I left the apartment and went to the nearest subway. I spent a little bit of time on the platform, deciding what to do. There were no trains coming, which I figured would be the case. I needed to make sure, though, so I waited and waited. When I was absolutely positive, I sat down on the edge of the platform, with my feet dangling over the tracks. There was a buildup of really smelly, weeks-old garbage. It took everything in me to do it, but I jumped down onto the tracks. I picked a direction and just walked. I think I was trying to just get off the island, but honestly, who knows what I was thinking at the time. It was dark, and there were rats everywhere, but I was alone apart from them. The garbage-rainwater mixture soaked through my shoes and socks as I walked. I could feel it between my toes, and it smelled so bad. I just started to cry.

      “There was something about the trash juice and the dark that was so repulsive that it triggered this strong emotional response in a way that being left alone for weeks hadn’t done. I cried, and walked, and threw up a couple times, and kept walking until David found me. He brought me here.”

      Ana didn’t say anything. Here was the sanctuary for those who had not been successfully removed from Manhattan.

     “Is that what happened where you’re from? With the sky and the evacuations?” Judy asked.

     “No. Not at all,” Ana said.

• • •

Breadcrumb #43

JEN WINSTON

They met at a bar because neither of them wanted to waste a good date idea on someone they met online. They both knew the odds were slim for second dates (let alone thirds), so it didn’t make sense to spend time and money wandering around a unique museum together.

     The bar was Nitecap on the Lower East, her choice. According to both Yelp and her junior year at NYU, it was a "clean dive" (she liked oxymorons) that served an $18 "orange wine" (if not perfect oxymorons, at least things that felt wrong). That wine was a security blanket — one of her favorite tastes in the city and worth the trip in itself; a shining half orb for her to cradle, chug, and sign for. It was expensive, but it was a sure bet — the rest of the night was just a gamble, another Wednesday fed to the wolves.

     They’d met on a new app called RightPlace. No one could see the app’s intentions just yet — whether it was for hookups, long-term stuff, or gamified Tinder-esque swiping — but it was so controversial that even people in relationships could tell you how it worked. It tracked your location, and if you had three locations in common with someone, the two of you were a match. Tara’s couple friends said the app was creepy, calling it “an invasion of privacy.” “But isn’t invasion of privacy the point of relationships?” she’d said. Her couple friends had changed the subject.

     Thus, instead of Leonard Cohen, she and J (according to a brief chat conversation, that was his full name) had two bookstores and a Panera Bread in common. She decided to look past the Panera Bread and hoped he’d do the same.

     The last time she’d had Sex was two months ago. She’d met that guy in person, the way she kind of still believed love had to be done. But when she met men in person, she became enamored with the idea of having met in person. She would write a little fairy tale with a happy ending, fall too hard, and move too fast. She usually slept with them that night and followed them on Instagram the next morning, never sure which made her seem easier.

     Once Tara got off the subway, she tried not to look at her phone. Not texting made her feel powerful; gave her command. Men could sense a lot of things, her mother used to tell her. Especially willpower, and she needed every ounce of fake willpower she could get.

“Men could sense a lot of things, her mother used to tell her. Especially willpower, and she needed every ounce of fake willpower she could get.”

     It was 9:07 — she was appropriately late; he would be there first. She wanted a cigarette for the first time in years, but a bodega run would have made her inappropriately late, and besides, she didn’t know his opinion on smoking yet. Too many risks, and none of them were lung cancer.

     Two months ago, just after having The Sex, she’d made a mistake. They’d been lying there, breathing and putting off dealing with the condom, and she’d said to the guy, “You’re good at Sex.” Her mother had always told her to give compliments, said people liked to hear nice things about themselves. But only seconds after delivering this one, she realized the damage it had done:

          1. It implied that this Sex was better than her usual Sex.

          2. That meant that, if he didn’t think this Sex had been good, they could both ascertain that her usual Sex was bad Sex.

          3. It put the ball in his court: She now needed him to say “you too,” not because she wanted to hear she was good, but because it would level things out, and she could go back to thinking of her Sex life as, at the very least, average.

     He tugged the condom off and tossed it onto her floor, whispering the words “thank you.”

     “Tara?” A blonde guy seated alone waved. To say her name out loud like that, inflection rising at the end, meant telling the whole bar that they were just meeting for the first time. She sighed, imagining the spectator couples that would go home and talk about the “awkward online date in the corner.” They would discuss the vulgarity of dating apps; how they’re all designed based on shticks and put into practice by people whose libidos are low because they aren’t getting any. They would remind each other how lucky they were to have met in person.

     “Hey,” Tara said, scooting into the booth. He looked weirder than his pictures — alien-like, skinnier. She couldn’t tell where his eyes pointed and his hair was gelled, albeit slightly, in a bad way. The booth was tiny and their knees touched.

     “Do you need a drink?” He looked better when he smiled, but not by much.

     “I do, but I’m not gonna make you buy it for me.” She’d been dreading this moment — the reveal of her motives in choosing this location; having it come across as a confession of the lack of faith she knew they shared. “I picked this place because they have this amazing $18 wine.”

     “$18?! For a bottle in this town? That’s a steal!”

     As advanced as she fancied her sense of humor, she still liked it when people referred to New York as a small village. Slightly warmer inside, she considered how to let him down.

     “No…it’s $18 a glass.” Before he could flip the table in anger: “I know, it’s absurd.”

     “Oh. Shit.” He stared down, she assumed, to plot his escape from the tiny booth. “Must be good, then,” he said. ”I’ll get two.”

     Curveball from the dude she’d “met” at Panera! He’d roll with it. Maybe they both needed something external to get them through the night. “Awesome — ask for the orange one.”

     Their legs stayed staggered like unwilling watch gears, and it took him two full minutes to wiggle out. They laughed, then Tara watched him at the bar — cool and competent, a good height, and slightly weathered in all the right places. Maybe that was why they called it RightPlace, she wondered. Already she found herself ignoring his hair.

     It took him a while to get served, especially for a Wednesday. She considered that perhaps he didn’t have what it took and felt her fingers itch for her phone. Still determined not to use it, she let her mind drift, inevitably to The Sex — gritty, sweaty, with an element of destiny. She clenched her legs and chewed her tongue, then stared at a guy across the room, wondering if he was alone by choice. 

• • •

Breadcrumb #42

MADELEINE HARRINGTON

Shelby cried underwater. She treaded in the deep end and sank beneath the surface slowly so that the pine-tree horizon shrunk while the blackness grew right before her eyes. She cried into her goggles, coming up for air only to pour out the sad saltwater globs onto the surface of the lake and watch them swim away from her.

     The counselors noticed this, and one day after Free Swim, they pulled her aside to ask if she would want her mother to send new goggles, since the ones she had now must obviously be cracked. Shelby, green foam noodle in hand, white bathing cap still on head, shorts already high on her waist so that a round stain of lake water shone between her pudgy legs, shook her head conclusively.

     “These goggles are a family heirloom,” she said in a way that made it sound obviously untrue, yet was also hiding a very large truth beneath it. 

     The counselors nodded and took the noodle from Shelby. They didn’t press the matter, but they did strongly suggest she change her shorts.

     Shelby cried in the shower. She cried with shampoo in her hair, with soap on her stomach. When a counselor pulled her aside, she explained that her eyes were red because she had gotten shampoo in them. The counselor didn’t press the matter, but she did suggest that Shelby start using a larger towel to cover up her body.

     Shelby decided she didn’t need friends to have a good time at camp. She read books. She became an expert canoer. During breakfast, she counted the blueberries in her muffin and the raisins in her cereal bowl. On group hikes, she studied the trees and moss, clearly enjoying the scenery far too much to contribute to the conversation.

“During breakfast, she counted the blueberries in her muffin and the raisins in her cereal bowl.”

     Shelby cried in the morning. The counselors said that nighttimes were the loneliest, but Shelby liked the night because it meant she would get to sleep soon. In the morning, every camper woke up to the traditional trumpet song played by Anthony, the camp director’s 15-year-old nephew. It was the same tune every day, yet Anthony never got it right, and his trumpet squeaked and squawked through the loudspeaker as Shelby wiped hot liquid from her eyes and tried to remember her dreams.

     Shelby’s least favorite part of the day was also every other camper’s favorite part of the day. When it was least expected, a counselor would shout “Mail Time!” as loud as they could. The camp was too big for one person’s voice to carry all the way across, so another counselor would hear the “Mail Time!” call and join in. Then more counselors would call “Mail Time!” from the canoes, the horse stables, the tennis courts, and the bathrooms. Then, of course, the campers would bob up and down in the water, sit up in bed, do a little dance in the dining hall, singing “Mail Time!” until the entire camp was shouting and it no longer sounded like decipherable words but hysterical noise, like several hundred women in a burning building, pleading for help.

     The other campers liked to read their parents’ letters because they had a spoken agreement that they loved each other. At one point in their lives, usually more, every camper’s mom and dad said “I love you” to them like they meant it and the camper said “I love you back,” and they have been saying it and feeling it ever since. These letters were long and handwritten. Sometimes, a mom would write a word and then think of a better word, a word she knew would please her child even more, and you could see the crossed-out word replaced by the new word, the physical evidence of love. These letters had multiple colors, P.S.s and stickers. The campers liked to compare letters, to discuss whose mom and dad loved them the most. Everybody won.

     In the middle of the summer, the camp director called Shelby’s mother and gently suggested she mail Shelby a letter or two. The director told her about Mail Time and how it was every camper’s favorite part of the day. However, the director did not mention the crossed-out words that were replaced by new words, because no one should have to be told about that.

     “I hadn’t thought about doing that,” said Shelby’s mother as if a neighbor had shown up at her front door and suggested she examine the inside of her gutters for mold.

     Shelby did get a letter during the second-to-last week which, after reading, she folded a dozen times and tucked beneath a loose wooden plank in the cabin floor. The letter was typed and on the back was an old invitation for a New Year’s party.

      Hi Shelby,

      Your father and I went to a dinner party at the Millers' last night. Tons of fun — the blackened cod was exceptional. Have a good time at camp and make lots of friends.

     Mail was distributed every day by Pete. Pete was the camp director’s other nephew, but only through marriage, and he was older and his future was far less bright than Anthony’s. Pete was in charge of maintenance and drove a particularly noisy golf cart that made it easy to tell when he was nearby. In fact, since Pete hardly spoke and was never too far from his cart, an impression of Pete by camper and counselor alike was typically a poor reenactment of an exhaust pipe.

     Pete got out of jail two years ago. Every once in a while, when a camper was brave enough to approach the cart and ask what it was like in there, Pete would shrug, scrutinize a far-off pine tree, and say “one big party.”

     Pete used to toss Shelby envelopes he had stuffed with different flavored bubblegum until the other campers caught on and the camp director pulled him aside. 

     Also, every Tuesday night at 3 a.m., Pete would walk down to the lake, strip off all his clothes, and dive into the water. He would tread water in the deep end, where he kept his eyes open and watched the different shades and shapes of blackness swim like fish, dodging the moonlight. No one knew that Pete did this, and no one would ever find out — not the director, the campers, Shelby, not Pete’s friends, nor his future wife or future children. It was a secret so well kept sometimes Pete had to wonder if it actually happened at all, or if he really was as crazy as people kept suggesting.

• • •

Breadcrumb #41

BOB RAYMONDA

It stands alone in the display window of The Little Ranch, a desolate “western wear” store on Hugenot St heading toward the gas station. Its denim pants are faded from too many years unwashed in the sun, with a hand resting unmoved on its hip, sporting a thick brown belt held together with a gaudy golden buckle. The buckle itself emblazoned with the visage of three deer in varying degrees of grazing. A cowboy hat rests on the crown of the sad old mannequin, but no countenance — not even an artificial one. You’d think they’d give it some sort of discerning characteristic, like a mustache or a corncob pipe to cement its plastic persona. A row of offensively dyed leather cowboy boots stand at attention on the floor in front of it, begging the local passersby to come in, try on a pair, and wear them home.

“A cowboy hat rests on the crown of the sad old mannequin, but no countenance — not even an artificial one.”

     One can’t help but wonder what an establishment such as this is doing on this side of the state, or whom it might call its patronage. What sort of function would they have to attend to necessitate a trip into its overcrowded and musty-smelling storefront. It seems like it’d be much better suited to an area where the primary mode of transportation is a rusted old pickup, rather than a complicated system of shiny (and some not-so-shiny) trains and buses. Where people owned sprawling homes and acres of land instead of renting a thousand square feet.

     Even as restaurants, stores, and art galleries come and go around it, The Little Ranch persists. And not only does it persist, but it remains unchanged. Seems to go untouched for ages at a time. What are they doing so successfully that they don’t need to change up the facade every once in a while? Maybe not every month, but at least ever four, even six. Give us some reason to come back other than the same misplaced cowboy they’ve plied us with for the past three years.

     Is it run by some misinformed transplant? Someone so in love with the aura of their origins, but happy to be a part of a different landscape? Or is this person so confident in their wares, naive enough to think that their supply is in high demand?

     No, they can’t be. It has to be some sort of front, right? Like every pair of boots comes with a little bag of coke. Like every dollar taxed is nothing more than a way to launder the hard-earned and not-so-hard-earned money of the local college students. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? At least in theory. Give something so seemingly bland and lacking in personality an air of intrigue.

     Always driving by, asking all the questions, never willing to just walk in and get the answer. Or at least the illusion of an answer. Because where’s the satisfaction in that? What good does knowing that The Little Ranch is some retired couple’s midlife crisis serve?

     Is that even it? Does it even matter?

• • •

Breadcrumb #40

PETER SCHRANZ

In September Denise conceived twins with Roger, a dashing gentleman whose face-genes she hardly doubted would succeed so wildly that the men of the future would all look like him. Denise took no part in this project as the twins were girls (not that she knew anything but that she was pregnant with some number of some sex) but Roger's mother had acquired from his grandmother a face like a Cézanne apple and those genes were stored away all over the place in Roger and ended up building the girls' faces so it was a win either way.

     In December Denise read the pleasing line from Syrus, "The loss which is unknown is no loss at all," and recognized the truth of it not only with her brain but with her heart and lungs and most relevantly her active uterus.

     Roger began to do a lot of things because Denise could not. At the swing of her wrist he would rocket to the grocery store and gather all the usual unusual-food-combination-for-the-pregnant-woman components. Denise realized one day when Roger was out doing her bidding that she had married him largely because of his sundry masculinities. Now that he kept running off submissively to the grocery store whenever she wanted an egg cream and ketchup or something, running off without even noting what a strange request she had made as a result of his sitcom-induced overfamiliarity with the whole craving trope, she found him girlish, weak, and unattractive.

“Denise realized one day when Roger was out doing her bidding that she had married him largely because of his sundry masculinities.”

     In March she read this displeasing line from Tudge, "The family Odontaspididae ... are among the groups whose offspring practice oophagy — eating their siblings in the womb," and recognized the truth of it with all her aforementioned body parts.

     Denise was a hair away from asking Roger for some kind of a separation after some pregnancy thing gave her dandruff. She asked Roger whether he still found her attractive and he said yes. She believed that if he was lying, they should separate on account of she was married not only to a liar but also to someone so soulless as not to find the many-hued surprises of human reproduction a joy. She believed that if he was telling the truth, that they should separate on account of he was either a sexual deviant with some sort of repulsive and unspeakable dandruff thing or an apathetic slug with no interest in his wife's health in the shape of the dryness of her skin, or in his own child's health in the shape of the dryness of its mother's skin.

     In June she gave birth to one single, beautiful, apple-red, nine-pound girl named Catherine. All it took was a look at Catherine for Denise to realize silently that Roger was just as much a man as ever since after all she, Denise, couldn't have made such a magnificent squealing ruby without any of his input. Denise and Roger remained married and nurtured that one single child to the very best of their fully sufficient abilities and nobody was the wiser about anything.

• • •