The Lint Factory
It started at an early age, but he dismissed it. Giuseppe assumed that all kids has lint between their toes, the kind commonly referred to as sock fuzz that you picked out after pulling off tube socks, where perspiration in the pressure cooker of sneakers always resulted in a cotton-poly fiber breakdown. And if not that, it must’ve been a by-product of growing up in the garment district.
He didn’t give it much consideration until puberty and beyond, when awareness of the body and hygienic explorations revealed the unthinkable: lint residing in the tied knot of his bellybutton, lint camping out on the ridge of his backside’s crack, lint burrowing around cuticles and nailbeds, lint recessing into pits and sockets as if they constituted some tick-like species with a need to feed off the epidermis.
More than fiber flakes or a single sweater’s pilling, it was a menagerie of lint, a cornucopia of lint, an extended family of lint in all colors shapes and sizes. Some taking on a chameleon’s character, camouflaging themselves with skin tone or hair color. Others clearly not giving a rip, knowing they’d be picked off pronto because of the vibrancy of their lintness.
Long since adulthood, Giuseppe’s lint has sprouted like an unknown fruit that was always in season. Lint in the eyelashes, a glint of lint in the gaze he’d give a prospective lover, lingering lint on his hairbrush preparing for a second coming. Lint amazingly adhered to his human form despite it being nearly hairless, almost seal-like in his smoothness.
Then his neighbor Lydia cracked the code one evening as she witnessed long pieces of lint, mirroring the appearance of party streamers, fast emerging strips of red and green and white, a Mexican flag sprouting directly from his scalp and waving within his ringlets. She has just served Giuseppe and a jovial bunch her famous empanadas with heaping mounds of guacamole, tomatillos, and sour cream. She moved with purpose toward the refrigerator to extract a day-old brisket. She served it Giuseppe cold. “Now, show me your bellybutton,” she said. He lifted his gray Captain America t-shit to expose his pale gut, and pulled from it what looked like the brown-tinted wool of a free-range bison. It reminded them of the hair one might find in a clogged drain, especially as it wasn’t mined easily from the core of his being.
Lydia, a distant cousin to a long lineage of carnies, knew what to do next with his affliction. “Some people sweat profusely, others yo-yo with weight gain, but you, Giuseppe... you manufacture lint in endless supply, just feed the beast and out it comes. Now let’s get you on the road.”
They made a mint that year with his massive lint production as part of the Seville Bros. Circus and Cabinet of Curiosities. People assumed it was a magic show, but in reality it was just everyday living. Nothing fancy, nothing spectacular on his part. He showed up and reclined on a supple leather and stainless steel-trimmed Barcalounger for onlookers to examine the human lint factory at work. For a few extra bucks they could feed him anything they wanted, within reason of course, to see new and vibrant takes on the lint that would emerge.
“You were made for this moment.” kept echoing in Giuseppe’s head, his mother’s sing-song voice chirping at him, always one step ahead of a string a failures – soccer, rolling gnocchi, getting the girl. He refused to believe she meant he was made for failing, for quitting.
When circus season ended, Giuseppe and Lydia darned socks from mounds of accumulated lint and gifted them to the Socktober fundraiser. They hemmed together lint-laden sweaters for the homeless. The success seemed limitless.
Until the lint production stopped. The factory had shut down.
His body became a relic of the past, a tiny footnote to a bygone era without a
single shred of lint between the toes to show for it. Lydia left him (she was
not the girl worth getting). But Giuseppe knew what he made. He felt it deep in
his body, saw it with his own two eyes. Frankly it was down-right astonishing,
and real, regardless if anyone would believe it. So he held onto that thread,
that remnant of a story so good you can sail on it indefinitely, fabricate it
into anything you want it to be.
