Oh, Play That Thing

  —That it, pal?

  —Sweet Jesus!

  Then I did it. I pushed back his head and slammed my open hand to his forehead, shoved it back before he could object or even properly know. And I sent the pliers straight at the tooth. I had it, and pulled. And shoved his head back. And pulled. I kneeled on his lap, and shoved his head, and gave the pliers a good twist as I felt the root surrender. And I had it, out and high in the air; a shot of blood followed my hand, over my shoulder, and thunked the frozen dirt.

  I got up and let him fall.

  The root was an inch long. Huge and rough, like something ancient suddenly dipped in blood. And the blood itself was quickly old, although the man himself was still bleeding, badly, trying to hold it back with an open palm; it rolled through his fingers.

  He stood up. Cora came down the steps, ready to help, looking for a way to get through his massiveness. He howled. But I had the tooth, the proof. I had it in the pliers, and my white coat was spotless. I stood there, job done, and the man howled again and groaned. He held his head, grabbed it in his huge hands. I saw him open his eye. He took long, slow, clinging breaths. I was ready to fight him. He took his hand from his mouth, and he looked at me. His glass eye had stayed put through his pain. It was a good one, store-bought in Saratoga Springs. In his current state, in the dying light, it looked exactly like the real one.

  —Thank you, he said.

  I was delighted, and surprised to be. I pocketed the pliers and held the lapels of the white coat.

  —Pain gone? I asked.

  —No, sir, he said. —New pain.

  He tried to smile.

  —Kind gets better, he said. —You could say I recognise it.

  And we turned to go into the house. Cora was already in there, fussing at the stove. The half-sister was standing at the window. I was through the door when he howled again.

  He sat down on the step.

  —Oh, sweet Jesus! Oh, Lord!

  So I had to do it again; there was nothing else to do. He sat on the chair and let his head drop back.

  Two more teeth and the pain was finally dead, lying out in the yard while we all put away a pot of coffee and watched the day outside close down. I could see Theodore Roosevelt, inside the cracked glass, and I could still see Cora’s needlework – What Will Ye Be Doing When Jesus Comes? – on the wall beside the wood stove. But I couldn’t read it now. No one lit the kerosene lamp.

  Aaron sighed before he spoke.

  —Well, sir. This day has left memorable far behind.

  The teeth had come clean out, no shards or roots left there; I was getting the hang of the business. But he wasn’t going to chew anything harder than air again, not on that right side. He was almost unconscious, already snoring. But excitement and relief kept poking at him. He was in love with his wife, in love with the half-one, and probably a bit in love with me.

  He snorted; he’d woken again.

  —I’m happy, he said.

  And the next day, a Saturday, Aaron and Cora went into town, same as every Saturday. Aaron parked the truck as near to the Temple of Economy as he could get. There was nothing to keep him outside, no one leaning against their vehicle that he wanted to stop and chew the fat with, although he was feeling quite affable that day. It was cold in the truck and he was too giddy to sit still for long. So he went in with Cora. He stayed behind long enough to admire the sway in her arse, then caught up with her. They came to the door, and he stepped aside to give his space to Cora. She smiled and walked into the store, past Norris himself, who always walked the floor on Saturdays, the day that really mattered. And Aaron followed Cora.

  —Afternoon, Cora, said Norris

  Then he saw Aaron’s swollen face.

  —My God, Aaron, he said. —What happened there?

  —Had a tooth pulled, said Aaron.

  —Hope you hit the cad that done the pulling, said Norris.

  —On the contrary, said Aaron. —I thanked him from the bottom of my heart and paid him two dollars.

  Norris couldn’t resist it.

  —He pull your leg while he was at it? he asked.

  And he laughed. He threw his head back and roared. Then he looked at Aaron, and knew. He cut the laugh but it was too late.

  —Cora, said Aaron. —Let’s drive on now, to Johnsville.

  Johnsville was the next town, a half-hour west of Sweet Afton.

  Cora stopped short of the counter and handsome Missis Norris who was waiting there. She turned and walked past Norris, back into the day. Happy to do it; she’d never been fond of the Norrises. She walked to the truck and Aaron was right behind her. I watched them from the hotel window. There was no obvious anger or upset in their pace. But there was something up with Norris; I could see that. He tried to get alongside Aaron but there wasn’t room and Aaron wasn’t giving any.

  I looked over at the Happy Lunch. No half-sister at the window, and she wasn’t on the street. She wasn’t there just then, but she reported it all to me later, all the words that led to the knock on our door.

  —Hold on there, Aaron, said Norris.

  Aaron didn’t answer or acknowledge the man. He got to his side of the truck. He opened the door.

  —Now, Aaron, said Norris. —I didn’t mean nothing. You know that.

  Aaron put the door of the truck between himself and Norris. Aaron was one of the county’s important farmers, a man whose son had died for his country, and he was about to drive away and take his business elsewhere, and maybe all other business with it. Norris was staring at bankruptcy.

  He grabbed the door.

  —Aaron. I apologise.

  —I hear you, said Aaron.

  He took the handle and pulled the door, and Norris came with it. There was a lot of Norris. He was only slightly smaller and softer than Aaron.

  —Aaron, said Norris. —Think about it.

  He put a foot on Aaron’s running board.

  —A dollar spent out of town never returns, he said.

  —You coming with us or you going to get your hand off of this door? said Aaron.

  He was enjoying himself; he must have been. Cora certainly was. She told the half-sister, a few days later. Cora, too, had always blamed Norris for Aaron’s missing eye, but for seven years she’d been quiet about it. And she didn’t much like Missis Norris. That woman had herself a peg and two above other folks. She was too good for the piece goods she sold to other women, to make their Mother Hubbard dresses. She went to Albany for her dresses, and she liked to let them know it. And she looked down on others because they came into town instead of starting off there, as if that little town was some big important city, and because they weren’t married to the owner of the Temple of Economy. Cora could see her now, her handsome head between the Rs.

  Norris had started shouting. I couldn’t hear words but I felt them in the window glass as I pressed my forehead against it. I waited for the two men to grab each other and roll. But it didn’t happen. Norris was shouting big agreement with everything that Aaron said. Yes, Mister Dalton was the best dentist this town had seen. And, yes, if he had need of a dentist, Mister Dalton was the man he’d call for. As a matter of fact, Norris shouted, he thought he detected a twinge there, at the back of his mouth.

  He prodded a tooth with his tongue.

  —Yes, he roared. —Something’s brewing in there.

  Aaron was loving this. All those nights awake, he had always imagined himself beating Norris. He’d never dreamt that he’d watch the man inflict the beating on himself. But that was what was happening. Norris stood away from the truck. He clutched his jaw, and roared. He roared at his wife in the window: he wanted Dalton the dentist: now.

  I was lying back on the bed when the knock came.

  —Come in.

  She searched the room and found me.

  —My husband, Mister Norris, needs you, she said.

  —In what capacity? I asked her.

  She actually smiled.

  —Dental, she said. r />
  —Lead the way.

  I grabbed the white coat and followed three steps behind her. She knew I was back there and she led me down the stairs, past MacCarlton.

  —Missis Norris. And Mister Dalton.

  Onto the street. She walked quickly away; this wasn’t for me any more. Her husband was about to be humiliated, already had been, so she had been too. Still, she did look over her shoulder before she stepped back into the Temple of Economy.

  Norris was sitting outside, off the boardwalk. A straight chair had been brought out for him. Aaron stood behind him. Norris stared at me as I approached. He’d noticed me before, of course; he’d employed me, a day here and there. He couldn’t remember ever talking to me. But here I was, strolling right up to him. I hadn’t buttoned the white coat. The wind took and lifted it. Farmers and their sons got out of my way. Norris must have noticed that one side of the coat was a white wing behind me and the other sat plumb against the side, and he must have guessed. The effort at contempt fell off his face. He shook his head; I saw it. He sat up. There was a clear path now, straight from me to Norris. No voice or engine cut the air. The world was dangling right over his head. I held his eyes all the way, the last ten yards, right up to the poor cunt’s knees.

  —What can I do for you? I said.

  He couldn’t believe it. He caught his jaw before it dropped.

  —Tooth. Tooth, tooth. Toothache. Got a toothache.

  —That’s right, Mister Dalton, said Aaron. —And I was sure happy to recommend you.

  —Thanks very much, I said. —I just hope I can live up to your recommendation.

  —You will, said Aaron.

  —So, I said, and I looked down at Norris’s upturned stare. — I’d better have a gawk.

  Norris opened his mouth; he was no sissy. It was a big mouth and the light was still fair, so I had a good view of the man’s teeth. They looked fine. Better than fine. They were his best feature.

  —Ah yes, I said.

  And the town nodded. Something had to go. That was what I was there for.

  I stood back.

  —Here we go.

  I took the pliers out of my white pocket. I’d washed them that morning in a rain barrel behind the Trout Hotel. Norris backed further into the chair, and I saw it in his eyes: recognition. Norris knew his own pliers. He knew the feel and heft of all his merchandise, prided himself in his ability to find anything quickly, to know where every item was shelved or stored. Norris knew his store. He sold four types of pliers. He was able to recommend them, happy to use the cheapest one himself. Norris loved his work. He believed in it.

  And he believed now that he was looking at a pair of his own pliers, and he had no recollection of selling them to me.

  And that was what did it.

  He opened his mouth and I got it done quickly. The tooth came clean, and I held it up, gripped in the pliers. I looked at Aaron looking at it. I didn’t look at Norris. She told me about it later. The half-sister. She’d arrived in time for the show.

  By the time I looked at Norris he was going in the door of the Temple of Economy. I shook the tooth and threw it over my shoulder. Then I gave it proper thought and went after it, before someone else picked it up. I got to it just before Aaron. I winked at him.

  —Evidence, I said, for only him.

  The wink didn’t come back. He was a good, intelligent man.

  I put the tooth in my white pocket and hoped to Christ that Norris wouldn’t come back, demanding to see it: it was a fine, solid tooth. And now, there was another merchant sitting where Norris had been, mouth open, demanding to be humiliated in front of his customers. I was on a roll. I bent right down and whipped out a black one.

  I extracted a lot of teeth that late afternoon and they all went into my pocket. I brought them back to the Trout and threw them on the bed.

  She counted them.

  —Twenty-six. That is a wad, at two bucks a pop.

  They were all of them blood-caked, most of them rotten, brown and yellow, ruined by years of sugar and tobacco. She picked one up and showed it to me.

  —Bet this is the one came out of Mister Norris.

  —That’s it.

  —Sweet.

  She put it to her lips and held it there for a second or two.

  —You didn’t see his face after, did you, daddy? she said.

  —No, I said.

  —Should’ve looked.

  —I did, but he was gone.

  —Know what he did? she said.

  —What?

  —The big nothing. Just licked his lips, like the cat that got the cream. Stood up and walked away. The guy has style and you’re in trouble, daddy.

  —Why?

  —Don’t know, she said. —But you are. Why would he look so satisfied?

  —Because I took his pain away.

  —You gave him the pain, daddio. You’re in the big T and so am I.

  She kissed me.

  —But I’ve wriggled out of trouble before.

  I heard the match, then smelled it. Then the photograph was in front of my eyes; I saw it burn and curl. It broke into weightless chunks and drifted up in the rising air. The wedding dress, the glowing hair – I watched the thin flame turn them all to nothing.

  —Hey.

  It was hard as a stone on the back of my head.

  It was Norris.

  I turned and got back up on the boardwalk.

  —How’s the mouth? I said.

  His answer came in the look that pushed right up to mine.

  —Didn’t pay you for your service, he said.

  This was two days after I’d taken the man’s tooth out of his head. Bright, cold and early, Monday morning.

  —How much?

  —Two bucks, I said. —Does that sound fair?

  —Yep, he said. —You look to me like a two-bucks kind of merchant. You’ll get it.

  He turned away and walked back into the store. Missis Norris wasn’t in the window. One of the kids he had working for him, a pip called Karlie Belden, came running after me, clinging to a five dollar bill.

  —He said to keep the difference.

  —No, I said, and I slipped him the three dollars change. — You keep it.

  I walked out of the town and spent the day hunting a well over ground that was fat with water, for a handsome woman who’d found her husband hanging in the barn the previous winter. I walked the plot till dark and let her feed me and show me her teeth.

  I walked back to beat the night. I knew the ruts and noise by now but dark was dark out there; five late minutes and you were stepping into emptiness.

  But I made it. The bed was still settling under me when a woman’s knuckles tapped the door.

  —Come in.

  She looked at me, and put the three dollars on the bed, between my feet. Then she walked the four steps back to the hall. She took the door with her and it clicked at the same time I heard her toes on the stairs.

  I thought about it for a while. I’d keep the money; I needed it. I was going home the long way – and the job couldn’t be done without a good, full pocket. And I knew an invitation when I saw one, even when its arse was going out the door. I was pleased with myself.

  I slept.

  * * *

  She held her palm over the flame.

  —Mind over matter, folks, she said. —See?

  They watched the flame bend to eat her hand. The eight people at Aaron’s home-made table. The fedora shadowed her face, her eyes. Two, three seconds, four. They all looked at Fast Olaf’s half-sister. Then Aaron took her wrist and she let him bring her hand to safety.

  —Not much in that, said a farmer’s wife beside Cora.

  —Whatee?

  —Your hand on top of that candle, said the wife. —You only let it there a spell.

  —I’m with you, toots, said the half-sister.

  Aaron still held her hand.

  —But that ain’t what I willed, she said. —The old hand over the flame trick? That
one, any flim-flam artist can do. See the way Farmer Hardwick grabbed my wrist there?

  —Yare.

  —That was the trick, toots. I willed it. Except it’s no trick. It’s the real thing.

  She put her hand on Aaron’s lap.

  —It’s love, toots.

  I wasn’t there. She told me some; I made up the rest. She was recruiting, converting; she was racing against certainty, and winning. She came back to the Trout room most nights – I missed a few myself. She pushed at me with a ferocity that left me sore and full of myself. She pulled me to her and tried to take me whole. But, really, she was putting the distance between us, the gap she hoped would be safe. She looked and saw a man on the run, who’d been on the run for years. She was making the right move. My days were numbered and she made the most of them.

  Her strength was her unshakeability. She believed, absolutely, in nothing. But herself. Her head, her body. Her temple. Her tits, her face, her mind, breath, cunt, eyes, future, legs, her teeth, her choices, her wrists. The world was what she saw and came to her, and what she could make come to her. Every day, in ev-ery way. She believed in the power of her arse. She slapped it and got me to slap it. She loved the smack and sting, the proof that it was hers. She knew what it could do. One well-aimed swing could bring you fortune, fame, a bed for the night. She believed. She believed in the thing, the now, what she saw and felt, now; no putting off or waiting. The future would be better, only if you had the now. It applied to everything, nipples, money, health, but only if you had them. Nipples got you bigger nipples, money made you more, health gave you everything, now. She believed this, and she was making a religion of it. All other faiths dangled transcendence, the transcendence of the dirty world as probable, possible, or sure-fire certainty; transcendence as a promise or threat.

  —Who fucking wants it? she said.

  She grabbed me hard.

  —Want to transcend that, daddio? she said.

  —No, I said. —I don’t think so.

  —Not even for eternity?

  —No.

  —Straight swap. This, here, now, for the everlasting. What say?

  —No.

  —Last offer.

  —No.