Bill’s Teeth: a short story

             His wife’s God-given name had been Rosamund Virginia Winters. She was called Rosie for short. The first time Bill had seen Rosie Winters and heard her name spoken was a moment he never forgot. The sound of her name had struck a chord within his heart, summoning romance and whimsy for the very first time. He had thought it the most interesting name in the world, evocative and strange. His mind constantly searched for an image to match it. Rosie treated him kindly and thought him smarter than he thought himself. She had been his partner for fifty-four years until she died one Wednesday afternoon, while he stood in an unusually long line at the post office.

            As he sat now, at seventy-six years old, he thought of Rosie. They had retired to Ruidoso, New Mexico, where the clear mountain air restored their lungs and lives. His long legs stretched out before him and rested on the cozy green ottoman she had purchased just for him. His heels touched and his feet splayed out in opposite directions, affording him just enough space in between to see the flickering of his TV. His feet looked rotten. They were unkempt, which is something that Rosie would have never let happen. She had always made sure he was lovingly groomed for public display, but after her death, he let himself go.

             Bill’s usual afternoon had been interrupted again by a sharp, cold pain in the back of his mouth. He had been watching Working Girl with Melanie Griffith and was already up to his favorite scene. He owned this movie, but today it was on television. He watched the broadcast version with commercial breaks every fifteen minutes while the worn VHS sat right beneath his feet, in a hefty drawer built into the side of his recliner.

      Bill loved Working Girl. He loved her spunk. ‘Tess’ the main character, ended up sticking it to her awful boss and that never got old to Bill. In fact, and he’d thought about this a lot, it might have been the greatest story ever told. Innocence and good triumphed over evil, love found a way, and the meek inherited the earth. Bill thought about the screenwriter, typing away at his computer and then sitting back when he knew he had written a great piece of work. Bill often congratulated him in his mind—it was a damn good movie.

            As he watched, he moved his tongue along the slippery sides of his teeth. The pain had been with him for years; Bill had always had bad teeth. At the age of sixty two, he’d had multiple extractions in the top, front section of his mouth and the dentist had given him a little plastic bridge with falsies that snapped into place. He popped it in and out—the grand kids loved that. The bridge was kept in a cup by his bed at night. One morning, as he gazed at his simulated teeth soaking and bobbing through foggy, tired eyes, he knew he had become an old man. When one routinely has to snap parts of one’s body back in place, one has reached a crotchety phase.

       When the movie was finished, Bill reached for his tenth cigarette of the day. It was 4:00 pm. In general, his mouth was a source of great shame. His teeth ached and groaned, he coughed, puffed, and smoked like an old monster, and years of smoking had worn away his taste for food. Sandwiches felt fine in his mouth. Soft, white bread was his only pleasure. He craved the texture of it and the way it muffled the pain and the all-around bad taste of his cavernous mouth. Today, like most days, his thoughts drifted back to his old neighbor and friend, Russell Ives. Russell had been to Juarez, Mexico, and returned with an empty, floppy mouth. His teeth had been hurting him for years and one day he had decided enough was enough. He drove his truck straight down to Juarez with no stops and no regrets. The outpatient procedure had been dirt cheap and in Russell’s words “a goddamn cakewalk.” Back at home in Ruidoso, Russell had dentures made and took them in and out of his mouth as he pleased. The pain was entirely gone; he had reclaimed his mouth as his own domain. His grin was wider, his eyes were bright and his last days were full of joy.

            Bill had known Russell for a short, but meaningful time. They had both been the sole widowers on a street of lonely widows. They had been cared for, to replace the memories of long-dead husbands. Casseroles and Jello pies arrived daily. The men would sit on Bill’s porch, eat them with gratitude and watch the mystical New Mexican sun go down. This was a spiritual time for both of them. It was the end of two decent lives, two fine men with stories to tell. Bill was pleased to have a friend.

            Russell died a few months after his spontaneous procedure. Ever since, Bill had thought that it was a shame he’d been buried in those perfectly good dentures. They might be a nice fit on someone else. Surely, their friendship could have included one last, sweeping act of generosity. Russell has selfishly gone to the grave with a pair of fake teeth he’d never use again. The shame of it all made Bill red in the face. He switched the channel and crept, like the old man he was, into the kitchen to make a sandwich.

            As he made his way, the phone rang loudly. The phone rang like this about once a week. It would be his son Roy calling for advice. Bill loved his only child, but had lately started to dread these conversations. Roy had divorced his wife two years earlier and had since made a life out of being divorced. He talked on and on about lawyers, visitation, legal bills, court dates, and property arrangements. This was foreign territory to Bill, and he disagreed with his son. His divorce, from a perfectly nice woman named Andrea, had seemed hasty to his father. Bill would just return the call a few hours later during the local news, as he usually did.

             As he raised his white bread sandwich to his lips, Bill was suddenly blindsided by a horrific pain in his maxillary central incisor. This was a new level of discomfort for Bill. His tooth felt as though it had been frozen in ice for years and had just been shattered by a tiny sledgehammer. Bill let out a holler as his sandwich dropped to the ground. He clasped his lips tightly with both hands and threw his head back into the supple, leather headrest of his recliner. The pain persisted for a full minute, and left his body shaking and reeling for an hour afterward. He was incensed. He hated that something so small could cause him such misery.

He stared out the window at the enormous sky over his yard as his foot tapped nervously to distract him from the pain. Before he could even think it through, his keys were in his hand and his hat was on his head. This was it! Bill would drive to Juarez without stopping, like Russell had. He would end the battle his mouth had laid against him with an atomic last stand. He would have a clean slate for the rest of his life.

             Bill backed out of his driveway and drove down the street. He made it down the block and into the main section of town. He knew his route by heart, as he had crossed the mountains and headed south a thousand times in his head. The trip to Mexico had been an obsessive fantasy, but now it would all come true.

            As he left the edge of town and headed down the winding mountain roads that would make up the first hour and a half of his journey, he searched for music on the radio. Hank Williams would have been nice, or Johnny Cash, but no good country was anywhere on the dial. Instead, he was forced to listen to old Gospel tunes. As the music swelled a joyful chorus joined the main singer and Bill was surprised at his reaction. He had never been a particularly religious man, but the sound of this song, brought back an old feeling. He remembered his long days in Bible school in Sweetwater, Texas. As a little boy his mother had left him every Sunday morning while she walked around town taking time for herself. He always hated being left behind.

            He drove on now, as the sun crept down behind the mountains. It was late February and the evenings in Ruidoso often brought snow. The clouds were heavy and pink. The glow of the sunset grew into their violet linings and created a beautiful dusk around him. Snow began to fall, the flakes drifted down like drops of cold stardust. The sky had never looked quite like this. As Bill surveyed the magic around him, he gripped his steering wheel tightly and began to cry. His emotions these days were always unexpected, which he found to be the strangest part of getting so old. The view was stunning and serene. The perfect words for what he saw swiftly came to mind and his breath caught deep in his throat. He rarely had the words these days.  He pushed lightly on the break and moved onto the narrow shoulder of the mountain road. He came to an idle stop and switched off his headlights, his tooth still aching. All around, Bill and his truck were alone in the midst of what he could only describe as a rosie winter.

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