The Man Who Tasted Dirt

Here’s a short story I’ve been working on. I feel like it needs a little bit more…something. Please let me know what you think:

The crying wakes him up for the eleventh day in a row. It always happens right in the middle of an agreeable dream. He wishes he could find the baby’s snooze button and drift back into his fantasy world but its warranty must have expired. The crying doesn’t stop.

“It’s your turn to feed the baby,” his wife grouses. Her warranty’s expired as well. He’d told her that joke once and she’d said that her warranty was good ’til death do them part. She hadn’t laughed.

He finds the milk in the fridge, warms it on the stove, and pours it into the bottle. Before offering it to the baby, he tastes the formula to make sure it’s the right temperature, just as he was taught. It tastes dirty.

He tries a second time and it has the same soiled flavor. For a moment he debates whether to feed it to the baby anyway, who’d never know the difference, but he suspects his wife would find out somehow. She must not have cleaned this bottle properly. Perhaps it’s a test of some kind. He resigns himself to preparing a new one.

After a splattered bottle of formula on the kitchen floor, several arguments with his wife, and a drive to the corner pharmacy, the baby finally gets fed. He ends up two hours late for the office and hasn’t had time for breakfast. Maybe he can sue the formula maker. His wife blames the dog.

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He’s dreading dinner with his wife. Normally it’s just one more chore that goes along with being married, like weekly sex and pretending to be interested in reality television. But tonight he absolutely dreads it, despite feeling a kind of hunger he hasn’t experienced since his wrestling days.

He hadn’t been able to eat lunch in the cafeteria. The cellophane snacks from the vending machines went straight into the trashcan. He even snuck an unlabeled tupperware of pasta from the break room fridge, only to slip it back after one spoonful.

If he ate dinner with his wife and the food tasted dirty like everything else he had touched his lips to that day, including the pieces of paper, the manila file folder, the paper clips, the pencil and eraser, his shirt sleeve, a coffee mug, the glass of water he forced himself to down while he was gagging, if that’s what he experiences at the dinner table tonight, he will have no choice but to admit to himself that he’s sick.

There was never much room in his family for sympathy. It was instilled in him at a young age that overcoming illness was a matter of being tough-minded. He wasn’t allowed to cry at peewee football or high school basketball. If his skin wasn’t covered in red spots or burning from a temperature of 102, he could be certain of going to school. Doctors weren’t cheap, and in order to win the right to see one who wasn’t an uncle or an older cousin, it was expected that your ailment should be fully visible and obvious. The only acceptable reason for a visit to the hospital was a broken limb earned in an appropriately manly manner.

Tonight’s dinner is roast chicken, one of his favorites. Sadly, the chicken tastes like dirt.

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He has never been much for the Internet. He doesn’t Facebook or Twitter. His wife would kill him if she ever caught him watching porn on her computer and he didn’t have one of his own. But ever since his condition, he finds himself using her laptop more and more often.

Type ‘tastes like dirt’ into Google and you get over nine million results. They are mostly questions, people asking why all of a sudden every sort of food tastes like dirt. Some people fear they have a disease, others think they’ve gone crazy. The Catholics believe they are being punished. Tasting dirt is a proper form of retribution in their eyes.

He learns he’s not the first one to have the problem and that brings him some measure of disappointment. What’s the point of having a rare pathological disorder if you’re not the only one.

He joins three different message boards. His username, dirtysoap71, is not as clever as some, but downanddirty was already taken. He trolls the boards at the office, before and after dinner, and late into the night. He doesn’t post very much but he knows the intimate details of countless strangers’ lives. Everyone is trying to piece together the random chain of events that might have caused the disorder.

He finds the people complaining about their condition to be tedious whiners, but he keeps reading what they have to say, hoping someone knows the cause.
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The question he’s most often asked, after people learn of his condition, is what exactly does dirt taste like? It’s not an easy answer.

He wants to tell them that it tastes like dirt. He doesn’t really have the words to describe the flavor more accurately. It tastes dirty and wrong. That’s the best word for it. Wrong.

Everyone’s bitten into something they expected to be sweet and found it was actually salty or bitter. The surprise causes what might have otherwise tasted just fine to seem awful and result in a spit-take.

Dirt is like that. It tastes wrong. It is gritty and bitter and filthy and the exact opposite of what you are expecting. Except that no matter how many times you try again, there’s no getting used to it. Dirt is not an acquired taste. It tastes wrong the first time and it tastes wrong every time. Your food is not meant to taste like dirt.

It sticks to everything his tongue touches like some form of original sin. He calls it a condition but he thinks of it as a curse. He’s done something wrong and this is his punishment. If only someone could tell him what he did, he’d try to make it right. He’d beg for forgiveness or undergo whatever surgery would expiate him of his transgressions.

But no matter how much he searches for an explanation, the curse remains. Everything is dirty. Every bite must be choked down like he were drinking sand and if he can’t eat without gagging his food back up, he’ll eventually waste away all together and there will be nothing left of him to punish.
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Do you ever dream about dirt?

He never would have imagined seeing a therapist. His wife once suggested a marriage counselor and he laughed in her face. Therapists were for Hollywood neurotics or homosexuals. It might be okay for depressed housewives, but a real man would never pay someone to talk to him. They really fought that night.

Now he finds himself answering questions from a complete stranger about his dreams and his childhood and his relationship with his father.

The therapist keeps using the word psychosomatic. He doesn’t know what it means exactly but he doesn’t like the tone. He’s always thought of people who use big vocabulary words as condescending.

It’s his wife’s nagging that’s driven him here. None of the doctors he’s seen could provide any explanation. His insurance policy doesn’t cover psychological disorders unless they are work related, and so he’s been cutoff from seeing doctors about his situation.

His wife doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong. Ever since the baby, she’s accused him of seeking out her attention.

Do you ever watch porn with people having sex in dirt?

He didn’t even know there was porn like that. He doesn’t have his own computer.

When he gets home and looks up the word psychosomatic, he decides never to see that therapist again.

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The dog is gaining weight. There is a paunch around its midsection that everyone notices. People never fail to make a comment about how fat its becoming, how lazy it must be. The implication of course is that he’s a bad dog owner.

The dog is gaining weight while he continues to waste away. He religiously takes it for long walks around the neighborhood twice a day, but the ritual is no longer the escape it used to be. It’s become an ordeal. He’s lost as much muscle as he’s lost fat. Just holding the leash causes him to run out of breath.

His wife insists they should get rid of the dog. It’s the dog that’s making his food taste like dirt. The dog is always rolling around in the dirt like a pig.

She never liked the dog. The fact that she would use his condition, which she doesn’t even believe in except when it suits her, as an excuse to get rid of the dog emboldens him. No matter how often he reads about the possible link between pets and his condition, he refuses to yield.

It’s a sign of how bad things have gotten that tasting the dog’s food does not even rank among his lowest moments.

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For some reason, the brown tie is only for going to temple. He would never wear it to the office, but when he’s being dragged to Synagogue it’s always the first one he reaches for. Maybe it’s a form of passive resistance that he refuses to wear one of his good ties for religious purposes. Maybe it is just another one of his unexplained habits.

He can’t remember the last time he’d worn the brown tie, but now he’s wearing it every Saturday.

The Rabbi has all kinds of advice for him. He should go kosher. His wife isn’t happy about that one. He must learn to respect everything that God has created, whether it’s other people, the dog, the baby, or the food he eats. He needs to stop complaining about his wife’s nagging and think about why she feels the need to always nag him. He needs to better observe the shabbat, the upside of which means not cooking for the entire day. It’s the one part of tradition he’s prepared to follow without hesitation.

But as the weeks pass, he finds that going to Temple brings with it a certain amount of solace. His doctors never have any answers for him, just more tests. His therapists–by now he is on his third–only ask questions. The Rabbi has all kinds of answers and he seems certain about them. Not certain like his wife, who just wants to be obeyed, but certain in a gentle way. The Rabbi simply wants him to listen for his own good.

More and more, he finds himself listening to this advice. He heads to the mall to buy some more brown ties.

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His boss isn’t happy with him. The company can’t fire him and that’s likely what pisses him off the most. Termination might be interpreted as discrimination.

His work has definitely been suffering and his boss lets him know that if it were up to him, he’d be fired.

Both times my wife was pregnant, I never let it affect my work.

He hadn’t told his boss the truth of the matter. He’d said that his wife was pregnant, that it was a stressful time, and that things would be normal again soon. He hadn’t known beforehand it would mean he couldn’t be fired, but he likes to think of it as a sign of his cleverness.

His boss has all kinds of answers for him about how to deal with a pregnant wife. He talks like marriage is a war and he’s some kind of battle-tested general.

The secret to keeping a wife happy is staying as far away as possible. They think they want you around, but when you’re around, they just end up getting mad for something else. Stay away so that they’re always missing you. Sure, they’ll give you a hard time when you finally come home, but that’s another secret to women. Give them reasons to be mad at you because it secretly makes them happy. If they always miss you, they get angry and desire you.

His own experience with marriage is that it’s more of a constant negotiation and neither side is ever that happy. Either way, if his taste doesn’t return in three months, he’s going to have a real problem with the lie on his hands.

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His disorder never wanes. His food always tastes exactly like dirt. There is no ebb and flow, no hint of other flavors, no moment when he thinks it might be diminishing. He gave up hope weeks ago that his next meal would taste normal. He no longer sucks smoothies through straws or tries minuscule bites. They are no use. He just gags down his meals as quickly as possible, never eating portions large enough to make him vomit them back up.

To say he’s given up hope is not entirely accurate. He still hopes for a cure, even if he’s given up hoping for a weakening of his symptoms. His latest attempt is the allergists.

Every allergist has his own version of the same survey, requiring him to list every brand of health care product he’s used in the last six months, every morsel of food, every item of clothing and fiber of carpet. The surveys exhaust him and excite him at the same time. They represent a chance to account for every possibility. They also force him to admit he has very little control over his daily life. After his first failure, he now brings the surveys home for his wife to fill out.

Then comes the testing. He’s pricked with needles. They use syringes to deposit drops of magically-colored liquid on his skin, or worse, his tongue. They give him rashes and hives and he discovers he’s allergic to dust mites and latex. But no one has a good explanation for why his food might taste like dirt. Many of the allergists don’t even recognize it as a real disorder, despite all the documentation available online. If they can’t test for it, they don’t allow for it, as one technician says.

He knows they aren’t really doctors, but for some reason that makes him trust them more. Science is failing him. When science fails, all that’s left is superstition.

But he very quickly tires of the suggestion he find a new home for the dog.

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He’s been dreaming of dirt. Tracking dirt in his house. Large piles of dirt in his closet, in his underwear drawer, in his refrigerator. Digging what might have been a grave. It’s only natural that he’s started seeing a dream therapist.

His wife hates the idea. She complains about the expense for something that has no guarantee of a remedy. When he points out the doctors have failed to find a cure as well, she scoffs.

That’s when she admits that she’s thinking about a divorce.

Not that she wants one. She leaves it open-ended. He knows that it’s his job to convince her not to get a divorce. He’s supposed to proclaim his love and make a new round of promises with a theme of ‘Ways I’ll be a better husband from now on.’

There’s a part of him that is relieved at the suggestion. He thinks about a divorce and imagines a new kind of freedom where he no longer feels guilty all the time. But he could never admit this to her. It’s much better if she’s the one demanding the divorce.

So he reacts the only way he knows how, defensively.

His dream therapy sessions, which happen once a week, allow him to forget his marital problems for the moment. Instead his fellow dreamers analyze what the dirt in his dreams might mean. The suggestions range from deep-seeded insecurity to long-buried trauma from his childhood.

Tonight, he’s shared with them his latest: He dreams of his dog going around the house and shitting everywhere, but instead of shit, it’s just dirt. And he finds himself tasting the dirt, as if he’s compelled, and it doesn’t taste like dirt, but hamburgers.

The consensus is that he’s probably allergic to the dog. They all agree he should give it up.

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He thinks it might be easier to shoot the dog. Easier for him anyway. Then he wouldn’t have to know that his dog is out there somewhere, missing him.

At least they’ve found the dog a good home. That’s what his wife keeps saying. She hasn’t mentioned a divorce lately. He supposes the small victory of finally getting rid of the dog is enough to keep her happy. At least for now.

He’d like to think that his dog will find his way back to him, like in one of those movies where the dog travels all the way across the country to reunite with his master. He hopes his dog has that kind of loyalty. It’s more loyalty then he has, of course. He’s not the kind of master that deserves to have a dog brave a cross-country journey for him.

The first meal after dropping off the dog at its new house–out in the suburbs with a big yard, as if that’s supposed to justify his disloyalty–still tastes like dirt. He had excepted that such a sacrifice would be rewarded with an immediate cure.

His wife tells him not to worry. It was the right thing to do. Just be patient. Besides, now the dog has a yard to play in.

He thinks seriously about eating the remaining dog food before throwing it out in the trash.
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Several months pass before he finally regains his taste for food. At first he notices that the dirt has a slightly salty flavor. Gradually, over the next several days, the earthy flavor recedes and his normal senses return. His first bowl of ice cream will forever go down as the greatest bowl of ice cream in the history of mankind.

His first thought is he wants his dog back, a suggestion his wife adamantly opposes. She is certain that giving up the dog is the reason for his taste returning. She still resents all the money spent on experts who weren’t covered by insurance.

He finally resigns himself to life without a dog. His wife mentions adopting a cat, but if they can’t have his dog back, then he refuses to agree to any new pets that might make her happier. Instead he sets about eating as much as possible and it isn’t too long before he becomes legally obese.

Time passes and the memory of what dirt tastes like begins to fade. The brown ties move to the back of his tie rack. None of the experts can provide a rational explanation for the cause of his disorder. They all agree that sometimes these things just happen and medical science hasn’t caught up enough to know why. He thinks about scooping some soil out of the potted plant in the picture window just to remind himself it was really as bad as he remembers.

The worst part is not knowing. He must forever wonder if this or that combination of food and events is what triggered the disorder in the first place. Some of his new habits remain. He will always be obsessive about cleaning the soil off his organic potatoes.

The only thing he refuses to avoid are dogs. He seeks them out, petting them on the street, going into every pet store he passes, spending entire afternoons at the dog park. He has to prove to himself if not his wife that his condition wasn’t caused by the dog.

A part of him wishes he had been allergic to the baby instead. That’s probably a terrible thing to think, but he really loved that dog.