was a kind of beastly dental nurse there of about forty years of age.
“Now there’s someone in your range,” Rube whispered at me in the waiting room. He was grinning like the dirty juvenile he had always been. He disgusted me, but then again, quite often, I disgusted myself.
“Hey,” I told him and waved a finger. “I think you’ve got somethin’ stuck in your teeth there.”
“Where?” He panicked. “Here?” He opened his mouth and grimaced a wide smile. “Is it gone?”
“Nah — further right. That way.” There was nothing there, of course, and when he looked at his reflection in the dental surgery fish tank and found out, he returned and slapped me across the back of the head.
“Huh.” He kept going with his original line. “Y’ dirty boy.” He chuckled. “I’ll admit it, thoughe was good. She was fully great.”
“Mmm.”
“Not like middle-aged fat woman here, ay?”
I laughed. Boys like us — boys in general — would have to be the scum of the earth. Most of the time, anyway. I swear it, we spend most of our time being inhumane.
We need a good kick in the pants, as my old man always says (and gives us). He’s right.
The nurse came in. “Right, who’s first?” All quiet.
Then, “Me.”
I stood up. I decided it would be best to get this over with quickly.
In the end, it wasn’t too bad. There was just this fluoride treatment stuff that tasted pretty ordinary and some scratching around inside from the big man. There was no drill. Not for us. There is no justice in the world.
Or maybe there is …
The dentist ended up robbing us. He was pretty pricey, even for the little bit he did for us.
“All that money,” I said after we’d walked out again.
“Still,” Rube was finally the one not doing the complaining, “no drill.” He punched my shoulder. “I s’pose. No chocolate biscuits at our joint. It’s good for somethin’, ay. Good for the fangs … We’ve got a genius for a mother.”
I disagreed. “Nah, she’s just tight.”
We laughed, but we knew Mum was brilliant. It was just Dad that was a worry.
Back home, not much was going on. We could smell leftover mushrooms heating on the stove and Sarah was going at it on the couch again. No point going in.
I went into Rube’s and my room and looked at the city that spread its filthy breath across the horizon. The sun was pale yellow behind it and the buildings were like the feet of huge black beasts lying down.
Yeah, it was around the middle of June at this time, and the weather was really starting to bite.
I guess things happened in my life that winter, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I failed in getting my old job back. My father gave me a chance. My elder brother Steve screwed up his ankle, insulted the hell out of me, and eventually came to realize something. My mother held a boxing exhibition in our school welfare office and went berserk one night, throwing the compost at my feet in the kitchen. My sister, Sarah, got jilted. Rube started growing a beard and eventually woke up to himself a bit. Greg, a guy who was once my best friend, asked me for three hundred bucks to save his life. I met a girl and fell in love with her (but then, I could fall in love with anything that showed an interest). I dreamed a whole lot of weird, sick, perverted, sometimes beautiful dreams. And I survived.
thing much happened really.
It was all pretty normal.
First dream:
It’s late afternoon and I’m walking to the dental surgery when I see someone standing on the roof. As I move closer I realize it’s the dentist. I can tell from the white coat and the mustache. He’s right on the edge, looking prepared to throw himself off.
I stop beneath him and yell, “Oil What the hell are you doing?”
“What’s it look like?”
At that, I’m speechless.
All I can do now is run into the arcade building where the dental surgery is situated and go through and tell the beautiful dental nurse.
“What!” is her reply.
My God, she looks so great that I almost tell her, “To hell with Mister Dentist, let’s go down the beach or something.” I don’t say anything else, though. I just run to the end of a corridor, open the door, and take some stairs up to the roof.
For some reason, when I make it to the edge, the dental nurse hasn’t