Cutting Teeth: A Novel

by Julia Fierro

  He had begun lifting weights at the City Gym nearby—nicknamed Shitty Gym because it stank of body odor. After a few months of daily weight sessions, one of the serious gym dudes, the beasts who wore weight-lifting belts on their walk to the gym, asked Rip to spot him while he benched what appeared to be at least three hundred pounds. Only then did Rip know he’d put on enough muscle to maybe hold his own in an actual brawl, or just make him less approachable if some bad guy (as Hank would call him) picked on him and Grace.

  “You never have to worry, sweetie,” he had said one night at dinner as he took a slug from his protein shake. “I’m pretty sure I could kill someone with my bare hands now if I had to.”

  “Um. Okay,” she had said, and smiled. He’d been grateful to her for putting up with him. She was the daughter of immigrants who’d seen war and political persecution, whose father used a rusted machete to kill the rats he caught in the basement of their convenience store, and she had pretended to understand why Rip, a sensitive Jewish kid from the ’burbs, had to convince himself he was capable of defending her.

  After Hank was born, the visits to the gym waned, and then stopped. Rip gained weight, and his muscles shrank. His only exercise was pacing around the apartment shushing the crying baby. When Grace returned to work, Rip was lucky if he could squeeze in a shower and a quick bite to eat while Hank took one of his twenty-minute naps, never mind a run across the Brooklyn Bridge or a session at the gym.

  Now, as he pressed against the resistance Michael created by arching his back and tightened his hold on Michael’s neck, like a vise, squeezing, he wondered if he could cut off Michael’s air, if he could make the guy black out. He’d seen it done at an impromptu jiujitsu match between two trainers at the gym. All you had to do was increase the pressure until your opponent went limp and slipped to the ground, waking a moment later with no memory of passing out.

  Michael submitted with a firm tap on Rip’s arm, and Rip released him with a triumphant roar that startled Nicole, so she gasped, choking on her drink.

  “Shit,” Tiffany said. “You’ll give Nicole a heart attack and make Susanna go into early fucking labor!” She laughed, and the tops of her breasts jiggled.

  “Damn, man,” Michael said, massaging his throat. “You’re not kidding.”

  Rip saw a new respect in Michael’s nod, an appreciating squint in the man’s eyes.

  “For crying out loud,” Susanna said. “The daddies are going Spartacus on us.”

  The women tittered, and Rip gave a prissy little curtsy before he picked up his beer and downed it in three big gulps.

  “Boys will be boys,” Tiffany said, a lazy slur in her voice. Her eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, and Rip let his eyes travel from her baby-oiled legs up to the pool of sweat resting in the clutch of her cleavage. Their eyes met. Or at least he thought they did, but then Michael was slapping him on the back. “What do you say we take that kayak trip?” he said.

  “Awesome, man. Can’t think of a better way to cool off.”

  Grace’s voice broke through. “Don’t forget life preservers.”

  Rip stopped himself from saying something like, We don’t need those. And he was relieved when Michael didn’t reject the idea.

  Nicole let her sunglasses slip down her nose, and said, “Susanna and Allie are making a quick trip to Stop and Shop. Anyone need anything?”

  “You think they’ve got organic out here in the ’burbs?” Tiffany asked as she drained her wineglass.

  Rip watched Michael lean over the back of Tiffany’s chair and finger the wisps of hair at the nape of her long neck. The neck Rip had thought about so many times those last few years because of the breasts it led to.

  “We haven’t traveled back in time to the Dark Ages, babe,” Michael said.

  “Oh, is it one of those amazing twenty-four-hour supermarkets?” Tiffany asked. “With the fluorescent lighting and the Muzak? And the indifferent checkout girl doing her nails?”

  She held her phone up to Michael. “Look at this sweet pic of Harp. I mean, the expression on her face!”

  “You’ve posted too many online this weekend already. Enough,” Michael said.

  Rip felt the subtle click of the other mommies’ heads swiveling to look at Tiffany.

  Michael dropped his voice and whispered into Tiffany’s hair. Her hand shot up and swatted him away. It looked like an accident, the way her green-painted fingernails snagged Michael’s bristly upper lip, but Rip could see she’d meant to do it.

  “Everyone knows you’re a fantastic mama, Tiff,” Michael said as he shuffled over to the cooler and lifted a dripping beer. “You don’t have to go posting a billion photos of our little girl out there for every weirdo to see. I’m just being a daddy. Right, ladies?” Michael looked to Rip. “And gentleman?”

  “You’re just being controlling,” Tiffany said as she tapped away on her phone. “Everyone knows there’s no such thing as privacy anymore.”

  There came a shattering sound from the side of the house. Nicole gasped again, and Rip saw her hand shoot up to her chest, the tendons in her neck tightening. Take it easy, he thought.

  Wyatt, Levi, and Dash appeared, walking slowly to the deck, heads bowed with guilt. Wyatt held the remains of a potted plant. A shard of terra-cotta, a clump of black soil, and a few heat-withered petunias. Dash looked the most ashamed, his grubby fingers gripping the metal car and launcher that must have caused the accident.

  “Oopsy-daisy,” Dash said.

  “Dash oopsied!” said Levi, and all three boys laughed.

  Susanna groaned and patted her belly, “Please let this one be a girl.”

  Like she had anything to complain about, thought Rip. She was a goddamn baby-making machine.

  “Oh, the testosterone,” Tiffany warbled dramatically, and threw her hand up to her forehead.

  “Seriously,” Nicole said as she reappeared with a broom. Rip saw she had recovered. No doubt, Rip thought, with the aid of some pill. “Testosterone has got to be responsible for at least half the evils in the world.”

  The women laughed.

  “What?” Nicole said. “I’m serious.”

  “You are?” Allie said.

  “Ignore her,” Tiffany said before Nicole could answer. She reached over and linked her arm through Allie’s.

  Next to stick-thin Allie, Tiffany’s curves were even sexier, Rip noticed.

  “Yep, don’t pay attention to Nicole, Allie,” Rip said, smiling. “She hates men.” He winked at Nicole, so she could see he was joking, or at least half joking because she had spent many a playgroup lamenting the inferiority of men. They’re just not emotionally stimulating, she’d say, with Rip sitting just a few feet away.

  “I do not hate men!” Nicole said.

  “Well, I do. Hear, hear!” Allie said with perfect timing, lifting her cup. “To women!” she trumpeted.

  “To women,” Rip and the other parents echoed, their cups lifted.

  “And thanks to those rare men whose testosterone flows in moderation,” Allie said, clapping Rip on the shoulder.

  She had meant it innocently, Rip knew, a friendly poke, but later, it made his cheeks burn with humiliation.

  Harper appeared, wearing a mass-manufactured princess dress, all shimmery polyester and synthetic satin—clunky plastic iridescent gems glued so you could see where the adhesive had dried. She walked up the stairs that led to the deck and stopped to curtsy in front of the mommies and daddies.

  “Good evening, You Highnesses,” she chirped.

  “Welcome to our palace,” Rip said before making a musical-theater-quality bow. “M’lady.”

  The little girl’s eyes sparkled, and later, Rip would realize it wasn’t with pleasure but with anticipation.

  Harper turned back to the steps and announced with a flourish, “Princess Harriet!”

  Hank appeared at the top of the steps, wearing a pink princess dress. His face was garishly painted with haphazard makeup.

  Tenz
in stood behind Hank, her hands clasped in front, her face somber. No, Rip thought, she couldn’t have had anything to do with this. She looked mortified. This had to be all Hank and Harper’s doing.

  Harper asked, “Doesn’t Harriet look beayouuuutiful?”

  “He sure does, sweetie,” said Tiffany.

  Rip tried not to react, he really tried, but his head was swirling, and Hank was so pink, so glittery, and the silvery thread trimming the skirt and the sequins dotting the bodice caught the sun until Rip felt blinded. Everyone was looking at him—Grace’s eyes saying, You were the one who was all pro princess dress. You are the one responsible for our son in a dress. He knew he should say something, anything, but the lump in his throat made it hard to speak, and he felt Michael’s sweating presence so close, and so he said, in the voice of a different man, a different father, “Henry Cho-Stein, go wash your face!”

  He heard Grace’s voice behind him but didn’t dare look.

  “Rip?”

  Although they stood on the open deck in the cool, late-summer breeze, the air around Rip felt unnaturally still and impossibly silent, so when Hank asked, “When can I get my own princess dress?” it felt to Rip as if the whole world were listening.

  It wasn’t the dress that pulled Rip forward like a giant pulsating magnet, until the uneven deck floor was cutting into his bare knees and he was using his own shirt and spit to rub at Hank’s face. It was the makeup.

  Someone, clearly a child, had painted Hank’s face. Surely, Rip thought, they had meant to mock his little boy. For a moment, he forgot they were small children, barely preschoolers. It looked like a cruel practical joke a gang of boys in high school (bullies!) would play on the effeminate boy. Hank looked like a victim from one of those goddamn after-school specials Rip had watched as a kid.

  Hank’s cheeks were heavily rouged, and glittery blue shadow arched clownishly over each eye. But it was his mouth that made Rip scour his son’s lips with the heel of his hand. The thick lipstick circling Hank’s mouth had dried in the creases between his plump lips.

  Later, Rip would wonder if it was Hank’s smile he had tried to erase.

  “Daddy,” Hank cried, swatting at Rip’s hand, “Stop. You’re messing it!”

  But Rip rubbed until Hank’s skin was hot and flushed under his fingers. Why was he doing this? he asked himself. All those arguments he’d had with Grace, urging her to be open-minded about the princess dress, pleading with her to respect their son’s unconventional desires. Yet now, as he looked at his son’s smudged and tear-streaked face, cracked in sobs, he knew he didn’t want his son to be a sissy, pussy, homo, theater fag, all those names the jocks at his high school had hurled at Rip years ago, so much that he’d avoided walking past the senior commons area each morning, slipping in the back doors by the gymnasium.

  The children were ushered inside. Snacktime, someone mumbled, and there was the sound of chairs scraping against the deck floor.

  Then Grace was there, her warm hand on Rip’s arm as she gently pulled him away from Hank.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Hank said, “I just wanted to look pretty. Like Hah-per.”

  Rip heard Grace take sniffling Hank inside.

  He sat on the deck and stared at the plastic tiara in his hands. The silver heart read Princess in curly script. Rip wanted to fix it, to tell Hank he looked awesome, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t see his son dressed like that. Not today at least—maybe another day.

  He twirled the tiara around his finger. He was grateful he’d been born into this new wave of daddy domesticity. This was the age of men who were emotionally intelligent, who said they were sorry, who asked for the box of tissues in therapy, who planned their kid’s birthday party.

  But a princess dress? Wasn’t that asking too much?

  * * *

  This webbot shit is freaking the fuck out of me.

  Posted 9/4/2010 2:08pm

  (7 replies)

  * * *

  —then quit reading it. 2:09pm

  —get over it. there are tons of websites predicting all kinds of disasters. 2:10pm

  —has it been picked up by mainstream news at all? 2:10pm

  —not at all. 2:11pm

  —people predicted back in January the banks would fall. I thought then: these people ARE NUTS. And NOW look at us. 2:13pm

  —what is a Webbot? 2:24pm

  —does the guy on the corner with the sandwich board scare you too? 2:26pm

  worrywart

  Nicole

  “No climbing on the rocks!” Nicole shouted at Wyatt and Dash.

  They ignored her, scrambling on all fours up the steep gray boulders that formed a barrier in front of the seawall. She leaned over to catch her breath. Her thigh muscles thrummed from the sprint across the uneven sand. She had chased the boys down the beach, yelling at them to stop, her anger growing with every second she could feel her ass jiggling.

  Wyatt’s head had been turned to look at her as he ran, leaping over clumps of seaweed, as effortless as a gazelle, a smile dimpling his cheeks. Pure glee in the chase.

  They had reached the boulders before her and, like two lithe lizards, scurried to the top with little effort. The boys stood tall, their hands shielding their eyes as they looked to the horizon. Two arrogant explorers, Nicole thought, as her need to get them off the jagged rocks grew more desperate.

  They raised their arms high in triumph, and Wyatt laughed, and said, “Look, Mommy, we didn’t fall. Toldya!”

  “You might. And if you do, you’ll hit your head. Hard!”

  “I see a seal. A whale!” Dash said.

  “Me too!” said Wyatt.

  “If you two fall.” She paused. “There’ll be blood. A big big boo-boo!”

  Then, calming herself, she looked over her shoulder at the staring faces of the other parents down the beach. She begged, “Please, sweetie. Please. Do you want there to be no more Wyatt? No more Mommy?”

  Wyatt looked down at her and studied her face.

  “If I fall and get a boo-boo, I have to go to the doctor and get a shot?”

  Without thinking, she answered, “No, the doctor won’t be able to fix you.”

  His face clouded with confusion. “Like Humpty Dumpty?”

  “Yes,” Nicole said. “Just like Humpty Dumpty.”

  * * *

  Don’t go in the water alone. You could drown.

  Don’t put so many grapes in your mouth at once. You’ll choke.

  Don’t touch that knife. You’ll cut your finger off!

  The day had been filled with warnings, Nicole thought, and it was only midafternoon. A chorus of don’t! and watch-out! As the mommies’ and daddies’ exhaustion had surged, the routine parental reprimands had morphed into ominous threats and prophecies.

  Nicole had always feared the unexpected. Disliked surprises. Even the roller-rink birthday party her mother had sprung on her when she was nine, and the surprise tea-party baby shower her sister-in-law had thrown her. It was embarrassing to be caught unaware. To be fooled.

  It was that feeling of not knowing what would happen that made her, now, in the kitchen, amidst fruit-bar wrappers and crumpled Dixie cups dripping apple juice, reach for the knife some careless parent had left on the cutting board. In reach of a child! She washed it, dried it, and returned it to the wooden knife block. She knocked on the block five times, her lucky number, chanting quietly—knock on wood knock on wood knock on wood knock on wood knock on wood.

  The children cheered from the living room. It was afternoon snacktime. What joy they could feel at the drop of a pin. The pop of a straw into a juice box. The crackle of a package of bunny-shaped pretzels.

  She was about to join them when she caught the glimmer of metal by the sink. The parer. She pushed it against the wall. Definitely far enough, she thought, and was about to walk into the living room, when she realized one of the taller kids—Wyatt, Chase—might reach the parer with a stool. So sh
e gathered the parer, as well as the meat and fish knives that gleamed menacingly on the magnetic strip over the stove. The thwack each knife made as she pulled it from the strip made her feel nauseous. She could, she thought, slice through her skin with one quick flick of her hand. Plunge the sharpest knife—the one her father used to flay fish—into her soft belly. She didn’t want to, but the fantasy of the event flashed through her mind so vividly that she could almost smell the metallic scent of blood. See the red-black pools of her own insides spreading out across the kitchen floor.

  She gathered the knives—a dozen or so—into a pile on the kitchen counter. Each with its unique purpose—filleting, carving, bread slicing, butchering—verbs that induced fantasies of her own skin being flayed in thick pale sheets. She added the parer, the apple corer, and a bottle opener whose hook, she thought, was definitely sharp enough to gouge out an eye. She had to stop and knock five times on each wooden knife handle, whispering knock on wood knock on wood knock on wood knock on wood knock on wood as fast as she could until the words melted into each other, and there was only the soft clicking of her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She was running out of time. Someone could walk into the kitchen at any moment. Maybe even Josh, she thought as she searched for a hiding place, turning in a slow circle until she found the cabinets above the stove. Empty.