What amazed Jerry was how easily he could talk people into it. He started with a mere suggestion and before he knew it, folks were freely donating their toenails to him. Most were so willing to relinquish a piece of their keratin soul. He generally stuck to the same script. “My, it looks like you could use a bit of trim there, on your tootsies. Clippers? I just happen to have a pair right here,” as he reached into one of the pockets of his favorite khaki hunter’s vest. “Go ahead and rest your foot up on the edge of the bucket, don’t worry it won’t tip over.”
A visit to Jerry’s apartment was like spending time in the arts and crafts closet of Sunny Valley Residential Care Center (where his uncanny abilities first emerged during a summer internship). What at first appeared to be tiny shells covered all of his picture frames, decorated cabinet shelves and encrusted door knobs. A dab of super glue and he could adorn almost anything: car bumpers, kid’s trikes, windowsills. Even his jeans were bedazzled with the shining half-moons of stratified epithelium.
His Keratin Karaoke parties were legendary. What had started with a few friends over for trims and deep heel de-callousing had become an annual event. Someone always brought Tanqueray and he ordered a fresh batch of pumice. All of the guests left with pristine feet and his collection of cornefied offerings grew.
His resume was a parade of shoe stores, Famous Footwear, Payless, the occasional Nordstrom’s (although they were so fussy about bringing things home from the job, he had to grow out his beard to have somewhere to stash all his trimmings).
Trimmings, ah yes, his little darlings. Thinking of them always brought the flavor of talc and nail polish remover to his mouth and memories of his time running contraband orthotics for El Dedo Grande down near the border.
Genius, his plan to pose as an independent biohazard waste disposal company. Much more lucrative than his stint at the Fred Astaire studios. He ordered a few pallets of red plastic sharps containers and put up a website. It’s incredible what folks will give away for free. Every month he made the rounds to the local podiatry clinics. His biggest challenge was resisting the urge to decoupage the containers themselves with his latest batch of keratin krispies.
Of course there was the small problem with fungal overgrowth. But Jerry knew that Clorox went on special at Kroger’s every last week of the month.
Themes of illness and healing inform much of Katherine DiBella Seluja’s writing. Winner of the Southwest Writers poetry award and twice nominated for a Pushcart, her work has appeared in Blink-Ink, Connotation Press, Crab Creek Review, Right Hand Pointing and Santa Ana River Review, among others. Her first collection, Gather the Night, focuses on the impact of mental illness and is forthcoming in 2018 from UNM Press.
–Background & Foreground Photography by Jon Damaschke