Paper Teeth

by Lauralyn Chow

  Jane’s classmates all fill out the cards, and hands go up all over the room. Mrs. Shaw moves between the rows of desks, retrieving the cards. Muriel Dubbick has her hand up, and leans forward, whispering to Amy Taylor, in the desk in front of her, and they both turn to Jane and give her what Jane calls mean smiles.

  “Jane Lee,” Mrs. Shaw stands beside Jane’s desk. “Hurry, please. You’re the last one to finish.” Jane smells the school soap on her hands. If she only understood more of what went on at church, besides knowing House of the Lord, she is certain she could fill out the card. Then, Jane has a school soap angel hair epiphany. Jane places the card on her desk, turns her head downward and thinks, Oh, I get it now. In her mind, the ladies at church are pinching her cheeks, talking to Mumma. She takes her pencil out of the rounded slot at the top of her desk, looks at her fingers that for the briefest of moments actually touched angel hair, takes a long deep breath and as she exhales, writes “C” for Chinese, (P is for People), certain that she will never be so close to angel hair again in her life.

  “An unexcused absence will go on your permanent record, Tom. That would be a shame, but with the Incident last school year, I have no choice, and one more visit to the office will result in an automatic letter to your parents and the School Board.”

  The Incident involved boys at recess running behind, then hooking their hands onto the chrome back bumpers of cars passing in the school zone and seeing how long they could ice ski on the worn treads of their winter boots (prairie winter’s equivalent of waterskiing) behind the cars on the icy roads. Principal Howe’s letter identified the danger to the children and complaints from concerned motorists, but what really terrified the Lees was that mark on Tom’s permanent record. Last school year, what started as an ice capade for Tom, became for Wing and Mumma, a glare ice capastrophe.

  “Permanent record,” Dad said in Chinese, his hand gripping the letter, after dinner the night that Tom brought the letter home, “Mumma, what does this mean? Does this mean Juvenile Record? Does My Son have some kind of Juvenile Record now? Were the police involved? There were cars. Does this mean no higher education? No university will have him? No university degree, or career? No professional career? Permanent record, is that criminal?”

  “No, that can’t be” Mumma replied in Chinese, “I. . . I don’t know. I’ll talk to the principal. I’ll find out, and fix this. Oh wow.”

  “You’re sure you don’t have an excuse note?” Principal Howe asks, sitting on the command side of his desk, the tips of his right hand fingers doing push-ups against the tips of his left hand fingers.

  Tom feels the folded paper in his pocket, staining the drab white pocket lining with its revolutionary red ink. His hands stay still at his side. “No, sir.”

  “Shall I Call Your Mother? Ask her why you don’t have a note to explain your absence?” [Note: Principal Howe does not pull out the big gun lightly, the big gun about calling home, which in less than a decade will look as threatening in a public school principal’s office as a bouquet of sweet peas. But this day, the threat of a school communication to a pupil’s home that isn’t a report card or a permission slip for the annual school trip to the water treatment plant usually breaks the kid’s lie wide open.] “She’s not home, Principal Howe.”

  “Oh, she’s not?”

  “No. She’s at the racetrack, with my dad. He’s not working, so they went to the racetrack. With friends.”

  “Oh,” Principal Howe says, (Wednesday at the ponies!) a little irritated since the kid doesn’t appear to be lying at all. Howe drums his desk blotter with his fingertips, feels edgy because something or other keeps knocking at the door of his conscience, nudging him to admit he was not terribly interested in why the kid didn’t produce an excuse note in the first place. “Permanent record then, Tom?”

  “OK.”

  Later, Principal Howe thinks, I guess I’ll be in touch with the Lees anyway. Their youngest was baptized a Catholic. Maybe all the kids? Strange that didn’t come up with the older ones, or even Tom. He dictates a letter inviting Mr. and Mrs. Lee to consider a Catholic education for their children, but assuring them that Jane and Tom may remain at his school if the family chooses.

  Unfolding on the west side of the loading dock behind the high school, a maniacal call-and-response between Pen and her audience. She questions their commitment, and, adoring acolytes, they respond.

  “We’ll catch you,” someone in the crowd calls out.

  “Catch me?” she asks, smiling, beseeching, her arms still extended towards them as she steps slightly to her left.

  “We Will Catch You,” the crowd cries out, moves to their right, every pair of arms outstretched, mirroring Pen’s.

  “Can I trust you?” Pen howls, doles out being vulnerable and yet still potent and in control.

  “Of course! Yeah! Trust us! We will catch you!” Voices pop up all over the audience, and confidently speak for the crowd.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes!” the enthralled audience raises their arms and voices together, all hands cupped to catch Pen.

  “Not yet. I can’t.” The barely perceptible break in Pen’s voice suggests an innate knowledge of the social science of charisma, an instinctive understanding that this microscopic faltering will cultivate an even higher degree of identification, of emotional investment by the audience. Pen sways on her feet and the audience sways with her. Pen twists her arms upward as she displays her outstretched hands to the audience. Their arms stretch to come closer, readying themselves to receive.

  “Trust us. Jump. C’mon, Pen.” The voices of the more vocal acolytes loudly break through the audience, encouraging their leader. Intensity ratchets up one, then another notch.

  “Will You Catch Me?” Pen cries, feels as if she conducts pure energy through her limbs.

  “We Will Catch You.”

  “Catch Me,” Pen screams, chopping the air with her hands, one time for each word, completely enveloping the drama club in her drama.

  Arms reaching skyward, the crowd screams ecstatically in unison voice, “Jummm-puh!”

  Pen sprints away from the audience, running east down the entire length of the loading dock, and launches herself hard, pushing her feet off the edge of dock and into a jumble of semi-collapsed cardboard boxes left for burning beside the dumpster. Stunned silence, two seconds, three, when someone starts slow clapping. The audience erupts in screams and applause. The late afternoon sun arrives to bathe The Crate and the audience gathered at the west end of the loading dock. Out of the pool of light, Pen lies still in shadow, her back to The Crate. Underneath her, pain radiates her left arm.

  By the time she can see the bear on top of the pawnshop in Chinatown, Lizzie is pretty sure that she won’t be going back to the McTeague Co-op. With every city block she walked south, she has lost track of more and more details from the intake interview, why did he return to the same apartment block from six years ago, and who was Eugene? As she walks along the sidewalk towards Chinatown, she feels as if she just completed a final exam, and begins to let her mind dump all the cramming, the chronology of events, the different people moving in and out of different segments of the long nylon filament of the man’s story.

  Feeling ashamed of this shedding, and confused by her nascent indifference to a real person’s suffering, a person in need, Lizzie does not understand that she is not the first fish in the world to release herself from a barbless hook. The only details her memory allows her to keep are the shape of the hook, problem with a roommate; the fact that the man wore brown polyester pants carefully tucked into the tops of his cowboy boots; and in the course of their entire time together, instead of using the battered metal ashtray on the desk, for his ashtray, the man used the cowboy boot jiggling on top of his crossed legs, tapping the cigarette on the rim of his boot when the ash grew too long, and popping the filters in when the ash had completely switched places with the tobacco.

  Lizzie passes the Foon Key Bean Cake Compan
y sign in front of the grey stucco house, looking as empty today as it does on Sundays. She’ll take that story home to family dinner tonight. Two cars hunch together between three diagonal parking lines at the south end of The Coffee Cup Inn’s saucer. A third car with a sun-damaged hood and a coat hanger aerial leans on the saucer lot beside the front door. Beside the Coffee Cup Inn’s handle, a round pool of urine dampens the dusty lot.

  Lizzie stands across the street from the blue-sided pawnshop now, spies the bear on top, his matted fur. She says Hello in her mind, like running into an old friend you might expect to see in a familiar place. As she crosses the street, Lizzie notices something blue near the sidewalk beside the pawnshop. An unsliced loaf of white bread has been roughly broken open lengthwise, and running the length of the loaf is a brilliant turquoise blue stain. Standing now beside the bread, Lizzie can smell a yeasty aftershave smell. The bread has been lodged against the foundation of the pawnshop. [Note: Some clients of The McTeague Co-op pour blue aftershave through whole loaves of white bread to mute the odorants of the aftershave. Do they believe that what comes through the bread is safe to drink? Do they believe that the scent is what makes them sick, not the surrogate alcohol? Do they believe the bread is just a way to make this lethal alcohol bearable to consume because it truly does stink? Asking the bear won’t help. Although he’s right there, he never sees anything.]

  Lizzie can hear the mah jong tiles being washed, the sound of one man speaking Chinese comes out the little window on the side of the pawnshop. Startled, she cranes her neck, but at this angle cannot see the bear. Lizzie frowns, because the bear is hidden to her but in plain view. Lizzie nudges the broken loaf of bread with the large blue stain with her toe, wonders what happens to all the ashes in the man’s cowboy boot, not just from today, but ashes collected over all the man’s other days strung along the long filament to which those days belong. Blue loaves of bread and cowboy boots full of cigarette ashes. And no foon-kee bear.

  Mumma’s watch and the tote board inform her that Post time for the fourth race is about five minutes away. In Mumma’s opinion, this is the best part of the race, before all the drama, before the sorting of those poor horses and jockeys into winners and losers, the kind of thinking in which a pretend bettor can indulge. The eight horses with jockeys on their backs saunter clockwise onto the track. A few of the horses are accompanied by riders on horses, plainly dressed pony boys to keep the horses calm. Some of the horses are accompanied by walking grooms to keep them calm before the race. Track officials on horseback flank the entire post parade to help keep order, and the racehorses calm. To Mumma, it seems the most unhurried, relaxed stroll in the opposite direction that the race will be run, and she loves that, the casual calmness of watching the parade of bi-coloured silks that the jockeys wear, pink and white, turquoise and yellow, royal blue and emerald green, every colour combination her new favourite.

  Wing and Freddy return to their seats from the tellers’ cages, a few wager tickets in each hand. Fairy and Mumma, both enjoying their chewing gum, send quick little waves with their hands, and when the men have re-settled in their seats in front of them, Fairy and Mumma turn towards each other raising their respective eyebrows.

  The horses have arrived at the starting gate, and are being guided by their jockeys and the track employees into their post positions at the gate, each post position separated by open dividers. It suddenly occurs to Mumma that the starting gate is just like getting her kids ready for school in the morning, before she releases them into the world, they run the track, and return home, Mumma the kids’ track official. One of the horses balks, refuses to get into its gate. Mumma peels her finger down the program for Race 4, wanting to identify the naughty horse. Just as the announcer calls out the two minutes to post time warning, Mumma’s pelvic floor sends up a query, wondering just exactly how soon Mumma will stand up for the first time this afternoon and excuse herself to pay some attention to her southern region. The internal memo flies back down immediately, After this race, don’t get your knickers in a knot.

  Freddy and Wing arrange and re-arrange their bets, each holding the tickets like a hand of cards. Freddy hopes he wins this time, at least get his money back from placing all these bets on the fourth race. So many bets. He inhales deeply, folds his hand of tickets, pockets them, and reaches for cigarettes in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Freddy offers one to Wing. Wing shakes his head, not wanting the distraction of a cigarette for the race. Freddy takes out his matches, a Lychee Gardens Restaurant matchbook, flips the cover to pull out a match, and pinches the match head between the cover and the striker strip. After cupping his other hand protectively around the fire lighting his cigarette, Freddy breathes out, feels a little bit better. He shakes his hand back and forth to extinguish the match and flips the match over his shoulder.

  The horse that balked at going into the starting gate has been calmed and controlled into the gate, but Mumma’s seen horses balk at the gate so many times she can’t count. She can’t help but think about her kids, how they sometimes balk at the gate, each child standing in line. What if the gate opens and one of her kids won’t leave the gate? What are they thinking about when they balk at the gate? Is something waiting for them after the first furlong? What about the critical final turn before they head for the finish line? What’s happening to those kids when they’re out running the track before they come home?

  Nope, don’t think about that now, Mumma tells herself, not here, not when I’m having this damn capital C, Curse day. Smoke swirls around, people so close and so loud, “gotta go into the barn and look them right in the eye or you’re throwin’ money down the drain,” “Jackie, she’s already twelve, yeah, she’s still dancing, oh she’s got a cute little figure,” then, “Get your programs, programs, get your programs here,” “PepSi, ice cold PepSi,” boys in canvas high top sneakers running up and down the cement stairs, holding stacks of racing forms, balancing large metal trays filled with paper cups of soda, and as the horses are finally lined up in the gate, Mumma looks down and notices her smart purse is smoking.

  “And, They’re off!” The Public Address system crackles as the starting gate opens, horses bolt forward, and the eyes of the crowd pounce the track.

  Mumma opens her purse wider, sees a smoking matchstick on top of her Kleenex-wrapped Kotex. Just as she reaches into her purse to remove the match, all the paper products ignite with the match, and candle-size flames erupt from her purse.

  “. . .and, they’re coming to the clubhouse turn, and at the clubhouse turn, it’s Blue Hawaii leading with the rail, and three-quarters of a length behind. . .” bodily, the crowd follows the race past the grandstand, and around the first corner of the track. Without thinking, Mumma reaches into her purse and throws the flaming Kotex in an arc onto the ground in front of her. To Mumma’s horror, three seconds after ignition, the flames still grow, combine forces, so Mumma stomps on the flames, left right left right, her smart navy pumps pummelling the spongy base of the fire, until there’s nothing left but grey ash covering bits of Kleenex and the burnt remains of a greatly reduced Kotex sanitary napkin, streaked grey and black. One of the napkin’s fasteners has managed to free itself from underneath in the scuffle, and lies white and intact, like a weak limb attached to the pad.

  Mumma grabs a breath that quickly escapes her open mouth. Not daring to even think about people’s faces surrounding her, Mumma reddens, her hairline feels like someone’s running a welding bead over her forehead, her face erupts a slick moisture of sweat. Mayday, Mayday her pelvic floor screams.

  With her tiny right foot, Fairy toes the sooty pad until it falls off the cement ledge of the stadium floor seating, and lands right underneath the seat in front of Mumma, where Freddy sits, the pad now completely hidden. The race thunders across the backstretch, wholly capturing Freddy’s attention and Wing’s. And everyone’s around them, all of them completely wrapped up in the sights and sounds of the race, the horses’ kinetic energy taking each v
iewer’s senses hostage.

  Fairy’s arm nudges gently against Mumma’s arm, and her hand pats the back of Mumma’s hand. Fairy reaches into the left hip patch pocket of her shirt jacket, discreetly slides a white Kleenex-wrapped package into Mumma’s empty purse. Fairy smiles at Mumma and says, in Chinese, “Oh wow.”

  Number 117. Almond Guy Ding

  Jane steeps in her claw-footed bathtub, one leg stretched out along the bottom, the other slightly bent. Her face towel drapes over the edge like the paper label of a tea bag resting over the lip of a white teacup. She holds her palms up and studies her fingertips. Raisin-like ridges on water-bloated pink. Peanut fingers, she thinks, that’s what I used to call them. Peanut fingers and almond eyes.

  At about the time Jane discovered her peanut fingers, her Auntie Li-Ting said, “Janie, you have almond-shaped eyes.” Not really knowing what an ah-mund looked like, Jane never did get it right. “I have peanut eyes,” she told everyone at her cousin Paul’s wedding. But she didn’t like the way they laughed when she said that, didn’t like the way everyone kept asking her again and again, what kind of eyes do you have, and laughed when she gave the same answer, the flower girl with the nut-shaped eyes.