Breadcrumb #502

JERRY DRAKE

Teddy always found interesting things in the trash. He'd found Christmas presents for his kids; they'd grown up and moved to other cities. He'd furnished much of the family home with the things he'd found. Just a little spit and polish and they were good as new. He'd even once found a diamond ring that he had resized and gifted to his wife. She was gone, too, and living with a new man in Florida.

    Teddy was a collector. Of all the joys in his life, it was collecting that gave him the most pleasure. He built every day around it – finding things in the trash.

    Teddy lived alone now, in a little apartment, but he still picked up wonderful treasures from the trash; they covered every wall and surface of his home. He was a fixture in town around the campus and had been for forty years, running his little garbage removal business, hauling off bulk items on contract. He was good at making extra money from the trash too, picking up gently used things, finding valuable things, and reselling it all.  

    It was a big oak bookcase he was wrangling into his truck, from behind a student housing complex, when he knocked over an overstuffed bag of household trash. It spilled everywhere. Beer cans, booze bottles, coat hangers, and the remains of what seemed to have been a substantial birthday cake burst out of the bag, spilling all over the alley. Resting in the middle of the spread of refuse was a human finger.

    Teddy stopped tugging on the bookcase and looked down at the finger. It was long and thin, with a perfectly manicured nail, painted pink. It was a girl's finger. At first, Teddy thought it was some kind of prank finger or party favor. He stared at it for a long time before picking it up. He immediately dropped it again, realizing that it had, indeed, once been a part of a living person.

    Teddy looked from side to side and up and down the alley; he quickly kicked open all the bags of trash searching for the rest of the body. All his life Teddy had heard about garbage men and junkers finding bodies in the trash but he'd never come across one. Nope. It was just the finger. How did it get there? Was the owner dead? Had they just lost the finger? Cut it off? Accident?

    He started to breathe heavily and the alley around him began to spin.

    Teddy took out his handkerchief and wrapped up the finger, slipping it into the front pocket of his overalls. He finished loading the bookcase and pulled his truck out of the alley, casually, so as not to draw attention to himself. He was planning to take the finger to the police, initially, but he didn't. He took it back to his apartment. He rummaged around in his kitchen cabinets and found a small Mason jar and, gently removing the finger from his pocket, slipped it into the container. He then took some white vinegar out of the cupboard and topped off the jar, allowing no space for air. He ground the lid on tightly and held the jar up to the light.

“He rummaged around in his kitchen cabinets and found a small Mason jar and, gently removing the finger from his pocket, slipped it into the container.”

    There was the finger, suspended in the jar, long and thin with its perfect pink nail. Teddy decided he would take it to the police tomorrow, but for tonight he would add it to his collection of treasures. He placed the lost digit on a little curio shelf, itself pulled from the trash many years ago, near his TV where he could see it from his armchair. He got a beer, sat back and looked up at the thing wondering who it had belonged to. He tried to imagine the girl in his mind.

    He thought she might have red hair and green eyes and he wanted her to be named Susan. He tried to form the image of Susan in his mind, but it didn't come. Instead a singular image appeared in his mind's eye: tall and thin, pale skin, black hair, and deep blue eyes. She wore a yellow dress and she seemed to whisper a name toward him: Addie. Teddy didn't want Addie, he wanted his Susan back but the image wouldn't reform for him. The finger belonged to Addie and she was here to stay.

    Teddy never did take that finger to the police.

    It was on the third day after he found it that the dreams began; the dreams about Addie, with her pale skin, blue eyes, and that incongruous yellow dress. She whispered to him in a husky voice. Teddy. Teddy. Give it to me. Teddy. Teddy. I want it back.

    On the tenth day after Teddy found the finger, he began seeing Addie while awake. He was driving along in his old truck when he saw a flash of yellow behind a big mailbox. Then the next day the back of a girl with a yellow dress and raven hair stepping into a bodega shop. Then on the day after that, he saw her staring out at him from under the awning of an old dormitory, her eyes locking with his. She didn't smile and he heard her voice in his head. Teddy. Teddy. Give it to me. Teddy. Teddy. I want it back.

    He wasn't scared or panicked in any way. He just accepted that Addie had been real all along and somehow she had projected herself into his mind. He was seeing her every day, now, sometimes twice a day, all along his route. She even stopped in front of his truck while crossing the street, whispering again and again into his mind. Teddy. Teddy. Give it back.

    On the twenty-fifth day after finding the finger, Teddy was sitting in his armchair, alone, drinking his fourth can of beer and watching a baseball game. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of yellow on the fire escape. He leapt up and ran over to shut the window. He slammed it and locked it closed. But it was too late. Addie was already inside. She was standing in front of the old curio cabinet looking up at the finger, smiling.

    This time she spoke with her actual voice. Teddy. Teddy. Give it to me. It's mine.

    "Take it! Take it!" Teddy screamed. "Just for god's sake leave me alone!"

    Addie held out her hands and smiled at Teddy. She had all ten of her fingers; five on each hand, with short cut nails, painted yellow. The finger that Teddy had found did not come from Addie's hand. Addie laughed as confusion fell across Teddy's face. She grabbed the jar containing the finger from the curio and dashed out of Teddy's front door, slamming it behind her.

    Teddy ran to the door and shot the old Yale lock and drew the chain. She was gone. Addie had taken the finger and left him alone. Teddy ran his own fingers through his hair and suddenly realized something was wrong. He looked down at his hands to reveal that he now had only nine fingers.

    It turns out, Addie was a collector.

• • •

Breadcrumb #501

EMMA FURMAN

Lickety-split, I was benighted. Sore-
throated, shriveled seeds spilling out
of my wound, red as pomegranate,
as many in number. I was a sliver
of silver shot into a passing duck,
then falling and fished out between still 
beating wings. I was caught in a truck
and corralled by a clown, blind bucking
until the crowd went off, roaring.
I was under the heel, blown out
of the boot bottom. I was a willing gear,
teeth fit superbly into the tines.
I was not a sheep, but future shank.
I was watching through the bars,
looking in at someone else. I’m not the visiting
caroler, singing outside, but the dog of the house
trembling and whining. What am I now?
I'm calling home. In fact, I am the phone.

• • •

Breadcrumb #500

BRONTE BILLINGS

She looked up inside the skull,
light seeping through thin brown
marrow making umber veins
that reminded her of the back
of her mother’s knees.

Australopithecus, her little hands
plastered to the glass. Knuckles
knocked to smudge display cases, her
father chewed the syllables for her, uh-fah-ren-sis.
Say it with me.

He lifted her slight body
limbs locked around his neck.
You almost did it. He wasn’t
a liar, not like most
giants. He used big words

drew out the letters in
her soup. Each meal a different
word: Inguinal, Umbilicus, Iliac. She listened
to his voice drone, spoon spinning
words away.

Next, look here. We look
outside the bones. Anticipation
shook her, shrunken figures reaching
out with brown muffed hands.
It was nothing like her mother.

He took her to the bodies, displayed
figures marked Orrorin tugenensis,
Ardipithecus ramidus, Paranthropus robustus,
fabricated skin and carpet hair, she touched
her forehead to the top of their skull.

So much hair, she tangled her fists
in brown patches. It wasn’t
all there, clay flashes of
flesh, she pinched her own
pinkness looking for a match.

We don’t have it all anymore, hands
deep in her curls, funny how it’s knots
on our head. She knew the other places. Secreted
parts of herself she knew not to
touch. Some names she memorized

myometrium, exocervix, ectopic—this
looked nothing like her pictures.
There was his wide gap grinning we all
come from somewhere. But it wasn’t here,
but he wasn’t a liar, but her mother’s knees,

her mother’s velveted skin, her
mother’s fat curls, her mother’s
hot breath, her mother’s skull
he promised it’d be like
her mother’s face.

But it wasn’t. Australopithecus,
small and furry and brown
and not like her mother, not
like any mother. She pulled
his sleeve.

I want to go home.

• • •

Breadcrumb #499

ANNA PETERSON

I wake up and look out my window.  The sun is beginning to gently illuminate my sheer white curtains; and then I realize - there is nothing attached to my shoulder.

Pins and needles start rushing through me like a tidal wave. I contort my body, thrashing against my sheets. I am telling myself that I have an arm, that it really exists even if I can’t feel it at this moment; I am not dreaming its existence. My vision focuses on my phantom arm. I pick it up and place it on the empty pillow beside me and wait for its feeling to return.

“My vision focuses on my phantom arm.”

As I lay there I can’t help but think that this is what being with you felt like. Telling myself your love existed. Convincing myself that it was real, even if I couldn’t feel it at that moment. Even worse, waiting for it to come back.

I glance over at my phantom arm and see that it is real. The blood is pulsing through it as it should be, and it can feel the cold air of my bedroom once again.

My phantom arm returned, but your phantom love never did.

• • •

Breadcrumb #498

JENNIFER FERNANDEZ

Because words on paper are angels enough to guide a lost soul through whatever forest they might find themselves in, and lead them home. But no one never really knows they’re lost.

We left the Bronx, in June 2007, I was a recent high school grad unsure if I wanted to go to college or move to Hollywood. Actors didn’t do college nor did they need it, right? Everybody on the block knew I was ambitious, “Chesca is gonna be famous” they’d say. Everyone except my mom, my very Dominican mom.

“You haven’t read any of these books,” my mom said as she cleared the bookshelf and packed away what she deemed worthy for our new apartment. “Actors at Work,” I read the title as if I didn’t know which books she was referring to. “Of course, I read it. And will read it again.” No point in explaining that in those moments when she asks about money and demands that I get a real job, that I turn to this very book for inspiration. Actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman to Meryl Streep sharing stories about craft, studying, being, doing – existing. She grabbed the tape to seal the box filled with my acting books and four editions of her ‘Remedios Caseros’ books. As far as this Dominican was concerned and Mama too, Vicks Vapor Rub was the plug, the heck with all of that. Junior walked into the house with sweat dripping down his fore head dribbling a basketball thinking he’s the next Felipe Lopez. He looked at all of the scattered books “We making money off this?” he asked. “Let’s set up shop in front of the building.” He grabbed one of them, “An Actor Prepares,” he mocked. “I bet J.Lo never read this. Diddy prepared, she just followed.” “Spoken like a true machista.” I retorted. “They train them young, huh?”

My little brother chuckled and walked away. By way of encouragement, he said that I wouldn’t have to do any of that because I have real talent. Mom stopped him before he could go too far, gave him a hug and put him to work; he had to do some heavy lifting like the rest of us or like most of us. Junior was the only one who still got a hug from Mom; a true momma’s boy. I discovered more items in the discard pile. I spotted my black and white composition notebook buried under more of her cure all books. Ella no sabe que lo que me cura a mi son palabras. That my writing took me into a world that was my own; finally someone I could talk to. Those blank pages were like the mood rings that turned your finger green; they would let you know how I was feeling. I wrote about whether my crush smiled back at me or ignored me. How my teacher didn’t understand my essay because well, he was a white man. I wrote down hip-hop lyrics, I connected to that world. It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up Magazine. Biggie had bars! I opened the notebook and the inside flap read, Franchesca: Actor/Writer. On some days, I felt like I had to pick, that I couldn’t be both. The reality was that both were pipe dreams in my culture so what did it even matter. I flipped the pages and came across my Dear God letters, which were really prayers unbeknownst to me. I copied poems from Teen Magazine, The Roses are Red ones.

I heard the wind chime by the door which was silly because the closest thing to a breeze we got in that apartment building was when the ceiling fan was on. Papi walked into the house and smiled at me. There goes my princess, he’d say. He kissed my forehead and I smelled the beer on his breath. The stench was coming out of his pores. Budweiser. I only knew that because of our trash can, leftovers and Budweisers. Papi mostly drank outdoors but every so often he’d have a couple at home. He thought we didn’t know he had a problem. My dad was supposed to be home three hours ago to help pack but he was preoccupied with hanging with the fellas in front of the corner bodega. He walked into the master bedroom where my mom was packing their clothes all by herself. This was candela pura especially since this wouldn’t be the first time he hadn’t shown up. A couple of years ago, he missed my mom’s college graduation because he overslept at his “friend’s” house. That was also the first time Papi hadn’t slept in his own bed. I bet he did that on purpose, there was a part of my Dad that didn’t want to see her liberated. Educated. You know, island mentality - he’s the man of the house. She decided to go to college when she realized that my dad’s vicio was costing the entire family. My mom wasn’t a yeller, she had a finesse about it; she knew how to cut you where it hurt without so much as raising her voice. Maybe it was the School Principal in her coming out. I drowned out their arguing, those voices that have become the soundtrack to my childhood, and continued flipping through a few more pages of my notebook. Another Dear God letter, I know God hears prayers but is he reading them too?

“Ya ta bueno, Chesca. Stop daydreaming. Move on to the next thing,” my mom told me as she walked past to get more empty boxes. She carried on as if she and Papi did not just have a heated debate.

A week later, we’re up to our knees with boxes, maletas and even garbage bags. The Dominicans are here, disturbing the peace in a quaint town in dirty Jersey. My brother found a neighborhood park for his daily runs and high intensity workouts. His coach told him he has to stay on top of his fitness. My dad didn’t have the corner bodega; he was home drunk more often than not these days. We had philosophical conversations on how he didn’t finish high school when he left the Dominican Republic. He raved about how he supported the family and put Junior and me through Catholic School while working at a factory. That was a sore spot since mom no longer needed his financial assistance. Our connection got stronger, so did his drinking. I enjoyed being able to talk to someone in my family - albeit an intoxicated parent. Papi wanted to tell me about his Casanova days (read: mujeriego) and how the white women in New York loved a chocolate brother who spoke Spanish. They weren’t sure if they wanted to go all the way black so Dominicans and some Ricans were as far as the experimenting would take them. I had to stop Papi. I didn’t want to know if he was with other women while with mom. I wanted to dialogue but not about that. Over the next few days, Papi and I continued our chats. He encouraged me to keep acting. “I’ll see you at The Oscars someday,” he’d say. The tension in the house was thick. He only had me to talk to and I in turn only had him.

I watched as my mom went straight to organizing, she didn’t have time to entertain nostalgia. She needed order; she avoided memories like the plague. So, this is what moving on up feels like, the Dominican version? Forget the Jeffersons, this was real life. As she tackled her last box labeled ‘miscellaneous’, she pulled out an old tattered pic. Her eyes became fiery daggers as she stared at the photo. Mom realized I was watching and laughed it off. Not knowing what to say, I asked to see the photo as if she would agree. She said it was none of my business. She stormed into the kitchen and grabbed the first thing she saw, one of those aluminum cups from DR. You know the ones where they engrave your name on it. The one where they spell your American name, the Dominican way. My cousin Jennifer became Yennyfer, her wannabe gringa behind was not happy about that. That’s a whole other issue. My dad walked into the kitchen, probably to get another beer, completely clueless. The timing was impeccable, I thought I was in a friggin’ Telemundo novela. She hurled the open side of the cup at my dad’s face and caught the right side with precision. He had a small but deep cut near his eyebrow that started bleeding. Funny thing was that my dad tried to dodge it forgetting he had a six-pack all to himself. Maybe it was more than a six-pack, his reflexes were slow. “VIEJA!” my dad yelled at her. He worried about me being there to see it. I wondered if this happened before. “Vete de mi lado,” she yelled back. “Get away!” He walked over to me and kissed me on the forehead as he pressed down on his cut with his index finger. He whispered, “Don’t worry princess,” and made his way to the bathroom. “Mami … you okay?” I asked her nervously.

It was the first time my mom showed emotion. It was the first time I saw the queen of the house shaken. She didn’t say a word to me. She wiped the tears from her eyes and ripped the photo up. My mom went right back to organizing. I’m convinced she is the Marie Kondo of her era. Except this didn’t look like it sparked joy, this looked like hell. Like an escape. I knew all about that but my mom was like one of those water balloons we used to fill up at the fire hydrant on the block, ready to pop. You didn’t need a PsyD to figure that one out. The doorbell interrupted my thoughts - that’s right we had a doorbell now. I assumed it was our neighbors bringing over some warm chocolate chip cookies. Suburbia 101. I opened the door and it’s a pissed off Junior.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Those racist fucking cops,” he said. “I’m riding my bike and they followed me.”

“Did they put their hands on you?!”

“No. They asked me for ID and questioned why I was in this part of town.”

Junior was a straight A student, not because he wanted to be but because he had to be. He needed college scholarships. His involvement with cops was little to none.

“Junior, we are not in the Bronx anymore. We don’t look like them,” I reminded him.

I tried to talk Junior through racial profiling and the fact that he’s a black male when my mom walked in on us. She realized she still had toilet paper in her hand for her sniffles and quickly disposed of it so that Junior wouldn’t see it. Her eyes looked watery but she’s used the visine line many times before. Supermom - to the rescue. Dad, nowhere to be found. “Que paso, mi hijo,” she said as she rubbed his back. I walked away and rolled my eyes. It didn’t call for all that. Junior needed to be informed not coddled. She got amnesia quick when it came to him. She was trying too hard to make sure he didn’t become the man who didn’t know how to love because he never received love. She didn’t want him to become the man she married.

I walked into my new bedroom; it looked like organized chaos thanks to my mom. I picked up my black and white notebook and I got lost in my writing.

Dear God,
I can’t do this anymore; I’m out to Hollywood.

• • •