Paul Chester, Plastic Molester

My mom took fifteen minutes to tell me that she pulled a blow-up doll out of the ditch near the field across the road. note: she was wearing gloves

She is not the best storyteller because she leaves out parts, essential parts – like leaving out the time and place and sometimes the circumstances of the event. I think she does this because she believes withholding creates narrative suspense but in reality it is just confusing. (This was also her parenting method in case anyone wants to know why I always think you are messing with me) She skips from “I found a plastic bag on my walk” to “and then I see it – hair and that mouth! A mouth just. She looks frightened. Oh my ...”

And I have no idea what she is talking about but she looks at me, waiting for me to make the connection from plastic bag to sex toy in the weeds and I am thinking what on earth is she talking about? Did she find a dead girl? A wet ferret? A photograph? An invitation to another baby shower? Is she talking to someone in the other room? What?

But eventually the story takes shape and my mom leads me outside to the family trash bin and opens up a black plastic bag.

“It must have been there all winter! Look at her hair.”

Seeing a violated, deflated, and discarded plastic person crumpled up next to your parents empty Dream Dinner containers is more upsetting than you’d think. I don’t want to have this image in my mind so I share it with you. When you look at it. Think of your mother.