Preface To Knives: Three Short Knife Anecdotes

# 1

My mother worked at a convenience store in Garland, Texas, from the mid- to late-1970s.  Because Garland was "dry" - you couldn't buy any kind of alcohol in the city, you had to drive to Dallas to get your beer, wine, or booze - the convenience store made its money with pornography, which was kept on a magazine stand in view of everyone, though on the top racks, away from tiny hands, & with mildly expensive items in a glass case along the front counter like bongs, cheap jewelry, & knives.  Lots of knives.

Not cutlery, of course, but small hunting knives, jack knives, switchblades, so-called "butterfly knives," stuff like that.  I remember they went for prices like 10.95 on tiny handwritten tags connected to the knives by little loops of white thread.  At the time, it seems, all different kinds of blades were so popular that my older brothers - who were about as dangerous as the gang members in West Side Story, although less likely to break into song - carried knives in their pockets.

When I was allowed to rummage through that cabinet, I went to one particular knife, a special switchblade.  I would open it again & again.  But there was no knife in it!  There was a comb!  I would've like to have carried that knife in my back pocket!

# 2

At some point in my childhood I, like many other boys, was given a Swiss Army Knife.  I almost never used it - in particular, I wondered at the corkscrew.  Maybe when the Swiss Army Knife was invented, there were adolescents who might need to unscrew the cork from some bottle or other, but by the time I had gotten one, the only use for a corkscrew would've been a wine bottle.  & frankly I couldn't see the situation where adults needing to open a bottle of chablis but unable to would turn to the dumb little kid & the room & say, "You!  Can you help us?!"

No, the main thing I did with my Swiss Army Knife was open up, in as many ways as possible, all of its components: all the blades, the little scissors, the phillips-head screwdriver, the nail file, the corkscrew.  I liked the contrast between the little red oval of potential & the spazzy result of all its parts out, uselessly, for the world to see.

I understand that children were not the intended customers for the Swiss Army Knife, but I never, never saw an adult with one as a child.  They were generally given to children.  & as a child, I thought the thing was supposed to be a toy.

# 3

I'm a middle-aged man now, although I think I'm probably way past the mid-point of my life, & one of the things I've come to enjoy as I get older is cooking.  I doubt I'm very good at it, but it makes the wife happy & I have come to an understanding with food that lets us both do our jobs without too much time wasted & too much misery & injury.

Except of course you need knives for food preparation.  & I can count the number of times I've cut myself while chopping things many times over on the fingers I am very fortunate I still have, despite my clumsiest efforts.

In fact, I keep a first-aid kit in the kitchen now, because I will bleed like a motherfucker when I cut myself.  My ritual behavior is to first be shocked coupled with self-loathing & anger when it happens, followed by the inevitable holding of a paper towel on the affected area (usually a finger) for a number of minutes to stop the bleeding all the while cursing myself for a fool, & then, once the bleeding seems in control, the dipping of the finger in alcohol or hydrogen peroxide & the delicious sting that comes along, & finally the application of the band-aid.

Here's a confession: I am very queasy when my blood is taken at the doctor.  I sometimes come close to passing out.  But I have no qualms about a bleeding finger the tip of which I've inadvertently sliced off instead of part of a bell pepper.  It doesn't faze me.

Here's another confession: while I won't say I like it, that it tastes good or anything, I do like to taste my own blood at those times.  I'm glad I know how my blood tastes.  I don't know why that is.