Everything Has Teeth

by Strand, Jeff

  Am I right? It's not just me, is it?

  This is such a crap assignment. Other omniscient narrators get to write about awesome people doing awesome things, or at least interesting people doing horrible things. I swear, if this jerk says one more thing to his clearance aisle yard gnome, I'm going to totally lose it.

  And he just did. I won't transcribe it. You get the gist.

  I wonder if I could kill him?

  I'm not supposed to interfere. This could get me in a lot of trouble. I don't think it's even possible. Yet I also have to focus on the reader, right? You'd much rather read about the death of Sammy than the babbling of Sammy. I'm going to do it. I'm going to kill him.

  No, I really shouldn't.

  I can't believe I was seriously considering murdering a human being simply for the crime of being dull. That's not cool at all. What kind of monster have I become? You can't go around slaughtering people who aren't fascinating. If I killed every person who was less than interesting, Sammy would get the apocalypse he so dearly craved. It just wouldn't be right.

  Okay, that was my effort to talk myself out of it, but it didn't work. That little creep is history.

  The ground began to rumble. Sammy looked up, which wasn't very intelligent considering that it was the ground rumbling and not the sky. "Wha-what's going on?" he asked.

  The ground split open, and Sammy had to jump to one side to avoid falling into the chasm.

  "No!" Sammy screamed, upon realizing that Milton was on the other side. The chasm continued to widen, and without hesitation (except for the aforementioned pause to scream "No!") Sammy leapt across. His arms pinwheeled as he hit the ground and nearly lost his balance, but he somehow managed to avoid plummeting to his death.

  Wow. I didn't think he'd actually put his life at risk for that gnome. Is there a stronger bond between the two of them than I realized? Am I not as omniscient as I thought? Or is he just insane?

  Sammy picked up Milton and pressed him to his chest. Not in a creepy nipple-sucking way; he just held him like a baby. I'm not suggesting that holding a yard gnome like a baby isn't creepy, but it's certainly less creepy than some other things he could have done.

  Another immense crack appeared in the earth. Sammy didn't fall into this one, either. His ability to not fall into chasms was admittedly impressive.

  Suddenly there were explosions everywhere.

  "This isn't what I wanted!" Sammy wailed. "I never meant for anybody to get hurt! I was wrong; people have treated me with kindness for my entire life! I don't want the apocalypse! Please, make it stop!"

  You know, it's hard to dislike somebody who has looked into his soul, seen his flaws, and realized that he needs to change. He's been taught a lesson, and he'll probably be a better person after this. I'm not saying I want to have a beer with the guy or anything, but he's not such a bad fellow if you really think about it.

  Then again, the ground cracks open and he thinks it's because of something he said. How egotistical is that? Now, yes, he is technically correct, but he doesn't know that his story is being told by an omniscient/partially omnipotent narrator. (Can you be partially omnipotent? And if I'm omniscient, why don't I know the answer?) Does he think that God is going to start ripping up the earth just because of something he said to a gnome?

  To give him the benefit of the doubt, he was talking about the apocalypse right before it happened, and in his moment of panic and confusion he couldn't be expected to say "Gosh, this is freaky, but of course it's merely a coincidence!" If I were in his position I'd probably think I caused it, too, so I'll cut him some slack.

  "Please, Milton!" Sammy wailed. "Make it stop!"

  What the fuck? He thinks the gnome caused the apocalypse? Seriously? And if so, why did Sammy put his life at risk by jumping over the chasm to save him? Why not just let him plummet? Did he want to make sure Milton was still around to reason with, or did he just now arrive at the conclusion that Milton was the blame? I should know this shit!

  "Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!" Sammy shouted at the gnome. If anything, the stressful nature of the situation had increased his redundancy.

  "Never!" said Milton.

  Whoa.

  Did he really just—?

  That can't be right. That yard gnome was completely inanimate. No way did it say "Never!" I'm not ruling out the possibility that somewhere on the planet, at some point in existence, there was a yard gnome that could talk, but this one couldn't. I'm positive of that.

  "Make it stop!" Sammy shouted.

  Milton's painted-on eyes glowed red.

  And then Milton opened his mouth impossibly wide, revealing huge fangs, and tore out Sammy's throat. It was really horrific and disturbing, though a savvy narrator such as myself knows that you don't need to describe every little detail of ripping tendons and spurting blood, so we'll just leave it at his throat being torn out.

  Sammy, as might be expected, died.

  The cracks in the earth closed.

  Okay. Well. I guess the joke's on me for thinking that Sammy was talking to a regular off-the-shelf yard gnome. There certainly was no evidence to say otherwise. It's obvious that I'm going to have to work harder on my craft of being an omniscient narrator. That's fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I've always been one to take constructive criticism in the matter of which it was intended.

  I'm not sure if I'm officially responsible for his death or not. I suppose I probably am. I feel bad about that, but let's face it, it's not as if I accidentally killed off Harry Potter. You're not going to cry yourself to sleep tonight.

  I guess I should do something to keep Milton from going on some sort of homicidal rampage, but perhaps I've interfered enough for one story. By now you know not to hug yard gnomes to your chest, right? Good.

  The job of a narrator is to know when a story is over, so the end.

  DEAD BIGFOOT ON THE LAWN

  When Gail showed up at my trailer door with a bucket of wings, I knew my night was about to get better. It had been crappy so far. I'd been looking forward to this movie about trolls, but it turned out to be one of those reading movies where the people aren't talking American and the stuff they're saying is on the bottom of the screen. Who the hell turns on the TV so they can read it? If I wanted to read, I'd pick up a damn magazine.

  Let me be clear: I ain't got nothing against reading. Hell, I'm reading this as I'm writing it. If you want to criticize me for writing a book when I don't own any, that's fine. The way I see it, you take some Einstein who reads five or six books a year, it's easy for them to write one. They know how books work. This will be a much bigger accomplishment for me, if I finish. So who's the smarter one, hmmm?

  Not gonna lie: mostly I'm writing it so they can make it into a movie. I will Netflix the shit out of it if that happens.

  Anyway, there was a knock at my door, and it was this dainty little knock, so I knew it was Gail. We'd only been dating for about three weeks and I already knew her knock. Usually she called before she came over, but believe me, after the disaster of that reading movie I was more than happy to see her.

  "I brought you wings," she said, holding up the Styrofoam container.

  "Damn!"

  "And beer!"

  "Damn!"

  "Can I come in?"

  "You sure can," I said, stepping out of the doorway. Gail walked up the three steps into my living room. She was a tiny thing, which was convenient because I didn't have a lot of space. I've never paid for a hooker, but if I did, she'd've looked exactly like Gail. Everything she wore was tight. She could color coordinate like nobody I'd ever met—tonight her shirt, shorts, and shoes were all leopard print.

  She was only twenty-two, and if you'd said to me, "Gus, when you're thirty-eight, overweight, losing your hair, twice-divorced, and infrequently employed, you're going to have a girlfriend who's blonde, pretty, and limber," I would've laughed in your face. Right in your damn face. Yet that's how things worked out for me.

  Were her boobs a
s big as I might've liked? Nope. The doctors hadn't used nearly enough silicone, if you wanted my honest opinion. But I sure wasn't going to file a federal complaint or anything like that.

  "Turn on the TV," she said.

  "What do you wanna watch?"

  "Your favorite show. And you need to put in your favorite CD."

  "Why?"

  "Because, Gus, tonight you're going to eat your favorite food, drink your favorite drink, watch your favorite show, and listen to your favorite music, while I blow you."

  My mouth dropped open about six feet, thumping onto the floor. (Not really. That's what we in the book-writing business call a "metaphor.") I didn't even know what to say, so I just said, "What?" which I think suited the moment.

  "You heard me. I bet you never knew a girl who would blow you while you enjoyed your favorite food, drink, show, and music, huh?"

  "Nope. I sure didn't."

  "Lucky you met me."

  I put in a Garth Brooks CD, then sat down on the couch and flipped through the TV stations until I found a rerun of Baywatch. (Obviously it was a rerun, because they don't make that show anymore.) I opened the container and the delicious smell of hot wing sauce went right up into my happy nostrils.

  "They're all drumsticks," I said, delighted.

  "I know what you like." Gail knelt down on the floor in front of me.

  "Maybe I should vacuum that spot."

  Gail shook her head. "This is all about you. I don't mind if I get potato chip crumbs on my knees."

  She unzipped my pants, reached inside, and took out my penis. At the time, I thought of it as, "Hey, she's taking out my pecker," but I'm trying to be classier now that I'm writing this whole thing out.

  But she didn't just take it out of my unzipped fly. Oh no. She leaned her head forward and put it in her mouth. I wanted to close my eyes in ecstasy, but then I wouldn't have been able to see Baywatch.

  I picked up a drumstick. A bit of sauce dropped onto the top of Gail's bobbing head, but she didn't seem to notice, and I didn't want to say anything and risk spoiling the mood.

  Oh, yeah. This was fine. Very, very fine.

  I was a king.

  I was a king who was starting to wonder if there might be an ulterior motive.

  She knew I'd be powerless to deny any requests after this. I'd be spending the rest of my weekend putting up drywall.

  Or maybe I was being too suspicious. She might just be in the mood to make a wish come true. I figured that if she spit, she was granting a fantasy. If she swallowed, she wanted something.

  As the first song ended, I finished up. Gail swallowed. Damn.

  "How was that?" she asked, standing up and wiping the sour cream and onion potato chip crumbs from her knees.

  "That was top notch," I said. "The different elements of the experience all complimented each other perfectly. The way your lips worked, I didn't even care that you forgot the bleu cheese and celery."

  "Well, I'm glad you liked it." She picked up my can of beer, took a swig, and swished it around in her mouth. Then she turned off the CD player and the television. "Anything else I can do for you?"

  I wanted to make a joke about how she could clean up the place, but some jokes, no matter how funny, don't always land properly with the audience, and you've got to know when to say them out loud and when to just keep them in your mind.

  "No, you've done plenty."

  "Good, good. So now that I've been nice to you, maybe you could do me a favor?"

  Yep, the fulfillment of this sexual fantasy came at a price. Hopefully she'd just want a foot rub.

  "Anything," I said, not with total honesty.

  "I've got a dead Bigfoot on my lawn, and I was hoping you'd help me move it."

  "You've got a what on your what, and you were hoping I'd what?"

  "A dead Bigfoot. You know, a Sasquatch. Forest yeti."

  "Okay..."

  "And it's on my lawn."

  "What's a Bigfoot doing on your lawn?"

  "I don't know," said Gail. "I didn't ask it. It's dead."

  "Okay..."

  "If it was a dog or a coyote, I'd just throw it in a wheelbarrow and dump it in the gravel pit. But a Bigfoot ain't a one-person job, Gus. I need your help."

  "You didn't need to bribe me," I told her. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did, but I would've helped you out for free just to see the damn thing."

  "I figured you would. But if you didn't, I would've felt sleazy trying to bribe you with a blowjob."

  "Makes sense. Let me finish up the wings and we'll go."

  * * *

  Gail lived about ten minutes away by tractor, in a fancy little home with wind chimes and pesticide. She also had this wooden stand-up in front of her garden that was supposed to look like an old lady bending over. I chuckled every time I saw that thing.

  "What's so funny?" Gail asked.

  "Same as always. That's one big ass."

  "You can have that thing if you want, since it tickles you so much."

  I shook my head. "Nah. It wouldn't be as special if I saw it every day."

  I didn't see a Bigfoot on her front lawn, and Gail wasn't reacting as if the Bigfoot was unexpectedly gone, so I deduced that it was on her back lawn. I'm not bragging about this—it doesn't make me Sherlock Holmes or anything—but I feel like you may have a really low opinion of my intellect, and I want to make it clear that I'm smarter than that.

  "It's in the back yard," said Gail.

  "I know," I replied.

  She opened the gate, we walked behind her house, and there it was: a Sasquatch lying facedown in the middle of her lawn.

  Its back was covered with blood.

  And there was a great big butcher knife stuck between its shoulder blades.

  I stopped walking.

  "What's wrong?" Gail asked.

  "I figured it had died from natural causes."

  "What gave you that idea?"

  "I don't know. Did it have the knife in it when you found it?"

  "Nope."

  "See, you never told me you killed a Bigfoot. From the information you gave me, I assumed that you discovered it on your lawn already dead."

  "I suppose I can see where you might have thought that," Gail admitted. "But it's not what happened."

  I was shocked by the gory sight, but in that moment I fell in love. How many men can say they've been with a woman who killed a Bigfoot with a butcher knife? That's a marrying woman.

  "How many times did you stab it?" I asked.

  Gail shrugged. "Twenty? Thirty? Only psychopaths count stabs."

  "Why didn't you shoot it?"

  "I'm not gonna lie to you. There were some rage issues involved. Sometimes you just need to hear the thunk of a blade going into flesh, over and over."

  "I'm impressed, but I sort of wish you'd just slashed its hamstring or something. Think how much money we could make if we captured a live Bigfoot. We could have our own TV show!"

  "Nah. Those shows are so successful because they don't find him. Our show would be five minutes. 'There he is.' You can't get a thirteen episode order with that."

  "The show could be about introducing him to modern life. I'd watch the shit out of that. We could get an hour out of him trying to use a cell phone, easy. Those big fingers on those tiny icons. Not that it matters. He's dead. Just saying that it would've been nice. At least we can make some cash by proving that he's not a myth."

  "I'm not interested in that," said Gail. "I want to dump the body and be done with it."

  "Are you out of your damn mind? That might as well be a pile of diamonds on your lawn. Why would you want to...?"

  I trailed off, because that's what you do when you start to ask a question and then suddenly you discover the answer before you've finished the sentence.

  I walked up to the body. "Is this a dead guy in a Bigfoot costume?"

  "Yeah," said Gail.

  I crouched down and pulled off the mask. It was a man I didn't recognize. He had long hair a
nd an impressive mustache but he didn't look anything like a Bigfoot.

  "You murdered a human being!"

  "That's what I told you in the first place!"

  "No! You specifically did not tell me that! You said you wanted me to help move a dead Bigfoot off your lawn!"

  "C'mon, Gus, everybody knows Bigfoot ain't real. Obviously I meant that I killed a guy in a Bigfoot costume. Grow up."

  "Why'd you do it? Was he breaking into your house?"

  "No."

  "Did he attack you?"

  "No."

  "Did you pay his family to hunt him for sport?"

  "Now you're just being silly."

  "Explain it to me! Give me a reason for this! I knew when you were so generous with your mouth that you might have a favor to ask, but I never suspected anything like this! It's pure insanity! I won't have any part of it!"

  "You can't demand a reason and then say you won't have any part of it," said Gail. "That doesn't make any sense. If you're falling apart, let me know now. The stakes are too high to work with somebody who's inconsistent."

  "I can't help you dispose of a body unless I know why you killed it."

  "Okay, fine. He was cheating on me."

  "He what?"

  "He had himself a cute little girlfriend on the side."

  "Hold on, he was your boyfriend?"

  "Yeah."

  "But I'm your boyfriend."

  "Yeah."

  "So you were cheating on him."

  Gail shook her head. "That ain't how polyamory works. He knew all about you. I described our sexual encounters while he pleasured himself. Didn't leave out a thing."

  "Not even the—?"

  "Not even that."

  I felt queasy. "You never told me any of this! I feel completely violated! I thought we were the only ones each other was boinking!"

  "That was never discussed," said Gail. "Mitch and I had an understanding where we could have other lovers as long as we gave each other masturbation fodder. You and I had no such understanding. If you wanted me to be faithful, you should have said something, although I would've said no."