Dig: Part 1

As always, variables. As always, the first variable is my father. As always, I can’t say a word about it. As always, Mom doesn’t extrapolate. So I just sit and watch the snow.

Kelly launched her allegedly pregnant body at The Freak with her right hand cocked and ready to punch.

There’s a girl walking up the street, in the middle of the street. I don’t know where she came from and it doesn’t look like she knows where she’s going. She’s just meandering.

No flirting, no innuendo, no tips on how to be prettier or more fashionable, no telling her how to talk because swear words put boys off.

I bring the shovel and the broom to the porch, knock off as much snow as I can from my boots and coat, and take them off inside the foyer.

My room is small and empty, aside from my bed, the school handbook, two trash bags of clothing, and a new backpack Mom got me when she went on her first-day-in-a-new-town shopping spree.

“Who would have thought Northern Europeans would rely so much on a plant so poisonous? Everything about it is toxic except for the tubers themselves. Leaves, stems, roots, seeds, all poison. The secret,” he says, slapping his hand on a stack of books, “is keeping the spuds beneath the soil. Because any part of the plant that sees light can hurt you if you eat it. Even kill you—but only after making you puke your guts out and go crazy.”

Marla can barely see him after years of ignoring her cataracts.

She liked what the professor said about poison. She looks down at the house—the house with the abundant skylights and the pristine deck that she can’t see under three feet of snow.

Tonight we’re having potatoes au gratin. I slice and Mom places the slices in the potato pot. She has twelve different au gratin recipes.

They argued about it. Marla called Gottfried a simpleton. Gottfried didn’t call Marla anything.

The Dairy Queen down the concourse has hot dogs and we both know it.

They either think I’m so rich I can afford to look this ragged, or they think I’m some first-class anomaly, like a rotten cashew, a crying baby, or a lack of champagne.

This morning he had a two-hour-long conversation with Bradford, our friend and driver, about the obvious link between slavery, poverty, and mass incarceration.

The primal way in which my body purged the shrimp from itself was like a peyote trip.

The primal way in which my body purged the shrimp from itself was like a peyote trip.

What a messed-up duality I live. Three days a week I’m eating food that requires me to pick bones out of my mouth. Chicken bones, goat bones, ox bones. But here I get cheese and crackers as if my American life is one giant art exhibit.

“I have all I need at Dad’s house. I don’t need your lamb chops or your BMW.”
“You make us sound like elitists. We donate to the animals all the time. We know there are horrible things happening in the world. We’re a lot older than you, you know.”

I keep biting my lips as Marla takes her final crazy turn into her cul-de-sac and we head for her driveway.

“Good kid,” Gottfried says, after he closes the closet door. “A good work ethic.”

Gottfried thinks about his favorite granddaughter, Loretta. Kid has spunk. Something different from the others.

He thinks about the last time he saw them all—years now—and how they looked indigent.

She keeps saying uh-huh to Missy, who is most likely rambling on the other end of the phone. She tends to ramble.

Windy night, busy inside with the din of eat-in customers, and I get your order wrong. You say, “No! I said LARGE, not SMALL!”

You lament the future of our country with people like me in charge.

It’s not just a passing comment or a racist quip in the hallway. My whole house is wallpapered with hate.

Pupils dilated almost completely, he looks like he has black irises and I know I must look the same way and I don’t know what time it is.

Loretta listens as her flea troupe talks to her about the issues in the show.

“Solatium tuberosum, our modest friend from the Andes, saved you from certain mediocrity. Grew your population while others withered—doubled it in some places. Rose you up. Rose up your children, your servants. Starched you rigid into your beliefs. The key to the kingdom was yours for the taking. Who wouldn’t take that key?”

Everything on the other side is roots. White filaments searching for water and nutrition. The longer she looks, the more roots she sees.

They blame the RV camp for having bugs. The landlord comes to fumigate once a month. This is why Loretta takes her lunch box to school every day. Just in case.

Did you know plaque is considered a living thing?
Not kidding. It fits all the criteria to be a living thing.

We don’t talk about it because he’s a condescending jerk about the whole thing and thinks I believe he voted with his wallet.

I’ve been grounded by having a mother who thinks I’m naïve for not hating my best friend because of the amount of melanin in his skin.

Like, my mom had to sign a prenuptial agreement and everything.

You have no inclination to listen because you already know everything.

I have the euphoria you checked at the door when you stood at the altar, defended your dissertation, said yes to that job you never wanted.

I have the euphoria you checked at the door when you stood at the altar, defended your dissertation, said yes to that job you never wanted.

Drooling, you tell me about your grueling day at the office. You think I care.

I make life more palatable. I make it livable.