Providence. But they wouldn’t come looking for me, not if they knew I was with Tooth. They’d just assume we were off drunk and hanging out. But Jamie, she was another story. If she didn’t check in they’d be concerned, they’d call her friends and ask if they knew where she was. She was supposed to have been at the damn mall flirting with boys. What happened? Cancelled plans? Bad luck again?
The wrong place at the wrong time.
Skinny Man chose a hammer and a spike about the size of a magic marker and stood up.
Tooth’s body, up till now supported by both the wall and the chains, began to slide down. Small nerve spasms rocked it back and forth. He wasn’t getting any air and his body was fighting for it.
“Tooth! Oh God, Tooth! No!”
Even though I knew it was my voice it still sounded far away. I’d read about how these moments appear as though you’re watching a television show or movie. But that’s only half right, because part of my brain knew it was happening right there, and so what I actually felt was split in half. I was two people, the mind and the body, looking at a picture of a cellar but feeling the wall and dirt floor within it. I wanted to be all mind, to see it all as a two- dimensional image. But it didn’t go that way.
Skinny Man unwrapped the tape from Tooth’s face. Underneath, the razor wire fell away to reveal branches of lacerations. His cheeks were shredded like tattered rags.
“I want to know why they call you Tooth,” Skinny Man said. He smashed the hammer into tooth’s jaw with the indifference of a man just doing his job and Tooth’s bridge went flying against the wall in a splotch of blood. “Well I’ll be, you ain’t even got any teeth, Tooth.” He pulled back his arm and swung again. Two molars shot out from the torn cheeks, blood spit out like black cherry sundae sauce. Tooth didn’t make a sound; I think he was crawling toward the light.
I was still screaming, “You fucker! Stop it! Stop it! Tooth! No!”
Then he put the spike to Tooth’s jaw and rammed it in with the hammer. Again and again he smashed the hammer into it. The jaw broke, actually came loose from the hinge. Skinny Man dropped the hammer and spike on the ground, grabbed the jaw with both hands and thrust downward on it, thrashing it, yanking, giving it all his weight.
My eyes were out of my skull.
Skinny Man pulled and pulled, picked up the hammer one more time and smashed it down on the front of the jaw. Then he yanked some more, ramming Tooth’s head down into the neck collar, and finally there was a crack and then another crack and then the jaw separated from the skull. Skinny Man yanked it still until the skin peeled down and ripped around the neck and it tore off and he held it in his hands and just stared at it triumphantly.
Tooth was dead.
I went still. Before I closed my eyes I saw Tooth’s skull, missing its jaw, the tongue hanging down like a necktie, blood flowing and some other goo, probably saliva or mucus, cascading out as well.
Under my lids, I went back to California and pretended I was watching Tooth pick up girls on the beach. He was wearing his Red Sox hat and had a beer in his hand, making lewd gestures that made the girls giggle. He waved me over but I was reading a
CHAPTER 19
“Don’t go anywhere,” Skinny Man said, winded but grinning his stupid grin again.
I kept my eyes closed, watching the waves, trying desperately to make the dream real, but I heard him unchain Tooth’s body and drag it up the stairs, the head smacking each step in succession, like Mark Trieger, and that washed away the vision. I waited a few minutes and then opened my eyes again, looked at the empty room, saw the jaw bone in Butch’s dish though the dog wasn’t around. He must have followed his master out.
I turned away from the jaw with its sheet of torn skin curled up under it. It was crawling with little black dots. The flies had phoned their friends, invited them to the cookout.
The reality of the moment hadn’t sunk in, and even though I saw the empty chains, the notion that Tooth was dead was Greek to me. In fact, I couldn’t feel much of anything. A heavy numbness started in my head and dripped like oil down to my feet. Numb from the insanity, numb from the shock, numb from the pain in my shin which had become more of an itching than anything else. I was a Novocain space ranger.
The little axes and knives still sat in the middle of the floor. The hammer and spike were near my feet, but they were just far enough out of reach I couldn’t get them. If only the spike were a few inches closer, maybe I could shove it through my head and join Tooth.
There were no keys around, even though I’d heard them jingle when he unchained Tooth. That answered one of our earlier questions; he kept them all on the same key ring and he must have taken it with him.
From upstairs I heard, “I’ll do it! You don’t got to do everything yourself. Your way is not always the best way.”
Canine domestic dispute. God was a funny motherfucker.
I heard him go outside, leaving me in total silence. Even the flies were hushed, contentedly sucking in the bits of carrion strewn about. I hadn’t heard Jamie in a while, but I didn’t want to think about that either so I just rolled my head side to side, apathetic that I could feel the cold cement against the back of it once more. I didn’t care about anything; I just wanted to go to sleep.
But when my head hung forward and I found myself staring at the ground, I couldn’t help but notice the spike again. It was so close yet worlds away. What if? I thought. How long would he be outside? What could I do with that spike?
As if I was being controlled by a puppeteer, I stuck my foot out as far as it would reach. The chain offered about two inches, but the spike was about three away. There had to be a way. I’d read so much about telekinesis, about moving objects with your mind, but no matter how hard I willed the spike to move it just lay still, happy where it was.
I looked over at the chains hanging empty beside me, the open cuffs stained red. Could I reach them, use them somehow? Did I really care?
But my musing was cut short when I heard the driveway door creak open real slow, like an old man with back pains afraid to fart too quick. It could have been the wind, but somehow I doubted it. I just had that feeling that something was amiss. Not hard considering my location. And sure enough, out of the shadows, came Butch down the stairs. Alone.
The fucking dog was a spawn of hell, had eaten flesh for a living of that I was sure. His oily black coat reflected the blood-stained bulb as he hungrily walked over to me. A cold, slimy tongue whipped out and licked the wound on my leg. I jerked my knee and he pounced backward.
“You like that,” I said. “You want me to beat your face again, you fucking bitch?”
He cocked his head and studied me like I was abstract art.
“Yeah, you remember that, outside, when I punched you in the face. Hurt didn’t it? Something broke, huh? What was it, a tooth, your jaw, a cheekbone? Come any closer and I’ll do it again and I won’t stop until you lie dead on the floor. C’mon!”
The black hellhound didn’t move, just sat looking pensive. Then he sniffed the air a bit, like he was figuring out which part of me to bite first. Should have known he wouldn’t run away. He probably grew up biting chained prisoners.
I jerked my knee again to entice him, and he jumped back and forth real quick, almost as if he was just playing. He gave a little bark and glanced at the stairs, like he was afraid the noise would bring his mentally handicapped owner and a smack to his ears. So I did it again, thinking at least that would be something.
Dogs are quick though, and you can’t read them as well as humans, so when he charged me I yelped in terror. He jumped back, then snapped a few times and rushed me again. This time he went for my ankle but he bit the chain instead and shook it frantically. Growling and biting, he whipped the chain about. I spit a wad of phlegm at him and hit him in the eye and damn it felt good. Stunned, he took a few steps toward the stairs and licked his lips.
“Butch!” came from outside. “Butch, get out here now!” I heard Skinny Man getting closer to the house,
