by Pat Dowd
He decided to surprise Betty Lou and make her the finest set of metal teeth that he had ever made. He gathered up the tools he needed and began to work on them in his spare time gradually making them shine like diamonds in the sun. He had made the mold of her existing teeth and gums and took it from there. She was not sure if she wanted something like that in her mouth but thought she would give him a chance to make it all work. He worked every day for almost two weeks on them and spent nearly three days alone just polishing them until they shined like a new star in the sky. He was so proud of them, they were the best set that he had ever done and he could not wait until he could see Betty Lou later on that night so he could show her what he had made for her.
Danny waited for Betty Lou to finish up at work and lock up. He met her at the door and took her by the hand. He said he had something for her that she was going to love. They walked on back to the lake and picknick area and sat down. Danny reached into his pocket and took out a small box that he handed to Betty Lou. When she opened it up a smile broke out on her face like she just won the lottery. “Oh Danny” she said, “Those are the most beautiful teeth I have ever seen, I can’t believe you made them just for me.” “Yes” he said, “Why don’t you put them in your mouth and let me see how beautiful you look in them?”
Betty Lou carefully put them in with one hand while holding her other hand in front of her mouth like she did when she smiled at people in the café. It was an unconscious reaction to her being so shy about showing her bad teeth in public. “Take your hand away and let me see,” he said. Slowly she moved her hand and made a week smile like she just got caught doing something a little on the naughty side. He could see them sparkle in the dim light that came from the back of the café that barely reached the tables where they were sitting. The teeth not only fit right but even in the dull light had a deep and lustrous shine to them that lit up her whole face when she smiled. Danny never felt so happy so there was no more excuse for them to not get married since Betty Lou was now going to be the prettiest bride that ever graced this town. Their eyes met and Betty Lou looked up at Danny with a sparkle in her eye and said, “Yes Danny, I will marry you.”
The next day Betty Lou got nothing but compliments on her new teeth. They were made of stainless steel and polished to perfection. She was so proud of them and her Danny that made them that she had to tell everyone about them that came into the café. She felt all day long that she was walking on air. She had never been so happy and never thought it could be possible to be feeling so alive. She hurried up and finished her work at the café. She locked up and headed for home. She was not meeting Danny this evening because she wanted to get to bed early. She wanted to get up and spend the day planning and arranging her wedding. She had to shop for a dress, get with her fiancé and pick out a date and place for the wedding, get some shoes, arrange to get her hair done and maybe send out some invitations to some of her old time friends. It was going to be a busy day.
Later that night she met with Danny and they decided on having the wedding at the bar in the motel and the reception there afterwards. There was an opening at the bar for a Saturday night two weeks from now so it was going to work out perfectly. Since Danny was new in town and she was not a real social person herself, there were not going to be that many people there so it should go smooth and there was not likely to be any fighting or gun play going on during the ceremony.
The next two weeks went by fast and before they knew it the wedding was right upon them like a fast storm coming in. They scrambled to get things done on time and now was the day of the ceremony. It was a beautiful day and everyone that was invited came out all dressed up and in a good mood. It could not have been better. The Justice Of The Peace who was going to perform the ceremony was a short little man that doubled as the Post Master of the town. He was dominated by his wife who was twice his size and seemed to boss him around a lot. He did not on the surface seem to mind it though. Danny knew that type before. He worked with a guy once that was beat up by his wife on a regular basis. Once she beat him with a frying pan and he came to work with a black eye and a tooth missing. Back then it was too embarrassing to a guy to complain about that kind of thing, even the cops would be laughing their ass off at that kind of complaint when they got back to the station and away from the earshot of the victim.
The wedding came off well. The reception was fun, there was dancing to the old juke box, a pretty cake and plenty of drinks to go around. Nobody got too drunk or out of hand. Afterwards when it was all over the newly wed couple went back to Danny’s house, took off their dress up clothes and put on something comfortable. Then they ran out into the back yard and jumped on the tire swing together. It was the best day ever!
The days went by and things just kept getting better. Betty Lou had reduced her work days down to only three days a week at the café. She enjoyed the people there and did not want to quit altogether but at the same time she wanted to have some time for her new life as a wife. Danny still met her at the door of the café after she worked her shifts and in most cases they would still go down to the lake and sit for a while before they went home for the night. They would hold hands and sit at their favorite table as they watched the birds and fish rustle about in the water as the evening came to an end. It was paradise!
It was starting to get a little colder at night now that winter was around the corner. They still went and sat at the table a lot at night but not for as long as they did in the better weather. Danny would still come to the café and walk his girl home at night. They would hold hands and walk slowly talking and winding down the day. By the time they got home they were relaxed and ready to just hang out and enjoy each other. They did not watch much television or socialize too much. Mostly they would just listen to music and talk or sometimes just lay on the couch together listening to music without saying anything. It was a great life and they both thought it would last forever.
Then from out of the blue, tragedy struck like a bolt of lightning coming out of a dark cloud before a summer’s rain. It all happened one night after Betty Lou had closed the café for the night. It had rained earlier in the evening and the streets were wet. It has been hot for this time of year in the afternoon and a heavy fog hung in the air. Danny noticed when he was walking towards the café that every so often he had to take his glasses off and wipe them with his shirt to get the moisture off or he had a hard time seeing because of the misty fog that was all about. As he got closer to the café the fog got thicker and was settling in. Betty Lou finished up early because no one came in after nine or so because of the weather outside. She had plenty of time to mop up and clean off the tables and counters. When she went out back to take the trash out she noticed that the fog was so thick that she could not even see the tables down by the lake where they used to sit after the café closed.
She worried about Danny walking along the road in this weather so she quickly finished up and waited for Danny out on the front porch of the café. There wasn’t much light out front of the café except for the sign next to it but she thought she could see her man coming from where she was standing without too much trouble.
Ten or fifteen minutes went by before she noticed what looked like a human figure coming out of the fog along the road that led up to the café. Could it be Danny? She stood up and leaned against the railing of the porch to get a better look at the figure coming her way. It was Danny, she could tell by the way he walked and moved along. Then there was from out of the fog the sound of an eighteen wheeler coming over the hill. She could see the head lights bearing down on the spot where Danny was about to cross the road. “Danny,” she cried out, “Watch out for the truck!” Just then he looked up at her on the porch as the headlights from the truck threw a strong beam of light right up on her face. Her polished mirror like teeth reflected this flash of light that was so bright it blinded Danny and caused him to lose his sense of where he was which caused him to accidently step right in pat
h of the oncoming truck. The truck tried to stop, it locked up its wheels and slid down the road the tires smoking from all the friction while giving off the terrible smell of burning rubber.
When the truck hit Danny there was a sound like a TV being thrown out a window of an apartment complex and landing down on the sidewalk and a scream like she had never heard before. It made her fall to her knees and place her hands over her face. She let out a scream of her own and when she got up the courage she stood up and slowly walked over to the truck. She knew in her heart that is was all over but she had to see for herself. She knelt down by the truck and bent down to look under it. There was Danny laying there in a pool of blood, his eyes open but he was not seeing her or anyone else. She wanted to cry but could not do anything but get up and lean against the truck with her hands in front of her face. Soon she peeked over the tops of her fingers and saw that a few people had gathered along the side of the road and in the parking lot of the café. No one knew what to say or do, they just stood there in silence.
As you could imagine, Betty Lou was in for a long night ahead. First it was the paramedics, the ambulance, the questions from the police, then it was the awkward responses from the people that had gathered around. After they got Danny out from under the truck they placed him on a stretcher and pulled a sheet over him covering his bloodied face. You could see the blood seeping through the sheet as they slid the stretcher into the ambulance and off to the morgue.
Betty Lou by now was kind of numb, all she wanted to do was to go home and have a good cry. She wished that everyone would just leave her alone and go home to their houses. The night seemed to go on forever. A police officer came over to her and said, “You can go home now Betty Lou, do you need a ride home?” “No” she said, “I want to walk home, I need the time to be by myself right now.” She went on down the road looking down not wanting to make eye contact with anyone along the way. She just wanted to be alone to marinate in what just happened trying to make sense of it all. It was a rough night to say the least.
The sun breaking out in the morning awoke her to a new day. The pain was still there and would be for some time to come but she was not about to stew in it and make herself miserable where she would be no use to anyone. She had a lot to do to arrange for the funeral and cremation of Danny’s body. She wanted to kick herself for not saving one of those 30 percent discount coupons on the cremations that she got in the mail now and then. She just threw them away figuring that she was not going to have to deal with any death for a long time to come.
The day of the funeral had come along. Naturally it was grey and raining like it always is at those kind of things. The funeral was small and intimate. Only a few of her close friends came to the grave site afterwards so it was not as stressful as she thought it would be. When all was said and done she went home and got on the tire swing in the back of her house where she could gather her thoughts and wind down the day in peace.
A month went by as she began to feel like she was slowly coming back to life again. She knew she would never be as happy as she was with Danny but somehow she knew she was going to go on living her life in some way or another. When people would come into the café and make a comment or two about her fine shiny teeth she would gladly tell them how Danny made them and how proud she was to wear them every day. She would tell people that the glow that she could see sometimes coming out of them was her Danny telling the world that he still loved her and was as proud of her as a man could be. She knew that the love was going to last forever even if Danny was not.
The End
