Another Man's Teeth

Compassion, Despite

Photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash

The left uppercut was always his best. People didn’t see it, didn’t expect it to have the power behind it that the punch did when it connected.

But this time the cold slush had all the power, and his foot slid backwards, off the curb.

The guy, some long haul guy that was only in Maxie’s twice a month, got a snatch of Bergren’s hair.

He brought the head down and his knee up-somehow the slush and ice was more forgiving for his lone planted foot- and the lower part of Bergren’s jaw crumpled like a matchstick accordion.

Bergren fell into the street, busted his wrist trying to save his face from kissing the curb.

It was just instinct. 

He might as well have been a monkey.

His face wasn’t worth saving.

He spit teeth, because he couldn’t spit a wrist, and any buzz he had was gone. 

It was a haze now, unpleasant, shit starting to swell.

When he sat he was amazed that he could feel how wet his ass was.

A woman stumbled.

Did the trucker guy hit her too?

Bergren tried to struggle to his feet when the stumbling woman yelled “Stay still! We gotta save your teeth!!”

She wasn’t stumbling really, just sliding on the ice and slush trying to pick up pieces of Bergren’s mouth.

My fucking mouth.

He didn’t want the teeth, the nicotine stained, cracked, Zug Island sunset shards of calcium left in his mouth, not in his mouth anymore.

She had a disposable lighter and was trying to find teeth.

Another man’s teeth.

Bergren had never seen her in Maxie’s before.

He tried to tell her to forget it but it came out Flug, and a pain shot through Bergren’s face like a dental tool being held by a Nazi.

Someone draped a blanket on him.

A fucking blanket.

Never lost a fight so bad before, cunt on a cracker, a fucking blanket.

And the little blonde with the lighter, excited she found a second tooth in the boot print slush, telling him an ambulance was on the way like that was a good thing, and he opened his mouth to say cancel the ambulance, but that first C, man, that almost killed him, like he was being gagged with chicken wire, oh god it hurt.

The blonde slipped and fell and dropped her lighter, all Bergren really saw was the flame go out, and she called for a flashlight, like Bergren getting his teeth back was an emergency.

He wanted to say “thanks, sweetheart, but fuck the teeth, they ain’t worth saving,” and he saw the ambulance coming down Schaefer. 

He tried to stand, and run, but could do neither.

Once they realized who he was, they’d handcuff him to the hospital bed, and he wouldn’t be able to masturbate, thinking about a sweet little blonde who gave a fuck about another man’s teeth.

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