I like Emboli beechnut gum, she said, the red and yellow and blue twisty one with the picture of Melba Von Alabaster on the wrapper. My dad used to make it stick to the roof of his mouth, then spit it out onto the rug, which caused my mother no end of worry and fretting. You see, we had one of those shag rugs, not a hooked shag, or one of those one’s that are made of rags and odds and ends of cloth, but a real honest to goodness shag rug, an orange and beige one with cross-stitching and a hem that was forever coming unravelled and making a litter of the floor, the floor next to the dog’s bowl next to the refrigerator beside my mother’s knitting bag, the one full of wool and needles that clicked and clacked when she made afghans and throws. My dad spit up Emboli beechnut gum, wads of it like oysters then laugh so hard his dentures would rattle, and his nose, which was way to big for his face, would curl up like a rotten rutabaga or a carrot that was still dirty from being yanked out of the garden in the backyard next the shed where my bother kept his Playboys and toilet roll. I like Ascot peppermint patties, she said, the ones with the crinkles and welts and curvy lines of hard chocolate on them, you know, the ones you could buy at the corner store, which really wasn’t on any corner, so wasn’t really a corner store, but more out in the open like a middle or centre store, the kind with the fat lady with varicose legs and red lines under her eyes, and a husband she hated but loved because he loved her, and being fat, she felt like no one would ever love her. I asked her once, when I was there buying real authentic Indian chewing tobacco, if she had a real honest to goodness shag rug at home, not a fake one or one of those hook and throw ones, but an orange and beige one like the one we had at home. She said no we don’t, and that was that. On my way home that day, the day I asked her if she had a shag rug, a real honest to goodness one, I found a bird’s foot under a bush, it was wrapped in a Emboli beechnut chewing gum wrapper and had a piece of my brother’s toilet roll stuck to it, right there where the claws or talons or fingernails were, all crinkly, sort of, Melba Von Alabaster’s face looking all stamped on and oystery.
