The Black Toothpick of God

An essay by Chad Schomber

There’s a moment just before a pencil breaks that you can feel. A soft give. Like a knee buckling before it hits gravel. You don’t always notice it in time. But the Ticonderoga #2, black casing, knows. That pencil doesn’t snap. It grits. It groans. It bears the pressure of generations of math tests and passive-aggressive grocery lists and phone numbers written on the backs of mail envelopes no one ever calls.

The name sounds historic. Like it fought in a war and came back half-wounded but twice as sure of itself. Ticonderoga. It doesn’t roll off the tongue. It lands. A name full of syllables and stubbornness. The kind of pencil you find at the bottom of a junk drawer next to a rogue rubber band and a key that unlocks nothing you own.

But it writes.

Jet black casing. Matte. No gleam. No flirt. It’s the working man’s wand. Doesn’t roll off the table. Doesn’t beg to be admired. Sits flat and dull like a well-fed alley cat. Smells faintly like whatever they used to seal the wood. Something almost sweet, almost chemical, like a janitor's cologne.

Hold it right, and it won’t judge your grip. Choke up on it and press hard if you need to carve out your thoughts. Let it whisper if you're writing secrets, quietly, just for you.

The eraser is black. Works fine the first two days. Then it becomes a smudge stick. Still, you keep using it, because that’s what the pencil came with. There’s some kind of loyalty in that. Not devotion. Just familiarity. Like letting the same tooth hurt for five months because you already know what the dentist will say.

People don’t buy pencils like they used to. Now they come in bulk. Unopened. Unsharpened. Future relics. But the Ticonderoga gets used. Not collected. Not fawned over. It’s for solving the real stuff. Tax math on the kitchen counter. Angry letters you never send. Crosswords in the waiting room that you never finish because your name gets called right when you're on a roll.

I once found one jammed behind a radiator. Burnt a little on the side. Still wrote fine. The graphite was like a scar—darker in some light. Someone had used it past the point of comfort. No longer balanced. The eraser chewed. Teeth marks. You don’t bite pens like that. Pens are commitments. Pencils are flings. Full of second guesses and escape routes.

And black pencils? That’s a mood. That’s someone who doesn’t want their pencil mistaken for yours. It’s not about style. It’s about drawing the line. The real line. Not the artistic one. This pencil is for circling typos. Marking measurements on drywall. Tapping against a clipboard while you wait for someone to show up on time for once.

I used one to leave a note on the fridge once. “Out of eggs. Fix the porch light. Dog’s yours today.” It was all true, except the eggs. We had plenty. I just wanted to write something.

When you sharpen a Ticonderoga, you get a coil of shavings tight like a secret. The smell of it takes you back to that first day of school you didn’t cry. Back when your desk was clean and your name was printed neatly on a piece of tape. Before time made all your handwriting slope.

They don’t last forever. The pencils, I mean. You wear them down, sharpen by sharpen. Like a candle without the ceremony. But it’s honest. You can measure your effort in inches. You can see how much of yourself you’ve used up trying to get something right.

I met a guy once who only wrote in pencil. I thought he was full of it until I saw his notebook. Everything written in a heavy slant, dark marks, corrections rubbed but not hidden. You could trace his mind like a trail. No disguise. Just marks. Human and flawed and trying.

I like that. I like the try.

I’ve got those black #2s in my drawer right now. Some sharp. Others blunt. Rounded fat. Erasers ready to fix my mistakes. Change in thoughts. I pick one up when I’m thinking. Tap it against the table. Roll it back and forth. Feel its weight.

It’s not much. Just wood and graphite and a rubber hat. But somehow, it carries more than most things in the drawer. It’s quiet about it. Doesn’t brag.

Just waits.