Breadcrumb #103

SEAN MULLIGAN

"What do you do for a living?" they ask.

     "I do sales."

     It's an easy question, one we hear all the time. Everyone has the built in answer. I do accounting, I do manual labor, I'm in the union, I'm a waiter. Doesn't matter. We all know what pays the bills.

     "Do you see this as a career?" they ask.

     Here's where the answer changes. A career is full-time. A career is the thing you pursue outside of just the 9-5. A career you see growth.

     9-5 I'm productive. I do well. Great even. I'm one of the few people who figured out my skill set and grabbed ahold of it.      To you my job sounds like a career.

     But let's think about this. Career implies I think about it outside of 9-5. I strive to be better. I strive to reach the next level. I am here because I know I'm qualified, I know I'm persistent, I know that when the time comes I'm ready for the next level.

     I should think about my "career" from the moment I wake up, until the moment I fall asleep.

     Here is where the issue lies.

     Some of us will focus on work. Some of us will focus on love. Some of us will focus on ourselves.

     There's a select few who will focus on taking care of ourselves, taking care of 'the pain.' We self diagnose, self medicate our problems away, and know the prescription from day one.

     We will not get the credit we deserve. Waking up to stomach lining vomit, but still making it through a day at the office. Sitting around literally thinking about the next time we get to imbibe alcohol. These things are seen as childish, irresponsible, and dumb. 

“Sitting around literally thinking about the next time we get to imbibe alcohol.”

     Somehow we muscle through. Day after day. We walk in each morning knowing the hill is steep, but we walk upwards. Sisyphus himself would be proud.

     We move forward against a downward sloping spiral of addiction and depression, anxiety, or a number and combination of a million other ailments.

     "What do you do for a living?" they ask.

     "I do sales."

     "What's your career?"

     "My career? I'm an alcoholic. I'm passionate about it. I think about it every second of everyday. I slowly improve upon yesterday. Each and every day I think about, 'Where does my next drink come from?' and how can I get there?"

     I pursue my alcoholism every fucking day. 24/7. It's my passion. It's the one thing I give up everything else for. I have destroyed relationships, burnt bridges, lost jobs, ruined sex, killed my social life, fell out with family, been excommunicated, isolated myself, missed funerals, missed weddings, missed life for it. That's a career, that's my full time job. And I do it really well. I am dedicated.

     You ask what I do for a living and I'll tell my "9-5."

     You ask about my career, my passion? You'll run. This takes dedication, and quite frankly, I don't think you can handle it.

     Because deep down in my heart I know if I stop I will die. Not from withdrawal, maybe not even of suicide, but just of sadness.

     I should goddamn well be able to put that on my resume, but the references would be fucked.

• • •

Breadcrumb #101

FREDDIE MOORE

The baby’s head fit in her palm like an apple. It cooed and spat. Catherine understood now why her mother had likened her own newborn head to Cezanne's post-impressionist apples. It made her hostile thinking of all the forced childhood museum trips, thinking she couldn’t be happy for just this moment, the one that was supposed to be the happiest of all moments, because she couldn’t stop thinking about those paintings. She couldn’t care less about the apples scattered about, in bowls, next to oranges, cradled in tablecloth — all those still lifes — and the baby, as if she could see them too, began to cry.

     Baby Sasha was the youngest in a long line of apples. Catherine’s whole family was full of these shining faces. There were portraits and portraits of them, all smiles and cheekbones.

     “She has red hair,” her husband, Bryden, noted, as the baby cried over him. This was a surprise to both parents: Bryden, blonde; and Catherine, brunette; but there were cousins on Bryden’s  side that could explain the recessive trait.

     “Our little apple.” The painkillers were speaking for Catherine. “Do you think all that red hair will stay with her?”

     For Catherine, having Sasha brought a flood of recognition: what it must have been for her mother to hold her as a baby, and now, even though she had known it for years, it was undeniable that she had once been a twin. She didn’t tell this to Bryden, because she couldn’t explain it, but her body could remember.

______

     Throughout the pregnancy, people would touch Catherine’s rounded belly without asking. They would smile so hard that their eyes seemed to bulge with their teeth. She had a hard time matching the aggression of their enthusiasm.

     Bryden’s closest friend, Pat, was the only the one who didn’t look at them with anticipation. Everything with him was the same. He would visit their place for dinner and bring beers. He didn’t ask how they intended to set up a nursery, or whether they would be moving into a bigger place someday and having more kids. Pat was a goof. Catherine thought he looked like Archie, from the comics she grew up with, with all that wild red hair. He was the only one who didn’t beg for them to be any different, any more together than they had been before.

     At the doctor, Catherine made sure that she was only having one baby. Twins ran in her family. “One girl,” the doctor would reassure her, but she still found herself holding sonograms to the light for clues of something that might appear or leave her.

     After her morning sickness passed, Catherine would wake up in the middle of the night feeling like a shark was ripping her insides. When she asked her mother, Denise, what plagued her pregnancy, Denise pinched her wine glass and said: “Dandruff. The worst dandruff of my life.”

     Catherine scratched her scalp in anticipation. She wanted to ask her mother what it was like to see her baby — Catherine’s twin — disappear from the sonograms back when it happened, but even during Catherine’s own pregnancy, the timing didn’t feel right.

______

     Pat was the first to visit them at home after Sasha was born. Catherine stayed seated on the rocking chair, the only place their newborn wouldn’t cry, and tried to stay awake. Something had changed in the way Bryden interacted with Pat. He kept short sentences short. He made excuses to leave the room.

     “Little red,” Pat mused, as Catherine offered Sasha into his arms. “She’s such a beauty.” He smiled at Catherine and then to Bryden, who returned an arbitrary smile and let his eyes turn to the corner of the room.

     Catherine could see all the muscles in Bryden’s body pulling up as he retreated into his mind, like a bomb trying not to explode. Catherine looked up at Pat, redheaded Pat, with all that hair, holding Sasha, and could see where her husband’s mind had gone.

______

     Bryden stopped inviting Pat over and Catherine felt strange inviting him over herself. She had Pat’s phone number primarily to contact Bryden, and that was the extent of their friendship. She was offended, honestly, that Bryden could even imagine she would have a secret affair with Pat, who the two of them adored, but was stubborn and too absorbed in himself to ask whether or not to bring over booze, or care enough to ask about their plans in the next few years — whether they wanted to have another kid, or someday buy a home.

     They went weeks without seeing Pat, the longest they had been without him since they all met in college, and she could see Bryden getting better. He started sleeping close to her again. He started making clown faces for Sasha and smiling when she would laugh along. Catherine felt like this could be the time to bring it up — the way Bryden had looked at Pat — but worried it would be like opening a fresh cut to the air too soon.

     In all truth, after seeing the empty look Bryden had for their daughter, Catherine didn’t want to leave Sasha alone with him. The look made Catherine think he was capable of doing anything without feeling. On his good days, she would occasionally leave them alone in a room together, and eventually, she felt maybe the problem was her — her own silly anxieties — and left the two alone while she went to pick up groceries for the week. The whole time at the supermarket she felt like she was walking up high on the edge of her worst thoughts and forgot the peanut butter she went out buy in the first place.

“On his good days, she would occasionally leave them alone in a room together, and eventually, she felt maybe the problem was her — her own silly anxieties — and left the two alone while she went to pick up groceries for the week.”

     All the windows were dark when she brought the groceries home. She called Bryden’s name and flicked the lights on, hoisting the food-filled bags up onto their kitchen counter. There was red hair all over floor. She could see it now with the light. The grief swallowed her and she tried telling herself it wasn’t definite — it couldn’t be until she saw Sasha — but she was losing control over her breath and tears and what-ifs. She found herself in the nursery, which was lit only by the yellow streetlights outside, and there was Bryden holding Sasha — living, cooing Sasha — who was blowing wondrously big bubbles with her saliva.

     “You shaved her head,” Catherine said, trying to get closer to take Sasha out of his arms.

     “Catie, I know she isn’t mine.”

     “She’s ours, Bryden”

     “She isn’t mine with all that red hair.”

     She felt like screaming loud enough about Bryden’s red headed cousins that all the neighbors could hear. How loud would she have to shout to convince him of the science behind recessive traits? She stopped herself, knowing it was the worst possible thing to add to the situation.

     “You aren’t making any sense.” She approached Bryden, who backed toward the window.

     “I don’t buy this thing you’re putting on.” He broke eye contact with Catherine and Sasha’s bubble making boiled into a cry, the kind of crying that wasn’t going to stop for a long while.

     “Bryden, will you please let me hold her?” she could imagine all of Sasha’s warmth in her arms as the baby’s cries filled the space. “I can share my secret, but you’ve got to let me hold her.”

     Catherine could feel the cool, yellow breeze coming from the window and hear sirens from one of the local fire engines burning outside. Bryden put Sasha in her arms. Their little apple. Their poor girl. Catherine felt there was no need to flick a light. Her mind was busy imagining all of the ways she could escape the house, down the stairs and away from this threat she couldn’t have imagined while holding sonograms to the light.  

     “I was supposed to be a twin.” Catherine admitted. She recited the secret as if it was someone else’s. “Nobody told me. I found it in one of my mom’s journals when I was eight: ‘We’re having twin girls!’” Bryden was quiet. Catherine felt he wasn’t listening. His mind was still on Pat and this strange possibility that the baby belonged to his friend.  

     “My mom doesn’t talk about it.” Catherine stared at Bryden for eye contact. “And I didn’t think about it much before Sasha, but now I think about it all the time. I used to go crazy worrying that another child would suddenly appear in me.” Catherine laughed, looking for Bryden to join her. It was funny admitting the fear out loud.

     “That’s ridiculous.” Bryden finally spoke, annoyed that Catherine had moved their talk away from Sasha’s red hair, from Pat, and the mess in the kitchen.

     “You’re not hearing me,” Catherine took her time and finally met Bryden’s eyes. “I’m telling you I know what it’s like to worry about things that don’t make sense.”

• • •

Breadcrumb #100

EVAN CARDONA, SHELBY LEWIS, Vincent perretta, CHRISTA BRENNAN, JOSH RUBINO, CHRISTINA MANOLATOS, KEVIN ALEXANDER, TYLER NAUGLE, SAM TWARDY, KRIZTILLE JUNIO, MARLON CO, DANIEL TOY, BOB RAYMONDA, & ADAM RAYMONDA

Breadcrumb #99

KATIE NAUM

To be agnostic in New York is essentially a given, at least in the circles I ran in back then. There was an expected trajectory toward agnosticism, from churchgoing or temple-going childhood to liberal arts education to arch post-college cynicism to a more or less comfortably settled adulthood, having netted some managerial role in some creative field and an equally enlightened and overworked spouse along the way. At some point, religion was to be shed like snakeskin, or like an astronaut suit after you’d come back down to earth. Unnecessary.

    Hardcore atheism was a little suspect as well, being the domain of incredibly earnest white guys who were sure you would be converted to their sociopolitical opinions if you just read their series of blogs explaining the subject. The ideal stance was secular but open-minded. Gestures could be made toward what might be called spirituality if it helped you find that most skittish of people: yourself. And of course the role of religion in the world made very stimulating material for intellectual debate at whatever gastropub had just opened somewhere downtown, about three or four drinks in, when everyone felt particularly moved to explain their stance.

     Let me open my story by saying I was tired. I was physically tired, worn out — I hadn’t slept more than an hour or two each night that week, thanks to a potent combo of work stress and personal anxiety — but I was tired in a larger sense as well. I was tired of New York, certainly. I was tired of paying $1,500 per month to sleep in 10 square feet in a good neighborhood, which meant a neighborhood where I couldn’t afford anything anyone was selling. I was tired of 24/7 work emails, texts, and tweets in the name of journalism, which lately meant writing up videos that showed rats doing something funny in the subway. I was tired of swiping left; I was tired of swiping right. And I let this exhaustion bleed over into all the values I associated with New York, all the things that had drawn me to the place where I was now unhappy. It no longer seemed the haven of diversity and inclusivity and creativity I’d yearned for after a childhood in the sticks. It was just another place for people to be cliquish and empty-headed, although those people were generally in possession of more degrees and better clothes than anyone back home. I was having another disillusionment about another Paradise.

     I’d been seeing a girl; it wasn’t working out. She was upset when I told her this. I was the first lesbian she’d gone to bed with, and I could see emotional baggage forming before my eyes as I told her over cold brews that it wasn’t about her at all, we were just at two very different places in our lives. She’d be fine, I thought. She was the type to wind up with a clean-cut guy in finance, I was sure. It’s really fucking hard to see a pretty girl cry, though.

     “But we’re supposed to go to Eamon and Kaspar’s wedding this summer,” she said, her face shining with tears. Her cat’s-eye makeup was holding up valiantly in spite of this. She was a makeup artist, she had a photo shoot to get to, but she seemed to have forgotten all about it, latching on to our travel plans as if committing to a destination wedding on the Riviera Maya was an unbreakable link in forging a lifelong bond. For a dizzying moment I felt an irrational surge of hatred toward her, toward all of it, everything I saw as tasteful and expected and meaningless.

     “Isabella,” I began, and I closed my eyes and sighed, in hopes of exhaling all my frustration on a wave of carbon dioxide. When I opened my eyes, she was gone.

     Everything was gone. I jumped to my feet, nearly falling over in shock. The bustling Manhattan sidewalk and breezy café seating had vanished. I was standing now in a vast, desolate landscape, broad and rocky and dark under a Crayola-purple sky and an indifferent, egg-yellow sun.

     I’d been sober for a couple years at that point, but my first thought was that I must have something in my system. I spun around wildly — emptiness in all directions. “Isabella?!” I cried out. Now I wanted her with me very badly. You could always feel her presence nearby, even when she was out of eyeshot. I hadn’t noticed how quietly comforting that was, to have someone compassionate nearby.

“You could always feel her presence nearby, even when she was out of eyeshot.”

     I turned again — more slowly this time — trying to decide what to do next. That’s when I saw the cathedral.

     I call it that, but it really didn’t look much like a cathedral if you gave the idea any thought. A strange, sprawling cluster of stone buildings, Romanesque and Gothic and Eastern forms taken seemingly at random. Most of its windows were dark, save one: an enormous honeycomb of rainbow colors that sparkled in the sun. All of this was weird enough to begin with. Then there was the fact that it was floating in midair hundreds of feet above me, effortlessly, impossibly.

     Was I high? Was I dreaming? Was I dying? How did I get here? And what the hell did it all mean?

     The building had no answers for me. It simply was, utterly convincing in its sheer bulk, its luminous form, the shadow it cast on the earth below. As I gazed, I thought perhaps I heard the sound of music from somewhere within its heavy walls. Not so much heard it as felt it, I thought a moment later. It was like stringed instruments rising and falling in both tone and volume. It was like breath, or the beating of a heart. It made the emptiness more serene, somehow. It reminded me of my mother’s last couple of days.

     Mom. That hospital room she was in at the end, crowded with people — me and my stepdad and her church friends and the priest I could barely keep myself from rolling my eyes at. (To be fair, he had a very low opinion of me as well.) I was a mess, all bloodshot eyes and unshowered sweat, but she was close to the end, and the peace she had awaited for so long was already upon her. I held her hand, and she held mine back, even when she couldn’t see me any longer. That’s who she was.

     She loved me. She always loved me, even when I stopped going to church, left home as soon as I could, forgot to return calls, drank more and more heavily, did more and more drugs. Hers was a goodness that didn’t square with what I thought I wanted. I was an arrow that wanted to fly off alone.

     She died before I went sober. She never got to see, well, everything I did with my life. Everything I got to be. The sadness I felt about that always seemed to thread its way through all my other anxieties and frustrations and angers, stitching them together where they might have fallen away. How much harder and worse everything seems to be when you feel alone in the world.

     I breathed in the memory of her from where it came humming down on high and felt it all around me and held it, and held it, and held it. I looked up at the cathedral and knew I’d never completely understand.

     And when I blinked again, I was back, and there was Isabella still gazing at me helplessly, still not right for me — I wasn’t stupid about these things, after all — but no longer required to be an object of scorn, somehow.

     “I’ll send you money for the travel expenses we’ve already made,” I said. “I’m really sorry, Isabella. I’d like to stay friends if or when you’re ready. Can I call you a car?”

    She left. Like I said, she was ultimately fine, although she surprised me and wound up with a really cute little dyke who works in IT.

     I told a few people about what I’d seen and heard and felt, which I don’t necessarily recommend doing. In return I was given a lot of uneasy looks, the name of a shrink in Flatiron, and a recommendation that I try this really effective detox cleanse. But one or two people listened and asked the right sort of questions — the kind of questions that made me ask further questions of myself about what was really important and work to find the answers. I spent more of my time with people like that afterward.

     I don’t have any explanation for what happened. It certainly wasn’t a tidy little come-to-Jesus moment. But I’m starting to think that explanations aren’t always essential. What’s essential is what you do afterward.

• • •