I try to rummage through my memories and sort the useful from the useless like the separating of wheat from chaff. Locating the singular memory I consider my first feels impossible in the jumbled chronology of the past. I ruminate and probe the various flashes of recollection that present themselves as my first, most important memory only to return to the thought of my dad’s missing finger. Considering my childhood memories in accordance with my dad’s missing finger raises memories of the flowering of my understanding of humor, frustration and a myriad of humanity. Each sprouting from the space on my dad’s hand where there should be flesh and bone but there is none.
Since I can remember my dad has had five fingers on his right hand and four and a half on his left, the pinky being lopped off at the first joint past the knuckle. This stub became a tool for provoking me endlessly. I would ask him how he had lost his finger and he would tell me the story. I became confused when his stories began to contradict one another; each story being different every time he told me of how his pinky had become to be half intact, half lost. Soon, I could recognize the pattern he crafted his stories around. The story would surround the situation that we both were in and at the end he would abruptly hold up his hand, framing the pinky in my view, and give a signature, quick flash of a smile. This half-finger story became even more interesting when I noticed his insistence on telling a tale to complete strangers: a cashier, a waitress, some students in his Spanish class. Always masterfully twisting the story around the situation but always ending the tale by holding up his hand and giving a quick smile.
Among my friends the telling of these tales became something of a legend. My dad would craft the tales to fit in to our teenage ramblings when he drove us up skiing. He had cut it off on the edge of a snowboard, broke it off by slamming it in a cash register, and it had been sliced off on a guitar string just like a piece of salami. My friends intrigue of this story went so far as for one of my friends to suggest “Adam, it’s your destiny to lose a finger just like your dad and tell stories.” I laughed and brushed off the remark. I stated how absurd that was, how much I liked having ten fingers and how I expected to for a long time to come.
I’ve made inquiries with friends of his, fellow high-school teachers that know him, and even my mom. Somehow they all react with cryptic knowledge. Not revealing any useful information and giving me a sly smile, honoring a tradition they all know; a tradition that precedes my birth.
To this day I still do not know the “real” reason why my dad has nine and a half fingers instead of the standard ten. I do not know if he’s embedded clues or some version of the truth in the stories he has told me. I do not know if I will ever find out. I do not know if I want to ever find out. But I do know that the imprint of these tales sway across my childhood memories like my dad dangling a plastic finger attached to a key chain in front of my eyes.
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