The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

  Now we are both where nature intended us to be, he said to himself. I have a job; you have your pregnancy. I go away from home at six in the morning and return at seven in the evening; you are here all day peeling potatoes and dusting. Too bad if you don’t like it, because that is the way it is. Don’t blame me.

  With a tremor of irritability, Sherry said, “You can hear the racket all the way down here. What’s the point of living out in the country? We might as well be living in a multiple-unit apartment in Oakland.”

  “I guess a lot of people felt they had to go,” Dombrosio said. “Out of gratitude. For him fixing up the water.”

  “Well, I don’t feel any gratitude,” Sherry said. “Do you care to know how I feel? I think that man has jeopardized our lives and health and future.”

  Dombrosio said, “How do you mean?”

  With her hands she indicated her distended womb. “I have to live in constant anxiety. We both do.”

  “There’s nothing in that chupper jaw crap,” Dombrosio said. And he had to laugh. It always amazed him to hear her, on this topic; he had never been able to accept the fact that a woman of her education, background and intelligence took it seriously.

  Sherry said, “It happened once—it can happen again any time. Any child born in this area; you know that. I’ve been drinking that contaminated water for years and so have you. Isn’t that so?” She paced about the room. “And there’s no way we can tell until it’s born: that’s the dreadful part. We have no idea what’s going to come out. God in heaven, I could be creating some dreadful freak inside me, keeping it growing.” She shuddered.

  “And it’s Runcible’s fault,” Dombrosio said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why?”

  She said with absolute conviction, “Because there wasn’t any anxiety about it before he made an issue out of it.”

  Yes, Dombrosio thought. That’s right; Runcible made an issue out of it. She’s correct. No one worried about it before that.

  So in her mind, Runcible is responsible—possibly even responsible for the fact that she is pregnant. And in that case, in her unreasonable system, Runcible would be responsible for her having had to give up her job.

  “Did he cost you your job?” Dombrosio asked her.

  She gave him a look of malice.

  “Answer me,” he said.

  “The question is foolish,” she said. But in her voice, and in her expression, she showed that on some deep level she did hold the man responsible for her fall, for her loss of position.

  “It would be ironic,” Dombrosio said, “if you did give birth to a child with the chupper jaw.” Ironic, he thought, because it was I who dug that skull up and doctored it; it was I who brought the chupper jaw back into view for the first time in decades. My historic role.

  “Why ironic?” Sherry said.

  That’s right, he thought. You don’t know, even now. It has never come out and you have never guessed. Who does know? he asked himself. Wharton and that anthropologist, so I presume Leo Runcible.

  He said, “Maybe we should drop up there for a few minutes. To the party.”

  “Why?” Sherry said.

  “And shake hands. Wish him whatever it is you wish. Let bygones be bygones.” He had seen, not long ago, Wharton go by in his car. And Wharton and Runcible had not been speaking for months. “This is the time of year,” he said. “Doesn’t Christmas affect you that way?”

  “No,” Sherry said. “And I’m not going up there.”

  Going to the window, Walt Dombrosio gazed up at the lights of the Runcible house; he listened to the noise and saw the motion and the parked cars, the open front door. Most of the guests were not from the area, he had noticed; the cars, by and large, were from out of town. We’re not the ones who go up there, he realized. Not area people.

  “I think I ought to go up,” he said to his wife. “Have a drink with him and show I don’t harbor any grudge against him, for what he did.” This time of year did affect him, even if it did not move Sherry’s hard heart. “That was a long time ago,” he said, “when he called the police on me. I’m not one to hold grudges anyhow; you know that.” He was thinking now that after all he had forgiven her for what she had done, for plotting and scheming to get a job at Lausch Company, for siding with Lausch against him, for the color-blindness business—for all the careful cruelties she had practiced against him.

  Her eyes narrow, Sherry said, “I don’t see how you could. I don’t see how you can forgive a man like that. After what he’s done to us. It would be a betrayal of me, if nothing else.” She touched her stomach, grasping it, stroking it, an automatic gesture, now; she seemed always aware of it, in every situation. “Walt,” she said, “if there is anything wrong with this baby, if there’s any deformity—the other night I lay awake thinking about it. What would we do? How would we survive? Our first baby—suppose he was some kind of freak. Would we put him in a home, or what? Should we keep him? I just don’t know.” Anxiously, she regarded him. “At night when you’re asleep—my god, you go right off to sleep—it seems so real. Of course, it doesn’t seem so real right now. You know how nocturnal fears are.”

  “The baby will be okay,” he said. “You’re not being rational.”

  “Everyone who sees me,” she said, “who lives here and knows I’m pregnant—they’re thinking about the baby and wondering if it’ll be normal. I can tell; it’s true. Everybody is waiting to see.”

  Yes, they’re waiting, he thought. It was true; it was not in his wife’s mind. The penalty, he thought. For living in a rural area. The ancient superstitions. Maybe we ought to move out of here, he thought. But no. We’re part of this area. We want our child born here.

  “I guess I won’t go up there,” he said. “It would be sentimental. I’d regret it in a couple of days.” Instead, he seated himself and picked up the evening paper. He began to read, and soon he had become involved in it, as he did every night at this time.

  But by and by his attention lagged and he knocked off reading to think once more. If a case can be made out that Leo Runcible is responsible for the condition of our baby, he thought, then why stop with that? Why not carry out such logic to its conclusion? In a sense, Runcible is responsible for the fact that there will be a baby at all, that Sherry is pregnant in the first place.

  He thought, if I hadn’t got into such a fight with her that Saturday morning when I got home with the slip from the bank, we never would have gone to bed so abruptly, without contraception. Runcible, he thought, made my wife pregnant, the god damn bastard. And at that, he smiled to himself.

  “Why are you smiling?” Sherry said.

  I see, he thought. I see how the reasoning goes. How she makes it work. Terrific. It’s possible to do anything with people, facts and events; they can be reshaped, the way I reshape wet plastic in the workshop. Form is imprinted on them, through very forceful ways.

  Who really made her pregnant? he asked himself. And why? And, he thought, what does it mean? It means that she has lost out in some deep and irreversible way, that she can’t get now what she wanted to get. And, he thought, I’m no longer in jeopardy from her; the constant, tireless pressure is gone. I can relax. For instance, I can stand at the window and look up the hill at Runcible’s house and his wild party and not feel upset. I can read the paper with tranquility. I can come and go as I please, and she can’t stop me.

  And I did it, he thought. By bringing Chuck Halpin home that night. That made Runcible mad; that made him call the highway patrol on me when I got stuck in the ditch. My bringing Chuck here cost me my job at Lausch Company and got Sherry her job there; it got me started working on the skull—the whole business. He thought, It got Leo Runcible steamed up so that he made an ass out of himself, as usual; he went off the deep end and wound up financially ruined and owning a water company that will keep him ruined for the rest of his life. Let’s say I got him into that water company, he said to himself. I ruined him. And I got Sherry pregnant;
I did it all—no one else did a god damn thing except shoot off their mouths—Runcible to everybody, Sherry to me.

  They talked, he decided, but I did something. I didn’t just stand around gassing.

  And yet, he thought, maybe Runcible will get the last word. He felt a tremor of uneasiness as he thought about the baby.

  Standing near him, Sherry said, “You’re as scared as I am about the baby. I can tell by the way you’re sitting, and the expression on your face. But you won’t admit it. Even to yourself.”

  Am I? he wondered. Possibly. Again he laid down his newspaper.

  Runcible’s revenge, he thought. His way of getting back at us. Through our child.

  In his mind he had a vivid image, almost a hallucination, of the future. All the details were there; they entered his mind in a throng. God, get away! he thought.

  He saw himself and Sherry.

  Together they drove up the street. He had on his good wool suit, tie, the black shoes he had got for Christmas. Sherry was dressed-up, also; she had on earrings, a little white cap-like hat with a trailing net, powder and eyebrow pencil and mascara and her new lipstick, her fur cape and light brown suit, her high heels with metal ends, the ones that always hurt her ankles so. On her lap she held her shiny black purse, which she had never before used or even taken out of the box in which it had come. As the car moved along she stared out at the tall old-fashioned houses, saying nothing. He concentrated on the numbers, and searched for a parking place.

  Between them on the seat their little boy sat with his hands on his knees. They had dressed him up, too; they had, in addition to scrubbing his neck and face and ears, combed his hair and got him to put on his pressed pants and polished shoes and white shirt. Over the shirt he wore his sweater. He carried with him a five-cent balsawood glider which they had picked up at the drugstore for him; of course they had had to assemble it. He had not flown it, yet. They had promised him that he could, as soon as they got where they were going. He could fly it at the school, assuming there was space. They were sure there would be…

  “Almost there,” Walt Dombrosio said.

  “Yes,” Sherry murmured. She shifted about and crossed her legs, smoothing down her skirt and picking at a bit of white lint.

  “Light me a cigarette,” he said.

  Opening the glove compartment, she rummaged about. “I can’t find any,” she said. “I didn’t bring my own. Do you have to?”

  “No,” he said. “Forget it.” Now he had caught sight of the building, the old, unpainted, wooden three-story house that had been converted several years ago to the nursery school. The special day school. The yard had been cleared of trees and bushes and flowers—he could compare the other houses and yards in the block—and asphalt surfaces had been put down. Various children’s devices had been set up; a jungle gym, a revolving wheel on which the children rode, slides, seesaws, the canvas swings popular with pre-school children. A high metal Cyclone fence surrounded the yard and building.

  “I dislike those metal fences,” Sherry said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Makes it look like a prison.”

  “They always have that look,” she said. “Even if there are roses in them. Have you ever seen anybody grow roses in them? It’s like blood or something. Red roses. Paul Scarlets.”

  He parked the car across the street.

  “Are we early?” she said. “Do we have to go right in?”

  “We’re on time,” he said. “Don’t be nervous.”

  “School always made me nervous,” she said. “I always wanted to run away or throw up or wet my pants. Even when I was in high school.” Sitting up high, she turned the rear view mirror to get a glimpse of herself, her face in particular. “Repressed rebellion, I imagine.” Opening her purse she got out her lipstick.

  He and the boy waited while she touched up her lips.

  “Ready?” he said, finally.

  “Yes,” she said. She smiled briefly at him.

  With the boy between them, holding on to both of them, they walked slowly across the street, very formally and silently. A few children were outside playing in the yard, and they looked up.

  “Doesn’t that look like fun?” Sherry said, bending to speak to their boy. “Those slides, and all those other babies. So many babies to play with.”

  “Not babies,” Walt Dombrosio said. “Don’t call them that, for christ’s sake. They’re children.” She had for some reason picked up the habit of calling all pre-grammar school children “babies,” and it irritated him.

  Between them, clutching their hands, the boy began to sniffle.

  “Yeah,” Walt said. “This’ll be fun.” He squeezed his son’s hand. They reached the cars parked on that side of the street, and he let go of his son’s hand so that Sherry could lead him between two cars and up onto the sidewalk.

  Seeing the wide old wooden steps of the building, the huge railings, the boy started to cry. But at the same time, Walt Dombrosio saw, he was excited. He was trembling, trying at the same time to see and to shrink back behind his mother.

  The front door of the building had opened and a woman, smiling broadly, stepped out and held her hand down in greeting. The teacher who operated the school, Miss Thackman, coming down the steps and bending to say hello to their boy. Speaking to him the moment she saw him.

  “Jimmy Dombrosio,” she said, her eyes sparkling with friendliness. “I’m so glad to meet you. Do you know who I am, Jimmy? I’m Miss Thackman. I’m going to be your teacher. We’re going to have lots and lots of fun.” And she led him away from his parents; Walter Dombrosio felt his son’s fingers loosen as he moved up the steps with Miss Thackman. Beside him, Sherry had become pale with tension. She shot a quick glance of panic at him.

  “It’s okay,” he said to her, putting his hand against her back and gently urging her forward, up to the porch and through the door that Miss Thackman held open for them. Now they had come into a dark hallway, with doors open here and there.

  An exceptional school, he thought. For the exceptional child. This heavy, middle-aged woman with her dry face, no makeup, dress wrinkled and spotted with paints and clay, this teacher, psychologist, social worker rolled into one, leaning down, smiling as she led their son along the carpeted hall to her office. Already filling him with anticipation, picturing to him in her mannish, hearty voice the games the children played, the toys they had, the exciting things they did—he felt his tension ease, a little. She had the situation so well in hand; she was so clearly a professional.

  “And you’ll have a table,” she was saying. “All your own. And you can slop it up all you want; won’t that be fun?”

  The little boy was looking up at her. The slow little face, the slow reaction. So dulled, he thought. So stupid. Attempting to understand, to follow what she was saying. She has to talk more slowly, he thought with anger. Doesn’t she know that? She’s had others; that’s the whole point. The whole reason for bringing him here and not somewhere else. This is supposed to be the place.

  Beside him, Sherry said in a barely audible voice, “Among the children outside, in the yard. Did you—” Her voice ceased.

  “I didn’t see any,” he said. “They’re probably under closer supervision. Because of falls. Bodily injury. Didn’t they tell us that’s a problem?”

  “Yes,” his wife said as they entered the office. Her voice had a flat, deadened quality and her face, under her little veil, was stark. He moved a chair up for her and she seated herself in front of Miss Thackman’s desk, arranging her skirt and putting her purse down carefully where she could get at it. As he also found a chair he saw her open her purse and look to see if she had her checkbook and pen; she removed her gloves, put them into her purse, and halfway drew out the checkbook. Turning her head, she said to him, “Broken arms or something. A lot of stumbling. You know.”

  “Well,” Miss Thackman said, dropping into the old-fashioned oak swivel chair behind the desk. She reached up and led Jimmy around to her. “My,” she
said, still smiling; she had never ceased to smile, nor had she ever ceased keeping her eyes fixed on the boy. She had got him to smile back, to keep a smile as equally fixed. Walt Dombrosio thought, She has already gained control. And that has to be. That is very important.

  The woman, he thought, devoted to this. Trained for this, to handle the retarded child, the special child, the malformed child. Not flinching, not showing any reaction at the sight of the heavy jaw, the ridged brows, the stooped posture, the idiotic, empty face with its timid hopefulness and anxiety…of course, this is not the first time; she has—what is it?—seven of them, here. Among the other children.

  “Stick out your tongue,” Miss Thackman was saying to their boy. “And say ahh.” She waved a flat tongue depressor, and the boy after a moment obediently opened his mouth. Humming to herself, she inserted the tongue depressor and, squinting, gazed at what she saw; with her right hand she wrote notes in a ledger on the desk. What is it she’s seeing? Walt Dombrosio asked himself. Not really whether his throat is red or his tongue is coated. This is a ritual that we’ve all gone through, but it is something different, here, in this case. It is the teeth, the jaw. That is what she’s examining. The palate. Because, he thought, she wants to know what hope there is for speech therapy.

  To him, Miss Thackman said, “Who did you say you had working with him? Calder?”

  “Yes,” Sherry said. “We’ve been bringing him in three times a week. For two years, now.” She had lit a cigarette, but he saw her hand tremble too badly; she put the cigarette out. “To San Rafael,” she said. “Calder isn’t there, but his clinic is.”

  “Yes,” Miss Thackman said. She put the tongue depressor into the wastebasket, and then, folding her hands, she said to the boy in a booming, expectant voice, “Now, James L. Dombrosio—tell me something.” Very slowly and deliberately, she said, “Tell me how you feel.”