Chewing
“We kept two rabbits, in a hutch my father made…”
We kept two rabbits, in a hutch my father made. It had a sloping roof of plywood, and inside there were two levels built out of two-by-fours. It was faced with chicken-wire, and filled with wood-shavings. There was a trap-door you could lift to put their food in. Sometimes we'd give them carrots, parsley, lettuce. I only remember them in winter, surrounded by snow. They started out on the porch of the shed. Later, they moved closer to the house, on top of an extra pair of sawhorses that were riddled with deep saw-cuts.
The rabbits would chew the flimsy cardboard from paper-towel rolls, and toilet paper rolls, and shoe boxes, and cereal boxes with a single-minded determination. Then they'd chew the wood of their cage, until every straight edge had softened into a moon. Somehow they ran out of things to easily chew, and it was only after a while we noticed that their teeth had grown out from their mouths, curling freakishly. I held the rabbits with a towel, while Dad, with a pair of garden-shears, snapped their teeth, close to the jaw.
It disturbed me a little. Like the brooch we had found at an antique store. It was a white flower on red Bakelite. We didn’t realize it was made out of tiny glued-on teeth until we had gotten it home.
My brothers and I had used the same crib growing up. I hadn't needed my mother to point out the cluster of tiny teethmarks around the wooden rungs to know that teething on it was something I had done. I can still taste the waxy, sweet finish of the blond wood, the way it resisted and released. The wear-pattern resembled perfectly the thorough whittling of the rabbits. Often I'd come back to the crib, and run my hands over the marks as though I could read a message in them, with my fingertips, like braille.
As a kid, I habitually chewed pencils. I'd crunch their wooden ends repeatedly until the entire writing shaft was a rough, pitted mess. I'd chew their metal ends so that the erasers would pop off. I preferred hexagonal pencils because that shape offered a more various and firm surface for my molars. Sometimes I would chew so hard the pencil would splinter or snap in half. I gnawed the way a dog will worry a stick to pieces, methodically, and with transparent inner joy. Bic pens were harder, but the end cap would release after a moment, and the plastic end would eventually yield like wax, and flatten, and leave a sharp, random flare, like a claw, or a jagged crown. I'd chew the drawstring of my sweatshirt with a hood, too, then. The drawstring was different. It gave against my bite just enough to remain intact. I would chew it like gum until the cotton was wet through with saliva. Of course, this would be a source of regret, as I'd inadvertently brush the now-cold, wet string with my hands, and something was shameful about it. But I didn't stop.
We had a cat, Cooper, who would nurse on a shirt, or a tablecloth, or sheets so intensely that he'd start to chew, and you'd find anything cloth or paper crumpled up and soaked through. It frustrated my parents. He had other problems too. He died or disappeared before he had gotten too old.
I have heard that as you age, your memories of being young multiply, cohere, and gain sharpness. An extraordinarily early memory has been, lately, coming back to me. It starts with a feeling. I can feel a string in my mouth. It is the string of a small wooden duck on wheels, at Grandma's house, and I am pressing my toothless gums to it. The duck is wooden but glossy, shining yellow, with deeply expressive black-painted eyes. It shines like a gem. Where the string to pull it emerges from its chest, I can see my shape reflected, all shoulders and head.
In some ways, I cannot trust the memory because there is a Polaroid I have often seen, a little faded, in a book of pictures, and there I am, just sitting up, with thin, platinum hair, roly-poly, cradling the duck, the string in my mouth. The photograph has no context, just a worn Afghan rug. But, in my mind, I look up to see the dark but honey-smooth rafters of my grandmother's farm-house kitchen I know so well. They are larger and far – as if some giant had come and pushed, by his strength, and sheer size, the entire room out and up with his hands – and the tiny window out to the pond, and I feel the string in my mouth, like something sure I am anchored to.
