by D C Young
“You showed him your teeth?”
“Does that mean I can’t smile now?” I deadpanned, giving him a toothy grin and showing off my large incisors.
“I got this motherfucker’s diseased blood all over me ‘cause you couldn’t keep to your sorry self!” Don barked at me as he reached for his key ring and looked as if he was going to enter my cell and pummel my ass. “You’re such a fucking asshole!”
“Just trying to be friendly,” I smirked.
Terry pulled the larger security guard back from my cell door, shaking his head disgustedly. “Don’t. He’s a biter, Don.”
“I’m gonna come back with a muzzle and then I’m going to pile-drive your ass into the ground!”
“Whatever gets you off, big guy.” I winked and blew him a kiss.
Don’s words lost their impact as I was instead mesmerized by his neck. The meaty stalk was reddened by the Missouri summer heat. His vein pulsed and hardened with anger. A man his size, age, and temperament probably suffered from high blood pressure. One little prick from one of my fangs at the right spot would yield a bounty for sure. I had to play the long con. I was small and scrawny compared to these behemoths. They’d punch holes in me with their large fists. I had to wait for the right moment.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound sincere.
My apology appeased Don for the moment, and he turned away from me while pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiping the blood from his face.
“I’ll try not to smile next time. I just have so much to be happy about and want to share the joy that’s pushing up out of my soul.”
“It’ll suit you well if you keep that trap of yours shut,” Terry said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, not worried by his ominous tone.
Meanwhile, the bloodied man, now passed out or dead, was then picked up and rolled out of his cell on a stretcher.
I continued staring through my window for the next half hour. Surprisingly, no one ever came to clean up the pool of blood left behind in the man’s cell, but the smell of bleach persisted. I was in a dirty, unkempt Clorox hell. And if I stayed here long, I’d eventually stop being who I knew I was. I didn’t plan on spending the rest of my life being a medicated stiff who could only look forward to being pounded like a piece of meat.
No way in hell would I let that happen.
Chapter Two
I curled up on my aluminum bed and tried using my own body warmth to repel the cold surface as best I could.
I began counting the small holes in the white cinder blocks in front of me. There were 157 of them, and only 98 on the one above. I wondered how the holes had gotten there. Air bubbles most likely, trapped when the manufacturer molded them with concrete. They were slight imperfections in an otherwise impenetrable cement barrier, preventing me from escaping to the outside world. Yet the holes gave the blocks a sense of vulnerability. If I could somehow find a way to poke them with something sharp, over, and over, and over again, then perhaps the blocks would lose their strength.
Who was I kidding? That wouldn’t work… Would it?
You’d think being in isolation for as long as I had been that my mind would slow into a state of semi-hibernation, but no, it raced like never before. I could not stop thinking. About stupid shit too. Like poking holes through cement blocks, one at a time, for months on end, until the wall had the consistency of Swiss cheese.
Five days had passed and I had lost the ability to know when I was awake and when I was dreaming. They had broken me down. Was that their intention, or did they forget about me? No, they couldn’t have forgotten about me… I had just eaten lunch. I turned over on my other side and saw the orange-colored plastic food tray with the crumbs left over from my chocolate chip cookie and an apple core.
Then I heard a female voice say, “Aaron.” It trailed off and sounded like Annie too, the sweet goth girl who I had murdered because I had lost control in more ways than one.
She still hadn’t manifested into a nebulous memory. I vividly remembered how pretty she had been. Her skin was pale but flawless. Dark eyeliner highlighted her gorgeous, crystal-like, hazel eyes. Perfect teeth too. All she’d needed was a change of hair color and she easily could’ve been a cheerleader or made a serious run for prom queen. Yet, she chose to be somewhat of an outcast, and foolishly chose to be with me—an animal.
I loved her, or I grew to love her. At first, I’d felt that she was probably playing a cruel trick when she approached me and asked to see my fangs. I had always been self-conscious about my teeth because I had been ridiculed for them. Yet, here was Annie standing in front of me, with hands behind her back, and one foot in front of the other, waiting patiently for me to comply with her request. I remembered the way she’d brushed back her green-and-black dyed bangs behind her left ear when she asked me again. She’d lacked the arrogant posture others had when they asked to see my teeth. No mocking smirk.
It was summer when we’d met at work. We had both been hired for the graveyard shift. I was a security guard; Annie was an inventory clerk. We worked for an auto parts warehouse behind a strip mall, near our homes. Her mom’s boyfriend’s brother had given her a part-time job so she could help pay the bills.
The warehouse had a varnish smell to it and the lights above the large gray metal racks flickered like strobe lights. It was that time of night where we’d find ourselves alone, by the spark plugs and headlamps.
I’d been doing a security camera check when she’d surprised me from behind.
“You should smile more,” she’d said.
“Excuse me?” I’d turned my head over my shoulder, almost falling off the stepladder.
“You’re Aaron, right?”
“Yeah, hi, umm... you’re Annie... Annie Hox?”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Freaking hot in here, isn’t it?”
“Very,” she’d said with a radiant smile. Perfect response from the most perfect girl.
I’d needed a job, didn’t have a car, and it was the only opening within walking distance of my home. I’d happened to run into the owner of the auto parts warehouse, right as I turned in my application. I remembered him measuring me up from head to toe. There was no way he’d hire a scrawny kid like me. But I’d smiled and that was all he needed to see. No experience necessary, I guessed. Someone willing to put their life on the line for mud flaps and pine-scented air fresheners who owned a set of teeth like a menacing German shepherd was all the place needed.
“No break-ins so far,” she’d said. “You must be doing a good job. Looks like they hired the right man for the job.”
“Yeah? Thanks, I guess.”
“There was a break-in nearly every week before you came along. Place no longer carries car stereos.”
“That’s good to hear,” I’d said as I kept my lips as close together as possible. She’d probably thought I was practicing ventriloquism.
“So, like, what’s your deal?”
Great, I’d thought. Here come the questions.
“What do you mean?” I’d said, with an uncomfortable chuckle.
Although the question was rather rude, there had been a subtle sweetness in her voice.
She’d then pointed at her mouth.
“Yeah,” I’d said, lowering my head in embarrassment.
“No, no. I didn’t mean to be rude. Sorry if I came off that way. I... I think they’re pretty awesome.”
That was the first time anyone had ever described my mild deformity with a positive adjective.
“You think so?” I’d remained poised for a punch line at my expense.
“Yeah. Kinda wild. I truly like it. You ever use them? Like, is it easier to chew through a piece of steak?”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had steak. My mother worked days and evenings trying to support us after my dad left us high and dry, and steaks were one of those luxury items we never indulged in, cable TV being another. I didn’t recall my teeth making things e
asier working through a burger.
I’d shaken my head. “No, no. I don’t think so.”
If Annie only knew why God had given me these teeth, and if there was a way I could have told her right then and there without scaring her off… But Annie was full of surprises. Her next inquiry had been just as shocking as her first.
I remembered her playfully tilting her head, exposing the right side of her neck. Her smooth and clean skin had seemed as if it were made and molded from the world’s finest vanilla ice cream. Her paleness had been the perfect backdrop for the greenish carotid artery that slightly protruded from beneath the springy musculature.
“You ever, you know, use them for...” she’d asked flirtatiously.
Normally, I was awkward around girls, but as soon as Annie had asked me that question, I had realized that here was the first girl—no, the first person—to know exactly where to push my buttons. A newfound and unexpected confidence had percolated from within as soon as I’d heard her question. My response had been of few words, but felt natural and filled me with an inner strength I knew I always had but never knew how to express.
I’d nodded and grinned, my brows lowered, suggestive almost. “Yeah, maybe.”
A cold shiver had raced down my spine as if caught in the act of penetration—even though I had never experienced the act of penetration with a woman, up to that point. It rattled me enough to where the confidence Annie had just elicited disappeared suddenly, replaced by the image I always had of my unusual exterior. That of a misshapen, snaggle-toothed wimp who had been bullied and cursed with semi-poverty all of his life…
“Snap out of it,” said the man’s voice.
As his voice grew louder, Annie’s was trailing off. “Aaron... Aaron?”
I felt a familiar cold bite at my ribs. The simmering heat from inside the warehouse had been replaced by a strange sensation. As if I had awakened naked on the sleet-covered hood of my mom’s Oldsmobile.
I turned on my side and a man and a woman stood over me, both in their mid-thirties and both wearing spectacles. The woman sounded like Annie but looked nothing like her.
In my groggy and blurry-eyed state, I asked her, “Annie? Is that you?”
“No,” she said with a smile.
“Aaron, we’re here to give you an assessment. How are you feeling?” asked the man.
I was dreaming and these folks had brought me back to my reality. I answered their question as honestly as I could. “Like crap,” I moaned.
The woman then asked, “Do you need a glass of water?”
“Please.” I moistened my dry lips with my tongue.
“We’re here to ask you some pertinent questions,” the man added. “But we want to know if we can trust you. You’re currently sedated, but we’re worried it might wear off before our initial counseling session is over. We’re here to help you, and if you work with us, you might not be stuck in this small room for long.”
What the hell is going on?
“What do you mean?” I said. I sat up on my bench, feeling as if my head was ready to explode.
The man said, “I’m Dr. Finnegan and this is Dr. Carter. We are both clinical psychologists for the hospital and we have a few questions about your condition, and um, your physical attributes.”
Euphoria had enveloped me for the first time since that last blissful moment I had shared with Annie. The combination of refreshing water entering my lips and the gentle and caring—although clinical—words from someone else made me feel like a human being once again.
Fang
is available at:
Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK
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