Breadcrumb #393

JOSH DALE

One of the highlights of elementary school was the variety show. It was a grand production led by Mrs. L. She instated the stage crew, talent selection, emcee, art, and all the production equipment. It was held in the afternoon on Friday and parents and siblings sat in rows of metal chairs. The entire 3rd and 4th-grade chorus sang: “We welcome you all to our variety show. Lots of different things to see before you go…and don’t forget to cheer for the stage and art crew. That’s what God wants us to do.”. I recall doing a skit with two other boys, J. and T., for a ‘modern’ rendition of some boy band. We danced and sung into a fixed microphone; K. was watching my shoddy routine. Some others sung, read poetry, performed talents one could only dream of. K. and her friends performed something similar, like cogs in the machine of 90’s pop culture. I forget who won the ‘best act’; I think it was an underclassman singing a show tune. I sat far away from K. for the remainder of the show.

• • •

Breadcrumb #392

COLLEEN ENNEN

Pull impatiently on your father’s hand.

    Wait for the crossing light, your mother will say.

    Try to be good. Fidget. Watch the red and brown leaves swirl; listen to them crunch under your new boots-a-half-size-too-big. Feel the cold on your cheeks and nose; feel the warmth inside your knit mittens and knit tights.

    I hope it doesn’t rain, your mother will say.

    I don’t like the look of those clouds, your father will say.

    The light will turn green.

    Skip when you cross the intersection. Wave at the police officer with the whistle and yellow vest. Phtweeee! his whistle will shriek. There will be many families all smushed together on the other side. You will see other children running and laughing and drinking hot chocolate. Ask your father—pretty please—for a hot chocolate. He will grumble about the price, but he will buy it. It will be watery and hot and so sweet sweet sweet. Hold with both hands, careful.

    You will hear the music first. Dart forward, around the knees and hips, and under the bags of the strangers. Do not hear your mother shout. Press your quivering body to the barricade.

    The turkey will be thirty feet tall and riding a truck. It will have two small pilgrims on its back. A woman holding a pumpkin will hand you a red balloon. Another woman will give the boy next to you chewing gum.

    Wish you had been given chewing gum instead.

    Look up. Beautiful giants will swim across the sky, lead by long strings. Charlie Brown. Babar. Kermit. Shriek with delight. Clap.

    Santa fifty-feet-long will loom over you. His shadow will stretch half the block. Santa six-feet-tall will follow on the street with his sleigh and his reindeer and his Mrs. Santa. Wave at him until your elbow hurts.

“His shadow will stretch half the block.”

    Time to go now kiddo, your mother will say.

    That’s the end of the parade, she will say.

    Ask to say just five minutes more—But look there are more balloons! Please just to see those? Point down the street. There will be a host of shining white figures floating uptown.

    A new part of the parade maybe, your father will say.

    I didn’t see anything about it in the paper, your mother will say.

    The shining white figures will come closer. Watch them. When they reach your block you will see that the figures are children. They will swoop and twirl and play. Shriek with delight. Clap.

    There’s no strings, your mother will say. Her hand will be on your shoulder.

    Where are the people controlling them, your father will say.

    A shining white girl about your size and age will pass overhead. She will be dressed in old fashioned clothes like the costumes you have for your doll.

    Wave at her. She will wave back.

    Smile at her. She will smile back.

    Hold out your arm and open your mittened hand. Watch your red balloon float up up up to the shining white girl. Watch it pass through the space of her chest and keep floating towards the blackened clouds.

    The screaming will start further up the block. Your father will lift you to his chest. He will try to push through the crowd but it will be too thick.

    Hurry, your mother will say. Her hand will hover over your head.

    Above you the shining white girl will burst. In a spray. Of blood.

    More inverted pops—like gum sucked in through your teeth—will sound up and down the street.

    Shriek with delight.

• • •

Breadcrumb #391

NICK PERILLI

Mr. and Mrs. Dallas squeezed their way through the small wood opening leading to floor four of their dear son Jamie and his best friend Scotty’s treehouse. To get to this point, the Dallases had to guess the first two guards’ super-secret passwords and shove the last guard into a pile of discarded wood and things the children had collected.

      1. Password? Open sesame.
      2. Password? No girls allowed. Except Dana Transue because she’s into the cool anime and shit.
      3. “Just shove the kid,” shouted Mr. Dallas.

    Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Dallas were pleased about having to shove their son’s fifth or sixth best friend—little Oliver Deak—into a pile of discarded wood . They knew he scraped his elbow, but they told themselves they could smooth that over with the Deaks when they saw them next week.

    Tonight, they were tired after working all day. Tonight, Jamie needed to come down and sleep in his own bed after watching some TV with his parents.

    “How many floors does this place have?” Mrs. Dallas asked as her and her husband climbed yet another ladder that would lead to another spiral staircase. A pleasant aroma of fruit snacks and sap weaved through her nostrils.

    Mr. Dallas didn’t want to answer her. He knew she would not like the answer because he didn’t like it much at all either. He pretended to choke on a speck of something that floated down the wrong pipe to stall. Buying the deluxe version of the treehouse for Jamie and his best bud Scotty was his idea and his alone. Despite his pleadings, his own father never built him a treehouse and he resented him fully for it.

    He mumbled a multiple of five to his wife.

    The two entered a sizable wooden ballroom, where a masked boy danced to silence with a phantom partner.

    “Whispers say,” the masked boy hummed, “the house grows with the wood of the world tree.”

    “Greggy Schuler,” Mrs. Dallas said in a curt tone. “Knock that off and let us through.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, smearing dirt across her slick brow.

    “Password?” Greggy Schuler said. “Can’t let you through without one, Mrs. Dallas. Jamie wouldn’t like that at all. He wouldn’t be my friend anymore.”

    Mr. and Mrs. Dallas huddled together, quickly deciding not to shove this kid out of the way. Mr. and Mrs. Schuler were lawyers. The cries of Oliver Deak still lingered in their ears, the little shit. No matter that this was Greggy Schuler, who wet their sofa during a sleepover two years ago.

    “What did he call us when we confronted him about that?” Mr. Dallas said.

    “Fuck-faces,” Mrs. Dallas nodded. It was a bold, daring moment for the kid—well worth the punishments his own mother would have for him at home.

“The cries of Oliver Deak still lingered in their ears, the little shit.”

    Greggy Schuler removed his mask and bowed to his phantom partner. He moved from the door. “Proceed.”

    As Mr. and Mrs. Dallas stepped past the boy, he grabbed their arms. His eyes pooled with tears, and he whispered to them.

    “Do you think I can go home now? Do you think my mom will be mad?”

    “Furious,” Mr. Dallas said. “It’s a damn school night, Greg.”

    Snot dripped from the boy’s nose, now. “School,” he said moving towards the descending stairs. “I remember it.” His voice faded. “Jamie and Scotty are not the children you built this treehouse for, Mr. Dallas. None of us are.”

    The air changed from there. How long had it been since they lost Jamie to his treehouse? Mr. Dallas said it had only been a few hours since dinner, but Mrs. Dallas felt the seconds linger as they moved beyond the reasonable floors. They met more of Jamie’s friends. At the very least, they could see he was popular at school and in the neighborhood. The two of them worried about that.

      5. Password? Fraggles
      6. Password? The New Deal
      7. Password?  1906
      29. Password? Ecclesiastes
      46. Password.
      47. Password.
      48. Password.

    On the 49th floor, Mr. and Mrs. Dallas expressed some regret to each other about resorting to shoving as many children out of the way as they did on their journey here. But the passwords grew more complex with the rising floors, and the two of them only grew even more tired. So, they shoved. Knocked these kids down and left some of them there crying into the seams of the treehouse’s bones.   

    Dana Transue—eating peanut butter, despite her fatal allergy—greeted them on the 49th floor. She wore a ‘cool’ anime t-shirt over a long crimson ball gown. She knew what Mr. and Mrs. Dallas wanted to say to her, so she interrupted them with a biting tone. “Don’t be so dumb,” she said. “We are above allergies in this tree. Beyond their reach. Beyond yours.”

    Even so, she had a fresh epi pen just an arm’s length away from her on the table.

    Mr. and Mrs. Dallas stood ankle deep in peanut shells, having to wade through them to get to Dana.

    “Password?” Dana asked, opening a box of crispety, crunchety, peanut buttery Reese’s Puffs. Family size. “Jamie and I are going out, you know.”

    “Oh, we’re thrilled,” Mrs. Dallas said, smiling. “You’ll have to come over for dinner.”

    “We’ll see,” Dana shook her head. “Jamie, Scotty and I are thinking of moving up here for good. Just get away from it all, you know?”

    “Sure,” Mr. Dallas said.

    Mrs. Dallas grabbed the epi pen and pressed it to Dana’s thigh. “Go home,” she said. “Come for dinner tomorrow.”

    Dana laughed and threw Reese’s Puffs at the Dallases until they left. Mr. Dallas caught one in his mouth, and it was better than the egg whites he had for breakfast this morning despite how much he knew he needed the egg whites to survive his impending heart attack.

[]

    Jamie Dallas ladled water from a shallow bowl over the back of his neck. He sat hunched over in the middle of the floor and breathed out when he sensed his parents in the doorway.

    A dense heat washed over Mr. and Mrs. Dallas. The moon shone bright through cracks in the treehouse’s roof.

    “We’re close to the moon,” Jamie wheezed, “but the sun isn’t far either.”

    Scotty Agnew—Jamie’s best friend since tee-ball—lay in the corner of this darkened wood room. Violence lived here until recently. The boy breathed despite bruised ribs. He chewed on the strings of his hoodie to calm himself. His brother recently broke into a neighbor’s home, so Mr. Dallas forbade Jamie from seeing Scotty again. Just like that. Ripping the potential bad seed from the heart of his healthy son.

    “I’ll admit I’m scared,” Mr. Dallas said to Mrs. Dallas after they conferred about the Scotty situation in bed yesterday morning. “About how much damage I’m about to do.”

    Jamie ran from them when they told him. Scotty was—as ever—waiting outside by the Dallas’s basketball net. Jamie grabbed his hand and pulled him towards their tree house in the deeper grove of trees. They climbed it. They climbed beyond it and shouted to the neighborhood as they did.

    “We can revisit the Scotty situation,” Mrs. Dallas said to her son. “We reacted too quickly.”

    “We’ve moved past it,” Scotty said, a gleam of nasty in his moonlit eyes. “I told him, I said, I told him you were right about the deviant in me.”

    Mr. Dallas knew it. He put his hands on the hips over his khaki legs. This damn kid.

    Jamie ladled another scoop of water over his head. He ran his hands over his skull, next. Drops streamed softly from his fingers to the bowl.

    “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re thinking of the next password.”

    A door in the shadows beside Scotty only then became apparent to Mr. and Mrs. Dallas.

    “This used to be the top,” Scotty said, humming to himself. “We could go farther.”

    Mr. and Mrs. Dallas went to the window together and looked out over their neighborhood. The houses stood dark, underneath the shadow of the tree. Clouds seeped in through the window and the cracks in the treehouse’s wood.

    “We can go farther,” Mrs. Dallas said. She moved away from the view, towards her son.  

    Mr. Dallas sat against the wall under the window. A splinter had found its way into his thumb; he plucked it, and oozed one drop of red from his finger.

    He had work in a few hours. All of them moved together beyond the morning.    

• • •

Breadcrumb #390

BOSTON GORDON

Mine wasn’t general, in fact I came out
a rotten plum. I’d suffocated in the womb.
My first two days were spent in an oxygen box.
If I close my eyes I create memory
of the tiny hiss of oxygen,

of my skin turning purple,
to blue, to pink, like morning. The thing I like to say
is that I came out dead, but that’s not really
the truth. Did I come out dishonest?
I imagined I should tell you this story, darling,

so I’m writing you this postcard. I stole it
from a gift shop like a bowerbird
on a mission. I guess I should feel
something about that. I don’t. Lying again.
Stealing again. I’m not sure what’s the fib.

Sorry for always doing things I don’t
want to. I say this in French, or the first
word in French, which is a lot like you
teaching me how to love in another
language. We were in a city I don’t remember

this city being. Do you remember?
There’s hardly room to fit this all on the card.
I will keep it brief. Yesterday I was a bad kid.
A man on 4th street stared at me
And mouthed who’s this guy?

He delivers line this and tosses an empty can.
And I think yeah who is he as I trip.
I walk around in this body, feeling
like a still-live animal, that everyone
is trying to taxidermy.

I am a boy. You told me so. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed,
and your mouth wouldn’t stop so you wanted
to take it all back. You had a tarot card
that told you to practice patience so you tried.
The room was a pharmacy of sweaty bodies.

It was July, it was the holiday. I couldn’t
believe you wanted me here on your shoulders.
I thought anyone here could have a mouth.
So take it back, I have this delivery
for you. I always overpay the postage.

I don’t remember where to sign it.
Sign me again. Like you did before
with the indelible marker. For days
I watched the eddy of black wash
down the drain. I thought you were coming

over. I thought you were staying longer.
I thought I would yawn again. Please,
I have a ballpoint and inky fingers.
Be warm-blooded, be wet-tongued,
be the one who sleeps outside the post office for me.

• • •

Breadcrumb #389

MADELINE ANTHES

You tell me that the necks warp over time. They swell up and twist, as any wood does, when the humidity changes.

    I think of my hair and how it curls in the summer. How limp it is in the winter. How water can make us look different. How much I’ve changed since I met you.

    I try to focus on what you’re saying.

    You are running your hand along the guitar, showing me places the neck is crooked. “There’s a truss rod inside the necks of newer guitars. It helps keep the structure over time.” You’re talking but I’m not really listening. I’m watching the way your fingers trace along the strings, smooth and sure. The way your eyes look down the length of the guitar, finding flaws I can’t see.

    “It looks straight to me,” I tell you.

    “Look closer,” you say.

#

    The Dairy Queen is across the street from the slaughterhouse, and we sit on the circular plastic table near the parking lot. I want your feet to bump into mine, but they’re tucked underneath you.

    We could always tell when it was a slaughter day. The air smells thick and tinny, like dirt and rot. It clings to clothes, to the interior of cars. I fan my sundress around my legs, stirring the air and bringing a waft of decay to my nose. We are used to the smell.

    “Do you think they know?” I ask you. You are eating a vanilla cone. It’s August in southern Ohio, and your cone is melting faster than you can lick.

    I want to take one of your sticky fingers into my mouth and taste the vanilla.

    “The pigs? I don’t know, maybe. They were bred for this.”

    It is getting dark and the cicadas’ screams are slowing to a rattle.  The night creatures would start their chorus soon, filling our silences.

#

    You always use scented plug ins, so your apartment smells like pine.

    It’s a tiny apartment, but you are so meticulous it feels larger. The sink is clean and your bed is always made.

    “Do you even live here?” I ask you, looking at the neatly stacked books on the bedside table.

    You don’t laugh. “Of course I do. I just like my things where they belong. Each thing in the proper place.”

    “I try to be clean,” I say.

    You pull me into a hug. “I like you clean or dirty. I just like you.”

    Something inside me uncurls, melting under my skin.

#

    We live in farmlands but don’t know any farmers. Our town is flat and long, pocketed with warehouses and chain food restaurants. It is all changing: stretches of cornfields churned up and turned into modular homes with a man-made lake in the center, an outlet mall replacing the burned out Chevy factory.

    The newness should be ugly, but it isn’t. Our town feels alive, a pulse throbbing below its shell.

    “We shouldn’t come here on slaughter days,” I say. “It feels wrong.”

    “Maybe not. But where else would we go?”

    You hand me a napkin so I can clean my hands.   

#

    I stay over so often now the apartment feels a bit mine, though you’ve never asked me to share it. I keep a spare toothbrush in your cabinet, some underwear in your drawer. I only leave the pretty kind -- black lace, polka dots.

“I keep a spare toothbrush in your cabinet, some underwear in your drawer.”

    I tuck these bits of me away into corners and behind closet doors.

    You pick up my wine glass before I’ve had the last sip, wiping down the coaster and table underneath it. You make the bed before I’ve finished brushing my teeth.

    “I’m trying,” I tell you.

    “I know,” you say.

#

    We walk along 2nd Street, one of the few older streets in town. There are large retro lightbulbs hung in strings along the street.

    I can still smell the slaughterhouse, but it’s fainter now. Just a hint amongst the smell of heat and my own sweat.

    I want you to stop me under the lights. I want you to hold my face in your hands and lean in and kiss me. I want it to be sweet and taste like ice cream and a hard day.

    But you take my hand and pull it towards your mouth, and that is enough for me.

#

    You keep your Christmas lights up all year. You tell me colorful lights shouldn’t be seasonal, and I don’t disagree. You turn them on after dinner, and they light up your living room in a dim hazy glow.

    You take out your guitar and I marvel at your arms as you sling the strap over your back. You have tattoos you don’t talk about, and they stand out stark against the wood of the guitar.

    Your fingers move fluidly and you close your eyes to sing. I don’t bother singing along; I don’t want to ruin your song.

    The guitar glitters in the lights and your cheeks are red and blue. You look flushed and I want to trace the circles of color along your cheeks.

    After the fifth song I reach forward and take your hand as you finger the strings. We grip the neck of the guitar together as I pull you towards my chest.

#

    You walk me to my apartment door. It’s only a few blocks away from yours, and I wish you’d asked me over. You kiss me goodnight and turn to go, but I don’t want to say goodbye.

    I ask you to wait with me, just wait, because I’m not ready to go inside.

    My air conditioning is too strong and it’s too bright and too quiet inside on my own.

    You put your arm around my shoulder and we lean against the brick of my building. My street is plain: a few townhouses, a few cars parked on the road. There is evidence of people everywhere, but we are alone.

    We look up at the stars together, and I search for something to say to make this moment feel right, important.  I want to ignore this twist inside of me, this spiral of doubt that threatens to uncurl.

    “You’re woven into me, you know,” I say, and it sounds false in my own ears.

    You give me a strained smile and pull me closer.

    I take in the weight of your arm, the feel of your fingertips across my shoulders, the rusty rich smell of slaughter that still haunts us. When you turn to go, I wonder the same thing I always do when you leave me: was this already over? Would I even know if it was?

• • •