The Gum Man
"Marion" by Zoe Blum
Inside a cramped downtown office, a fortune teller stroked his mustache, mulling over Fred’s fate. Last week, Fred had been fired from Starbucks for continuing to wear the wrong name tag, one that claimed his name was Joe Steele, M.D. He’d added the M.D. after a customer had called him stupid for steaming almond milk when they’d asked for whole. Fred hated his real name. It was too plain, too ordinary. It made him sound like an old man with a life already lived.
“I feel like I’m living in purgatory, like my name belongs in the opening credits somewhere. What should I do?” Fred wasn’t the type of person who cared about the why. He just wanted the cure.
“Not purgatory, you’re a past life.”
“But I’m not dead,” Fred said, squinting at his reflection in a crystal ball, which he was pretty sure had started life as a lawn ornament.
“Time doesn’t work how you think. You’re the past life of The Gum Man. I suggest you go talk to him.”
The Gum Man also had an office downtown, except it doubled as a bus stop. He spent each day exchanging pieces of gum for people’s fears. He’d been doing it for years and had sort of become the town’s unofficial mascot. As a kid, Fred would make up fears to try to get a free piece of Juicy Fruit. He’d told The Gum Man he was worried his friends at school would discover his parents were CIA agents and not boring accountants. He’d told The Gum Man he was scared his Canadian supermodel girlfriend might leave him.
It never worked.
The Gum Man could tell when you were lying.
Fred paid the fortune teller and left, doubting he’d done or would do anything in this life to become The Gum Man in the next, which was now. He wondered how many past lives were walking around at the same time as their next ones, unaware of each other.
Hovering around The Gum Man’s office, Fred watched as a woman seated on the bus stop bench next to The Gum Man whispered into his ear. The Gum Man nodded, unwrapped a piece of Big Red, and laid it on the woman’s tongue like a priest performing communion. The woman seemed lighter, more buoyant, almost as if she were suspended millimeters off the ground. A bus hissed up to the stop, and Fred climbed aboard, avoiding his next life.
On the bus, he sat in the back, carving Joe Steele M.D. into the vinyl seat again and again with his pocketknife. He tried not to think about how what he was doing would affect The Gum Man, and how what The Gum Man did affected him and others, others who might also be him, past or future.
The elderly man sitting across from Fred looked at him, and their eyes locked. I’m afraid I won’t be remembered appeared in Fred’s mind as if someone had just shaken a Magic 8-Ball, but it wasn’t his thought. Fred turned and glanced at the teenager a row ahead of him and heard, No one will ever love me. The middle-aged woman sitting next to the teenager, What if I just ran away?
Fred hummed catchy pop songs, hoping to get one stuck in his head to drown out the noise. He carved his fake name in bigger letters, added more phony qualifications after it. The bus ran a full loop, returning to The Gum Man’s office, but the racket in his head wouldn’t stop, only amplified. With no other choice, Fred got off the bus to confront his future.
“How can I live with everyone’s fears when I can’t even live with my own?”
The Gum Man hugged Fred, and, his lips next to Fred’s ear, said, “We’re all scared, even me.”
Fred listened. Then he heard the fear. He heard the fear that sits in our stomachs like a swallowed piece of gum, a fear that chews us. He heard the fear that’s stuck under everyone’s table and left to harden. What if I’m not enough?
***
The Gum Man handed Fred a piece of gum. Fred unwrapped it and placed it on The Gum Man’s tongue. The Gum Man chewed and then blew a bright pink bubble, bigger and bigger, before floating into the sky. Fred looked up and saw past lives and current lives and future lives. They were all up there, even him, flying around on gum bubbles. As long as they kept blowing, Fred, The Gum Man, everyone, they’d all be okay.
About the author
Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Forge, Passages North, Pinch, Wigleaf, Cincinnati Review, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove or at williammusgrove.com.
About the artist
Zoe Blum is a photographer and multidisciplinary artist whose primary focus is personal experience surrounding the themes of trauma and family. She uses objects in nature as metaphors for behaviors and human relationships as a juxtaposition between Earth's calming associations and the chaotic nature of trauma. She experiments with lighting and composition, and is recently working on the medium of paint and how it can alter the context of physical photos.