Mrs. Graham’s house was dark inside. Willy and Javier would enter that Aladdin’s cave when Johnny (Mrs. Graham’s Grandson) would be visiting. Mrs. Graham lived next door to Javier in an early 1940’s track home on the towns South Side. Willy and Javier wouldn’t ever go much further than Mrs. Grahams dark living room but that’s all that was needed. Pictures and paintings lined the walls with antique bric a brac on every flat surface.
It was one particular item that always drew the three boys into the cool darkness of the mildly creepy space… a cigarette cutter. It was the head and shoulders portrait of an East Indian boy complete with turban. Probably made out of ceramic, it was heavy to say the least. He had a placid look about his face with one interesting feature… the mouth. It was a perfect hold, just a little bigger than the tip of your pinky. You placed a cigarette into the mouth and pressed a piece on the top of the head and the blade within would give you a neat cut end for your smoking enjoyment.
The boys gathered around the head as usual and began goading each other to ‘go first’. They were all pretty sure the antique was haunted and it was just waiting to slice off your finger should you give it the chance. After much back and forth, Willy nervously slid his pink finger into the open mouth, waiting for the ‘snick’ sound as the head hungrily sought his blood. Willy’s finger was just small enough to get the first 3rd of his finger in there…
Author’s note. This is mostly true (but let’s still call it fiction). Javier lived next door to this lady (I can’t remember her name nor her Grandson’s name) but the rest of it was true. Alas, the I never lost a finger. Also, the image for this post was the best ChatGPT could recreate what I remembered. It doesn’t look the same but it’s generally close. I tired and tried to google it but could not find anything similar. (the mouth was much smaller).