brilliant dental nurse you’ve ever seen. I’m serious. She was writing something with her pen and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Never mind about the baseball bat I was holding. I forgot all about it. There was no robbery. We just stood there, Rube and I.
Rube and I, and the dental nurse, in the room, together.
“Be with y’ in a sec,” she said politely, without looking up. God almighty she was beautiful. Absolutely. Brilliant.
“Oi,” Rube whispered to her, really quiet. He was making sure only I could hear him. “Oi … This is a holdup.”
She didn’t hear.
“Stupid bloody cow.” He looked at me and shook his head. “Y’ can’t even hold up a dentist anymore. Sheez. What’s the world comin’ to?”
“Now.” She finally looked up. “What can I do for you fellas?”
“Ah …” I was uneasy, but what else was I meant to say? Rube said nothing. There was silence. I had to break it. I smiled and fell apart. “Ah, we just came to get a checkup.”
She smiled back. “When would you like it?”
“Aah, tomorrow?”
“Four o’clock okay?”
“Yep.” I was nodding, wondering.
She looked into me. Right in. Waiting. Helpf“So what are your names?”
“Oh yeah,” I responded, laughing pretty stupidly. “Cameron and Ruben Wolfe.”
She wrote it down, smiled again, and then spotted the cricket and baseball bats.
“Just been puttin’ in some practice.” I lifted the baseball bat.
“In the middle of winter?”
“We can’t afford a football,” Rube interrupted us. We had a football and a soccer ball somewhere in our backyard. He pushed me toward the door. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”
She grinned her happy-I’m-here-to-help smile. She said, “Okay, bye-ee.”
I stayed a second and said, “Bye.” Bye.
Could I think of nothing better?
“Y’ bloody spastic,” Rube told me, once we were back outside. “Checkups,” he whined. “The old man wants us smellin’ like roses, sure enough, but he’s not interested in us havin’ clean teeth. He couldn’t give a bloody toss about our teeth!”
“Well, who got us in there to begin with, ay? Whose great idea was it to rob the dentist? Not bloody mine, mate!”
“Okay, okay.” Rube leaned against the wall. Traffic limped past us.
“And what the hell was all that whisperin’ about?”
I’d decided by now that while I had him against the wall I’d go in for the kill. “The only thing you forgot to say was please. Maybe she’d have heard y’ then. Oi, this is a holdup,” I imitated him with a whisper. “Absolutely pathetic.”
Rube snapped. “All right! I blew it…. Still, I didn’t exactly see you swingin’ that baseball bat.” This was better now for Rube, since we were back on what I did wrong as opposed to what he did. “You didn’t swing a thing, mate…. You were too busy lookin’ in Blondie’s big blue eyes and starin’ at her, her breasts.”
“I was not!” Breasts.
Who was he kidding? Talking like that.
“Oh yeah.” Rube kept laughing. “I seen you, y’ dirty little bastard.”
“Ah, that’s lies.” But it wasn’t. Walking down Main Street, I knew I was in love with the beautiful blond dental nurse. I was already fantasizing about lying in the dentist chair with her over the top of me, on my lap, asking, “Are y’ comfortable, Cameron? Y’ feeling nice?”
“Great,” I’d“Oi.”
“Oi!” Rube shoved me. “Are you still listenin’?”
I turned back to him. He continued talking.
“So why don’t y’ tell me where the hell we’re gonna get the money for these checkups, ay?” He thought about it for a minute as we started up walking again and quickened the pace for home. “Nah, we’re better off canceling.”
“No,” I answered. “No way, Rube.”
“Dirty boy” was his retort. “Forget the nurse. She’s prob’ly doin’ it with Mister Doctor Dentist as we speak.”
“Don’t you talk about her like that,” I warned him. Rube stopped walking again. Then he stared.
Then he said, “You’re pitiful, y’ know that?”
“I know.” I could only agree. “I guess you’re right.”
“As always.”
We walked on. Again. Tail between the legs.
Oh, and by the way, we didn’t cancel.
We considered asking our folks for the cash but they’d have wanted to know just why we went down there to begin with, and a discussion of that nature wasn’t exactly high on our list. I myself got the money I needed by taking it out from my stash under the wrecked corner of carpet in our room.
We went back.
I tried like hell to keep my hair down. For the nurse.