"What? What did he say?"
"He says that you're gonna need denturadas. Dentures."
"Dentures?"
"He says your gums have receded, and the nerves of many teeth are very dead. Either you can get dentures--"
Dr. Barrera spoke again. His assistant agreed with a solemn nod.
"--or transplants, he says."
"I can't afford transplants. Heck, Santiago, I can't afford dentures."
Santiago said something to the dentist (Ray recognized the word dinero), and the dentist replied, animatedly waving his hands.
"He says it won't cost much. Five-hundred dollars."
"Five-hundred--!"
Dr. Barrera spat out a reply.
"He says he could do it for three-hundred and fifty."
Ray considered it. Not much to lose, just some rotten teeth. If he cheaped-out and went for the dentures, he'd have to clean them in a glass of Polident at night, and Nora would wonder where he'd gotten the money. "Can I look at the teeth?"
Santiago translated. The dentist nodded, and the old woman opened one of the low cabinet doors. Inside were an array of teeth set in molded gray plastic gums. Oddly, not a single pair looked the same. Tiny square teeth, and long straight teeth. Teeth with too-long incisors, and teeth that all ended in a neat, straight row like a movie star's. Even a set of snaggleteeth lay on the bottommost shelf, though Ray found it difficult to believe anyone would choose them, let alone that any company would have manufactured them. He supposed they might have been defective, pulled from the production line to end up here, in a storage container doubling as a dentist's office.
Dr. Barrera spoke.
"Dr. Barrera... he says he wants you to choose," Santiago began translating.
The dentist spoke again, insistent. Santiago squinted, as if he didn't quite understand.
"He says... 'You must choose the teeth which sing to you.'" He shrugged. "That's creepy, right? That's kinda creepy."
"That sing to me, huh?" Ray looked them over again. Aside from the ugly ones, nothing really jumped out at him, not at first--certainly, nothing sang. It felt like when he tried to pick scratch tickets at the bodega, going by juju, hoping something would call out to him Pick me!
And then he found them: the perfect set. They didn't quite sing, but Ray had always admired his grandfather's long, straight teeth, so he chose the teeth on the top right. Dr. Barrera's assistant took them down for him to inspect. Ray thought they looked handsome. Distinguished. They also looked very realistic. Not quite what he'd expected implants to look like at all, although they were shorter than real teeth, ending in a smooth semicircle, without roots.
Dr. Barrera spoke to Santiago. "Okay, he says they're going to give you the gas, and then they'll put in your new teeth. You'll be..." He listened to the dentist. "He says you'll be good as new."
Ray nodded.
Santiago said, "I'll be right here if you need me."
"Thanks, Saint. You're a good friend."
Santiago waved the compliment away, going red in the cheeks. "Aw, shush."
The assistant brought over the nasal mask. She pointed at Ray's head, clearly embarrassed by her lack of English. "I need..." she began.
Ray lifted his head. The woman gave him a grateful smile, and tugged the strap over, settling the mask snugly on his nose. Before she could bend to turn on the nitrous, he said, "Wait!"
Startled, Santiago and the dentist turned to look quizzically at Ray.
"Will I... dream?" Ray asked, a little embarrassed by the question.
Santiago passed the question on to the dentist. In stilted English Dr. Barrera said, "No. No dreams."
"Okay." Ray nodded. "I'm ready."
The dental assistant twisted the nozzle.
Squeak. Squeeeak--
❚❚
WHEN THEY ASK Mickey what he wants for his last meal, he says, "Chocolate. Lots of it."
The two hacks look at each other like it's the strangest request they've ever gotten, but Mickey Dunn knows the last guy they gassed in cell block C asked for pussy, and rumor has it the guy before him asked for world fucking peace. They bring Mickey his chocolate without question, just some stuff one or the other of them picked up at the Safeway on break: a box of maraschinos, a couple of Charleston Chews, a 3 Musketeers and a Butterfinger. He eats them all, relishing the sweet chocolate liquor oozing down his throat, and when they strap him down on the gurney two hours later, he's still licking bits of it out of his long, straight teeth.
Here in Oklahoma they use nitrogen asphyxiation instead of lethal injection. They call it "killing with kindness," and Mickey figures it must beat the shit out of riding the lightning. Killing with kindness is a far cry from how he'd cut up those girls in Tulsa, and Stillwater and Broken Arrow, and the irony of it makes him chuckle.
The pastor asks if he has any lasts words, and Mickey says, "Yeah. I wish I ate more of 'em," meaning the chocolate, but he realizes the victims' families probably think he means their daughters and sisters and wives, and even though it wasn't what he meant, he smiles at the memory of their blood on his tongue and oozing through his teeth, and the taste is far sweeter than chocolate. As the pastor does his little pantomime, the nurse reaches out to draws a clear plastic mask over Mickey's head--he sees the glint of the pretty young thing's wedding ring and snaps out at her fingers with a snarl, but the strap across his chest prevents him from rising, and his teeth miss her by mere inches. He laughs as she hesitates, and one of the hacks--Mickey can't see which one--holds him back by his hair so she can secure the mask over his nose and clenched smile.
Mickey says, "Gas me, Doc," and the doctor does, turning it on with a prolonged squeeeak.
It's not long before Mickey's head feels like a partially deflated birthday balloon some kid rubbed against his corduroys and stuck to the wall. The faces of his victims' families swim beyond the safety glass in the gallery. He can't make out their expressions, but he feels their bitterness, their rage. He gets drunk on it.
"Shit, man, I'm high as a kite," he laughs, but the mask makes his words sound hollow, even to his own ears.
He struggles to keep his eyes open, to remain conscious. He knows if he closes them, he'll never wake up. If he drifts off now, it'll be into death, and his limbs are numb, and he can't feel himself breathing, and the numbness is crawling up his chest to his neck, to his mouth, he can't even smile, show them he's still cool as Hell, he's still fuckin' invincible, but soon the cold gray numbness will reach his eyes and they'll shut on him whether he lets them or not, like the steel door to the cell he'd spent the last six years of his--
❚❚
WHEN RAY SWAM up out of the darkness, the entire lower half of his face felt like it was missing. He had to reach up and touch it to make sure it was still there.
Numb.
He felt dislocated, like waking up in a strange hotel. Blinking at the harsh light, he searched his surroundings: the shiny steel, the pristine white. Santiago stood nearby with worry in his eyes and crumbs in his black beard. Sometime during the operation, he'd obviously gone to get his sandwich from the car. The dentist stood looking over Santiago's shoulder. Behind the two men, the assistant cleaned what looked like blood off the porcelain sink.
"Heyyy, man." Santiago smiled. "How you feelin'?"
"Could be better," Ray tried to say, but his tongue couldn't quite form the words. "How do I look?"
"'Ow ooh...'? Oh, how do you look? Great, man. Never better. I mean, you've got a little Bell's palsy thing going on there, but Dr. Barrera says that'll clear up once the freezing wears off." He flashed Ray a wan smile, then gave him a queer look.
"What?"
"Nothing, man. Nothing. Hey, let's give him a look at those chompers, huh, Doc?"
Dr. Barrera handed Santiago the mirror. Santiago held it out for Ray to have a look, and Ray saw what he'd meant: the right side of his face hung entirely slack. He couldn't quite get the hang of moving his lips, and when he tried to smile, they peeled
back from his new teeth like a dog bearing fangs, startling himself. He looked the same, only the teeth were different... but the teeth changed everything. It was as if his face had always been waiting for them. Like the last piece of a complicated jigsaw, Ray's new teeth completed his face.
Gradually, his lips formed a smile.
❚❚
STILL UNDER THE effects of the gas, Ray got a lift home from Santiago. The bungalow he and Nora shared with a nice elderly couple was dark, aside from the small basement window out front, where the blue light of the television flickered. Nora had likely fallen asleep on the couch with Mr. Muggins in her lap, as she often did when he worked. Since he'd told her he was working a half shift tonight (as opposed to telling her the truth, which he had to admit he might not have believed himself), she'd just gone with the routine, waiting for him to come home and tuck her into bed.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Ray had noticed Santiago giving him weird looks a couple of times on the way to the house. As he opened the door and the dome light came on, he decided to ask what in the hell was wrong.
"That was some really sick shit watching Dr. Barrera drill into your jawbone. I never seen anyone get so many teeth pulled before. Probably won't ever be able to eat again."
"You got some crumbs in your beard."
Santiago ran a hand over his salt-and-pepper facial hair. "I mean, I was hungry, so..." He shrugged up his shoulders. "Hey, don't forget to drop by Stanford's office this afternoon. Pick up your bonus."
"Oh crap, I would've forgotten. Thanks, Santiago. And thanks again. You know, for everything. I owe you one."
"No worries. You got your pills?"
Ray shook his jacket pocket, rattling the pills in their container. The Oxis had cost him a little extra, but he thought he might regret not having them if his new teeth started singing--wasn't that what Dr. Barrera had said? --like the old ones had. Surprisingly, though his gums were a little sore now the freezing had mostly worn off, his new teeth didn't hurt at all. He supposed it made sense, since the teeth themselves weren't connected to any nerves, just abutments screwed into his jaw.
Ray said his goodbyes and crept down the stairs. The sound was off, but the TV still flickered. He turned it off, and knelt in front of Nora. Mr. Muggins, resting on the bunched-up afghan in her lap, opened a single green eye to glare at him, then stumbled off to the floor.
Nora woke. She blinked at him, her own green eyes looking dark in the gloom. "Mmmhi, honey. What time is it?"
"It's late."
She held out her hand for him to kiss, something he'd done the day they met, a dorky sort of accident that became one of those "cute couple things," as Santiago called it. He pressed his lips against her knuckles just below the small diamond he'd saved six months to buy. She'd told him she loved it the night he'd slipped it onto her finger, but he'd always felt she deserved better.
"How was work?"
"It was okay. You ready for bed?"
"Mm-hmm."
Ray helped her off the couch and into bed. Before he followed her, he stood in front of the bedroom mirror, admiring his new teeth. Already it felt like his gums were less angry. The pain was minimal when he bit down, just a dull ache--a memory of pain. He considered brushing them, but since he hadn't had anything to eat since the procedure, he thought it might be a little redundant, maybe even vain. Instead, he turned out the light, and crept into bed. He kissed Nora on the forehead, and drifted off to sleep.
❚❚
IN THE KITCHEN the electric can opener buzzed. "Hon, where's the cat?"
Ray stood in front of the bathroom mirror, waiting for the shower to heat up. "Huh?"
"Mr. Muggins?" Nora said sleepily. "He didn't come to bed last night."
Ray wiped a circle of steam off the mirror and bared his teeth at his reflection. They looked better in the light of day. A little pink he assumed was blood had stained the white, but no sign of infection Dr. Barrera had warned about. They felt better than they had in years--like finally being able to scratch an itch after months of being in a cast.
"That's weird," Ray called over the running water. He sniffed his armpits. Still smelled relatively clean, although he supposed he wouldn't have sweated much since he hadn't actually gone to work last night. He drew the curtain and stepped in.
Once he'd given his hair a good lather, he turned to rinse out the shampoo. Blinking water out of his eyes, he saw the bloody handprint caked on the tiles. Worried, he checked himself for wounds, thinking the cat might have clawed him while he slept. Finding his skin without injury, he splashed and scrubbed the handprint off the wall. Pink water ran into the drain.
Nora's scream startled him. He dried himself hastily, enough so he wouldn't track on the carpet, and hurried toward where she stood calling his name. "What? What's the matter?"
"Look," she said sullenly, pointing at a dark stain behind the furnace.
"Flooding again?"
"That's not water..."
Ray took a step closer, barefoot on the cold cement. The smell hit him then--cat urine. His watering eyes adjusted to the dimness and he realized Mr. Muggins lay in a pool of coagulated blood, his innards spilling out, his little pink tongue lolled between his fangs, his big green eyes already turning milky white.
"Oh, jeez," he muttered.
Nora threw herself on him, weeping. He took her hand, brought it to his lips to kiss, but the idea overcame him to bite the finger that held her ring--and not just nibble it but tear the goddamn thing off with his new teeth. He pictured separating flesh from bone, suckling on the gnawed end like a kitten at its mother's teat, and the image disgusted him so thoroughly he thrust her hand back at her. It struck her in the chest, and she staggered back in shock, looking up at him with tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," he choked, suddenly nauseous. "I feel sick..."
Ray stumbled off to the toilet, and fell to his knees, a violent red torrent splashing against the toilet lid, chunks of undigested meat splattering in the bowl. His mind processed what he saw, and another torrent of red and purple chunks came hurtling up from his gullet, tearing his throat as he groaned.
"Ray...?"
Nora stood in the doorway, her face ghostly white, eyes bulging at what he'd unleashed into the toilet. "Go away!" he cried, kicking the door shut in her face. He spat a thick string of syrupy red into the bowl, and slammed the lid, flushing the contents out of sight--
The bloody handprint. Blood in his teeth. Could he have sleepwalked?
Had he just thrown up everything the dentist's suction tool hadn't managed to slurp up from the procedure... or had he done that terrible thing to poor Mr. Muggins, their diabetic cat? Had he done it with his teeth?
His gums itched, crawling under the skin like insects. He shook a pill from the container, staring at his pallid face in the mirror, a streak of blood staining lip to chin. He chewed the pill dry, bitter, numbing. Shook out two more and did the same.
❚❚
MR. STANFORD'S OFFICE door was open when Ray headed into the back of the mall in a drugged-out haze. The water and air conditioning pipes hummed and rattled pleasantly. Kitchen sounds echoed from the opened back doors of food court restaurants, and the smells made his stomach growl, despite his earlier bout of vomiting. A day shift security guard Ray knew only as Dino stepped out of Stanford's office, tearing open an envelope. He blew into it, then pulled out the contents.
"Shit, man... A Midland Mall gift card."
Ray parsed the comment. "How much?" he asked, feeling his words vibrate his teeth.
"Fifty bucks. But you gotta spend a hundred bucks to get it. Can't even use it in the food court. I mean, shit, they coulda just mailed the fuckin thing."
"Yeah. Guess I should've just stayed in bed."
"Story of my life, bro," Dino huffed. "See ya on the flipside."
Ray knocked lightly, then entered. Mr. Stanford had wedged himself in between his desk and the wall, where his diploma in Business Management hung askew beside a
picture of his pudgy, apple-cheeked self with the late Ronald Reagan.
"Ray, come on in."
"Hey, hi, Mr. Stanford," Ray said, too mellow from the Oxi to feel his normal awkward self in the presence of his boss's boss.
"Have a seat."
Ray plunked down into the offered chair.
"Ray, in the ten years I've known you, you've been an exemplary employee. A real credit to the West Midland Mall, and to your uniform. But times are tight. I'd love to say the old gal is doing better, but the fact is, our profits are far lower than in Q3, and it's almost Christmas."
Ray wasn't sure what to say. Odd, this talk of money concerns, considering the "old gal" was currently elbow-to-elbow with shoppers.
"What I mean to say is, if there were more in the coffers, I'd be happy to offer you a better bonus. As it is, please accept this gift certificate, and a sincere thank you from myself on behalf of Terrace Green Holdings and W.M.M. LLC."
"Thank you, Mr. Stanford," Ray said, pocketing the envelope. "Sir, you're not obligated to give a bonus, are you?"
Stanford's eyes narrowed. Ray hadn't ever dared question him before, but the pills had numbed his fear--and the teeth were pulsing, making his jaw open and shut, a motion he felt the need to fill with words. Singing to him, he supposed, like the dentist had said. Ray plucked a pencil off the table and put it between his teeth to stop their restless movement. Heard the wood crunch between his grinding teeth.
"The company offers bonuses this time of year as a gratuity for its employees," Stanford said. The phrase sounded more like a question as he stared in mildly angered bafflement at his pencil between Ray's teeth.
"Right," Ray said, "but if times are tight, like you say, why not just do away with the bonus, instead of giving us the same gift certificates you offer customers?"
"I don't--" Stanford's mouth hung open. Ray felt his teeth wanting to gnaw off the man's plump lower lip. "What?"
A rap on the door startled Mr. Stanford from his stunned gaze. "What is it?" he demanded.
One of Santa's elves, a pretty young blonde, leaned half through the door. Ray's gaze flashed on the shiny crucifix swinging between her small breasts and the pencil snapped between his teeth.
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