Teeth Like A Burnt Fence

I was sitting in the park by the fountain just as the voice on the phone had told me. It may have been distorted in some nefarious way but I knew who it was. I should have known this would happen from the moment he stepped into my practice. Teeth like a burnt fence. Asking me for help. Begging me for help. Paying me for help.

I picked up the suitcase, peeled it off my left leg, the sweat sticking it to the skin. That was part of the deal, showing the world my sporadically hairy legs. People were tending to stare as they meandered past, some on bikes, some with dogs. All of them were wondering the same thing – will the man in the tight pink speedos go swimming in the fountain. Even I didn’t know the answer to that. Yet.

That was also part of deal, to show the world the rest of my sporadically hairy body. Well, I say deal but I suppose the technical term for it would be blackmail.

“You’ll pay for this,” he said, running up behind me and jabbing his fist into my ribs.

I turned around to find him wearing a ski mask, just two eyes and a mouth poking out. He must have been wearing it for a while because the mask, combined with the heat of the summer’s day had caused him to sweat, big patches under each arm, down his chest and at his crotch.

“That’s why I’m here,” I said. “Why have you bothered with the mask? I know it’s you.”

“This isn’t for your benefit,” he sneered, his lip curling up in the corner and revealing the perfect veneer of his new smile. “This is in case you decided to be stupid and talk to the police.”

It was hardly likely, I had brought this upon myself. He was one of those patients who wanted a complete reconstruction of his smile. Drill his teeth down to little pegs then attach crowns over the top. I was convinced, absolutely convinced that he was the man who’d run off with my wife. At the time.

So when he said he wanted to sleep through the procedure it was a gift horse I could not look in the mouth, so to speak. Under he went. And I kept him under. For days until I had fashioned and attached a new set of teeth into his mouth. Not porcelain, not gold but wood. Couldn’t really be bothered to varnish them but in every other way they were perfect.

Needless to say when he woke up he was less than impressed and I was more than a little mortified when I found out that he wasn’t the man who ran off with my wife.

“So here we are,” I said. “After all these hoops you’ve made me jump through, all the humiliation. Can we just get this over with?”

“Is it all there?” he motioned towards the suitcase.

“Yes.”

“All four hundred and fifty thousand?”

“Yes, all of it. All of my money, my livelihood, everything now please can we get this over with?”

“There’s just one thing,” he smiled widely, the grain of the wood easily visible. “Your wife says hi.”

“What?” I stared into his eyes, looking for the lie but I couldn’t see it.

“Mary says that all this,” he pointed as his teeth. “All this just made it easier to get the cash from you.”

I had planned to do it anyway, to teach him a lesson, to make myself feel better or just for the hell of it but it wasn’t until that moment that I knew I was actually going to go through with it.

Without a word I handed him the case. He eagerly placed it on the edge of the fountain and opened the lid. Inside were many, many bundles of paper and printed on each one was a picture of his beautiful brown smile.

His head snapped from the suitcase to me and he started to shout but I was ready. I’d picked up the only two things I needed, threw the accelerant in the general vicinity of his mouth and he stopped shouting in a spluttering rage. I lunged forward like an expert swordsman, shoving the electric lighter into his mouth.

The same one my wife had bought to light the gas hobs in the house, the long, pencil like shape perfect for this and I pressed the button. It crackled into life and with a whooooof I really did give him teeth like a burnt fence.