by C M Muller
After the police arrived, black shoes all around her eyes, ordering her to stay on the sidewalk where she was, another twenty minute wait for the ambulance. By now, there were a lot of blood asterisks on the sidewalk’s rough surface, from whatever had happened to her face (because all the red was directly below her raised head).
The confusion of having to explain to so many people, even a few women, that she didn’t have her medical card because the card was in her purse, and her purse had been stolen. White walls of an underground hospital corridor around her, sliding past, as she was rolled on a gurney to a pale blue door getting bigger and bigger, all the way at the far front of the gurney, between her panty-hosed feet.
Someone who was male but who turned out not to be a doctor (she never found out exactly what his title was) told her, holding a clipboard in his hands in her recovery room, that she had some trauma to her face resulting from her attack, and that as a result of that assault her nose was broken, and she had lost three of her front teeth. After she kept insisting, he reluctantly found a mirror and handed it to her.
Her face, but her nose in a white-bandaged beak. Her forced smile, but a big gap in the row of teeth. Plus it looked like gum damage where the teeth were knocked out, thick black threads of sutures sewn deep into the pink, criss-crossing each other in triangles.
“Should have just given him your purse.”
She was discharged the following day. For her severe facial pain, the woman who rolled her to the elevators in a wheelchair suggested she take over-the-counter aspirin. A woman she worked with at the social services office, who had once offered Claire half her sandwich in the breakroom, which made Claire think she might be one of the few people in the world who would be willing to help her, who she called from her hospital bed, was waiting outside. Eyes looking a little put out.
Of course, when Claire arrived back at her apartment, the place had been robbed. Because she had her keys in the purse. Two jagged holes in the white wall where her TV had been attached. Refrigerator door hanging open, most of the food missing. (And she remembered: She was going to cook a rib eye steak when she got home that night from Hannah’s.) Her bedroom closet empty, hangers still on the rod or lying in a geometric mess on the closet’s floor. Laptop nowhere to be found. Someone had ejaculated on her pillow.
She took some vacation days, sitting in a chair in her living room. One book or another in her lap, because her TV and laptop were gone, but not reading. At some point each day eating another slice of the pizza she ordered delivered her second day home, having to cut up the triangle into small squares she’d chew with her back molars, crying.
It was hard.
She went back to work the following Tuesday. Had to get out of the apartment. A couple of people at work asked how she was. Everyone had trouble understanding her. Because of the injury to her mouth. To where they’d get a bit annoyed.
More than anything else, more than fear, or anger, or self-pity, what she felt most was shame. Shame that she had been victimized. Shame that she had to keep her lips together, so she didn’t show the big humiliating gap in her teeth (and more than anything else in America, missing teeth means poverty.) Quite a few people wanted to see, though. And were annoyed when she didn’t open her mouth for them.
During lunch on Thursday she went to a dentist for a consultation. Sat in the padded chair, jiggling her right hand on the arm rest. X-rays were taken. She realized she’d be late going back to the office. The dentist seemed like a nice guy. Professional. His assistant was sympathetic. Putting her hand on Claire’s upper arm as Claire told her story.
“Okay, so we have some good news. Despite the trauma, your maxilla was not broken. We can do three implants. It would be an endosteal implant for each tooth, which is the best kind of implant, drilling a titanium screw into each site up into the bone, then stitching everything shut and waiting for osseointegration to take place, which is usually a few months. Then we reopen your gums with a scalpel and attach the actual teeth replacements. They’ll function like normal teeth once everything heals.”
Claire in the padded chair, circular light above her shining down on her mouth, the meekest she’s ever been in her life. “How much would that cost?”
“I can do all the surgeries, the screw placements, and the crowns for twelve thousand.”
She wanted to cry. “I can’t possibly afford that.”
He nodded. “That’s okay. It’s the best solution, but we realize that’s kind of expensive for a lot of budgets. As an alternative, I can do a fixed bridge. The thing is—” He pointed his right pinky inside her mouth—“We really don’t want to use this incisor here on the left side of the trauma as an anchor, because incisors can’t really bear the repeated stress of a fixed three-tooth bridge. We’d want to extract that incisor, then anchor a four-tooth fixed bridge to your two canines. They’d provide much better support, long-term. You’d have two anchors, and four pontics. Cost-wise, we’re talking about five thousand dollars.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“Well, you could go with a removable bridge. It’s essentially a partial denture. You have to take it off to clean it. A lot of people take it out before they eat. It’s basically cosmetic. That’d run you, in your case, about fifteen hundred dollars to two thousand dollars.”
She’d think about it. The consultation cost her two hundred and fifty dollars.
Years went by. She learned not to smile. Hard at first, then after a while, you know what? Not so hard.
Quit her job at the agency. Took too much from her to pull into a parking lot in a bad part of town, and they were all bad parts of town, and then be expected to get out of the metal protection of her car and walk, exposed, across grass to her case file’s front door. Instead, she started an online consulting business where she helped people prepare applications for social assistance. Most of her clients were lawyers, farming out their different tasks. It was a living. Pretty good living.
She joined several online dating services. Always looking for big men who clearly just wanted sex. She could tell by the arrogance of the faces on their profiles if they were the type of man she was seeking. Someone who’d treat her like something long and soft with three holes, and liked to be a little rough, fingers clamped on the back of her head, meaty hand spanking her ass while he fucked her. She enjoyed the humiliation, appreciated the sated laziness of them not getting off the sofa after she dressed and turned back in their direction, hand on the doorknob. Them searching the cushions of the couch for their TV remote. Those were the best. Relaxed her.
About six years after her assault, she was driving around aimlessly one day, as she often did, listening to the radio, mostly rap, when she realized she was back in the neighborhood where Hannah lived.
She couldn’t possibly still be alive, could she?
Broad daylight, but she left her purse in the car, carried the pepper spray openly in her right hand.
Knocked on the front door.
Already phrasing in her mind the explanation she’d give to whomever the new tenant was.
An old woman swung the door inwards.
Milky eyes looking down at Claire’s hands. “Where’s my food?”
“Hannah? Do you remember me?”
Hannah taking a step back. “Oh, dear. I thought you were the delivery girl.”
“Do you remember me? Claire?” Hesitated. “I was with you when you had your baby.” She realized it was important to her that Hannah remembered her.
Long stare up at Claire’s face. “You were the one who didn’t have a man!”
That’s what she remembers of everything they went through together? “May I come in?”
“Sure, yeah.” Shuffling to one side, to let her pass through the doorway.
The living room was dark. TV on the wall looking extra bright.
Claire glanced around, looking for the doll. Didn’t see it. “What happened to your baby?”
Hannah trudging back to her ea
sy chair. “He’s in his room, resting. He was up late last night.”
Claire put the pepper spray into her skirt’s pocket. “Can I pop my head in, just to say hello?”
“Yeah, guess so. Don’t wake him.”
She went down the short hall to the doorway on the left.
On the bed, a body on its back. She tip-toed in a few steps, to see better.
A larger doll than before. Doll of a six year old boy. In pajamas. Plastic head on the pillow. Fixed eyes staring forward.
Jumped when she realized Hannah was directly behind her. The woman knew how to be silent. “He was up late last night, writing. He’s resting now.”
“What does he write about?”
She clacked her dentures in her mouth. “Redemption. Pages and pages. The paper gets expensive! But I don’t care. I love him.”
They went back to the living room. “You want some water, dear?”
“Okay. Should I get it?”
“I will.”
Slow trudge towards the kitchen.
Claire raised her voice, to be heard. “Is he in school yet?”
But no reply.
On the wall TV, images of bombs falling. Big, big plumes of smoke rising from buildings.
“Here you go, dear.”
Claire set the water on a side table. “Is your son in school yet?”
Firm shake of the head. “He teaches.”
“Really. To whom?”
“The neighborhood kids. For now.”
“How interesting. Did you ever get the extra benefits from government assistance for your son?”
Bitterness. “They’re tight with their little pennies.”
“Guess they have to be careful. It is taxpayer’s money. Did you know I was assaulted the last night I saw you?”
“Always wondered why you never showed up again.”
“Yeah. See what they did to my teeth?” Her first smile in a long time.
“Was you raped?”
“What? No, thank God.”
“There’s a lot of assaults around here. My son will change that.”
“Really, Hannah? A plastic doll is going to make things right in the neighborhood?”
“My crowning achievement. To have birthed him. He came out so calm. Didn’t even cry.”
Claire was surprised at the amount of anger she felt towards the older woman. Picked up her water glass, the equivalent of counting to ten. Took a sip.
Spat it back into the glass. “What is this?”
“It’s water, dear.”
“No, it’s not.” Cautiously sniffed the contents of the glass. Took a wary taste. “It’s wine.”
“I gave you water.”
Should she? Shouldn’t she? Looked across the dim living room at where Hannah sat. “You know on some level you’re crazy, right?”
Hannah put her wrinkled hands on the arms of her easy chair. “Think you better leave.”
So it was like that. The rest of her life had to be better, right? Jesus, she remembered the daydreams she had as a little girl, looking up at the clouds.
Hannah opened her front door. Overhead, a smoggy sky. As always. In the distance, police sirens. As always. From a block away, a scream. As always. Claire retrieved her pepper spray from her pocket. It was getting dark again.
This could have been a much nicer world, in a lot of ways.
Hannah poked Claire in her back.
She turned around.
The old woman’s milky eyes, filled with glee. “He is risen.”
Fisher and Lure
Christopher Burke
Shells and shale crackled beneath my shoes as I continued my ceaseless walk. The view in front of me was littered with detritus and dead things. But it appeared that I was not the only living being on that lonely beach.
I couldn’t make out any details, but a short figure had emerged from nowhere and seemed to be approaching. My instinct was to turn to the left and move off of the rocky beach. I’d become so unaccustomed to the company of others that I was no longer certain I wanted it, now that it was advancing toward me.
I stopped, looked around at a landscape I’d already been looking at for hours. The simple choice of whether to continue or diverge from my endless path was enough to paralyze me for a moment.
The child grew steadily closer, moving with an eerie speed that seemed unnatural. I could see now that it was a boy, about seven years old, with wispy blond hair. It seemed he had made my decision for me; I started to walk away from the water, hoping to get off the beach before he got too close.
That’s all I need to deal with now, some obnoxious kid who got lost, I thought. I couldn’t take him to the police. I wouldn’t know what the hell to do with him. And I’ve never been good with kids, anyhow.
Before I had finished my train of thought and gotten very far, the boy was suddenly at my side, tugging my arm.
“Mister, mister!” he shouted. He was dressed in strange clothing that I couldn’t recognize or even begin to describe. He waved a beaten-up old shoe in one of his hands. How did he move so fast? He was hundreds of feet away a few seconds ago.
“What? What is it, kid?” I asked.
“Is this your shoe? I found it over there. On the ground, see?” He pointed back in the direction from which he’d come, as though I could tell where, in the miles of beach stretching before us, he might have picked it up.
“Nah, it ain’t mine. I got both of ’em right here,” I said, pointing down at my feet, both of which clearly had a shoe on. “Now run along. You shouldn’t be going around talkin’ to strangers.”
“Oh, pffft on you,” he said. “I talk to strangers all the time. Everybody’s a stranger. ’Specially here. Say, who do you think it came from?”
“Kid, I have no idea. It’s just an old wet shoe. The hell you want to pick up nasty old shoes for, anyway? Say, where’s your shoes, kid?—Hey, you’re bleeding!”
The boy looked down dismissively, as though the blood was either not real or didn’t belong to him. As though he wasn’t in any pain at all.
“Hey, Mister, why don’t you come see where I found it.”
He tugged at my arm.
“No, kid, I can’t just now.”
“Pleeeease?”
He pulled on my arm with a surprising strength. Startled, I stumbled forward.
“It’s just a shoe,” I said.
“I knoooow that, mister, but I wanna show you where I found it.”
Christ, I thought with a sigh.
“All right, all right. Yer gonna yank my arm out. Cool it.”
He continued to drag me forward, even though I was moving willingly enough. No matter what, though, he seemed to move too fast for me. I wanted to stop him out of concern for his bloody feet, but he didn’t leave me much room for protesting and he didn’t seem to care anyway. His feet got bloodier and bloodier as we breezed over the rocks and shells, but he never seemed to feel it.
“You ever met The Fisher?” the boy asked.
Fisher, not fisherman. Odd way of putting it.
“Kid, I’ve met plenty of fishermen in my time.”
“No, no, The Fisher. He’s usually down this way. Maybe it’s his shoe!” he said, excited.
“Can’t say I have,” I answered. “So if it’s his shoe, why don’t you take it to him and leave me out of it?”
“Becaaaaause,” the kid said. “I’m afraid of The Fisher. Won’t you protect me?” His tone was some kind of saccharine caricature, like a young boy in a ’50s sitcom.
“Afraid? Why?”
“Cus, I don’t want him to catch me.”
“Catch you, huh? Kid, the way you move, nobody could catch you if they tried,” I retorted. “Look, I hope you get that shoe back to your Fisher, or whatever, but I really gotta get goin’.”
I yanked my arm violently free of his grip. Parts of my skin ripped off in his hand and stuck to the little nails. Jesus, this creep’s strong. I stalked off, confused and a little hurt. I wandered a
imlessly for a few seconds and before I knew it, the kid appeared, practically out of nowhere, right in front of me, dangling the shoe.
“Pleeease, just help me get the shoe back to The Fisher,” he said. I ignored him and changed direction, and he would fall out of sight for a few moments, but then he popped back into my path, again seemingly out of nowhere.
“He’s hungry, and he’s real down on his luck. Hasn’t caught anything all day,” the boy said with an exaggerated pout.
What the hell is this kid’s deal? I thought.
“All right, all right! Let’s just get this over with. Then will ya leave me alone already?” I said.
He didn’t respond, just latched onto me again with those nails and ridiculously strong grip. He dragged me again, almost powerfully enough that I couldn’t have resisted if I’d wanted to without ripping out more skin and maybe even a chunk or two of flesh deeper down. We made a beeline again for some distant spot on the waterline, presumably wherever this Fisher character was lurking without his damned shoe.
“Hey, hold on a sec. You got something stuck to ya.”
I reached out at something I had noticed, a whisper of light, flashing silver. Some kind of thin filament caught in his hair.
“Don’t worry about that, Mister,” he said, sustaining the rapid pace as I stumbled after him.
I continued to fret with the filament, but it led out in front of him and I couldn’t reach well enough to get a grasp of the little bit of string or wire or whatever it was. We drew closer and closer to the water line, approaching what must have been the point at which the boy had first entered my vision.
“Hey, hey, hold up!” I yelled. He was leading us straight to the water, with no sign of this Fisher guy.
The boy ignored me and kept going, until I yanked my arm free. This time, I felt a good bit of pain as the boy’s claw-like nails refused to budge even a little, and a hunk of flesh was torn out of my arm.
“You little shit!” I yelled. “The fuck’s the matter with you?”
He didn’t answer, only came back and waved the shoe at me.
“We’re takin’ this back to The Fisher!” he yelled. “He hasn’t caught anything all day and he’s gotta eat!” He waved the nasty, wet shoe around and stomped his feet, but his movements were all off, unnatural somehow. I noticed again the flicker of silver in his hair and squinted my eyes.