*Fiction — December 1, 2022
Black Teeth
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I watch my mother smear her crow paint on, hunting paint. She thumbs eyeblack over her cheekbones where blush usually goes. Somehow it livens up her face just the same.
She’s going for crows, like she always does when Dad goes out of town and there’s no coincidence beyond his gun stays here. Maple stock Winchester, pretty toy. Kind of thing you pick up and become laced with the impulse to shoot. I wonder what the body count will be, how many she’ll add to the current trio out back; the other day she went and tossed them there like firewood. Since, they’ve only frozen rigid on the hard grass, December keeping them preserved. Thing about crow is nothing really wants it. A non-game bird makes shoddy bait at best—even the coyotes have to be desperate. Without a bag limit the only law’s to get rid of what you kill. Wash them downriver or strike a match.
I’m up for work and she’s as if. Nonetheless I start up coffee, crack two eggs into a pan searing butter. It’s rare enough we sit together that I feel I owe it to put something on the table. I don’t hear her come into the kitchen until she’s brushing my shoulder by the pantry for mugs.
She moves across rooms like a leaf; through doorframes you never notice her drifting. I flip the eggs and burner off, join her. She gestures the food away but I still set it down. Outside, that brief hour before the cracks of morning show has paused everything. Even when I know what is coming.
In the quiet the stove clicks randomly, still hot enough to spark dust. We run our coffee out like diner people, looking down and breathing steam. Between sips I take her in glances. She’s spare, always has been—calls me scrappy and blames herself. Only on her body absences show up as curves, and I know even without face paint, she’d be more shadows than lines on canvas. I recall a flight we took to Florida once, visiting her brother’s camera store, and the farthest I’ve ever been outside of here. All day the sunlight was the same. I couldn’t see time pass. She left me browsing the black plastic and glass until my eyes watered. I never even shook the hand of my uncle. Waiting out the baggage claim, she wordlessly hugged me close. Through her thin skin I felt a heartbeat so strong I might have scooped it into my palms.
I’ve been waiting for that feeling in my own chest since.
“We should subscribe to the paper,” I say after a while, counting lines in the wood grain between us.
Her spoon clinks the mug, “Why?” I forget she doesn’t drink it black and there’s a half inch of wet sugar left to stir.
I shrug and look around for the sugar shaker. I wasn’t trying to have a conversation. “Makes good kindling,” she says, winces down a sip. Either the steam’s finished or the coffee. The shaker by her elbow I don’t recognize from salt. I boil some water over fresh grounds, dump my own dregs down the sink. The sun is low but I don’t want to linger. I snap my coat up to the collar then slip gloves on. The cold splits my fingertips, and while I know the insides of my gloves have stains, I don’t fold them inside out to prove it. She’ll need the station wagon to reach her hunting grounds anyway.
“Heading out,” I say.
She smiles but not at me. I know what she’s really thinking.
My work pays. And it doesn’t really matter that her time doesn’t make money, but the crows just bug me, her lace-up boots beneath the pegged Winchester, standing tall as if she’s still in them. Soon enough it’s all got to go. The gun sways a little when I open the door, but before letting it swing shut behind me, I knock her stiff shoes sideways with my toe.
My work pays. And it doesn’t really matter that her time doesn’t make money, but the crows just bug me, her lace-up boots beneath the pegged Winchester, standing tall as if she’s still in them. Soon enough it’s all got to go. The gun sways a little when I open the door, but before letting it swing shut behind me, I knock her stiff shoes sideways with my toe.
The fresh air is good and catches. I hold it in to feel the cold trickle through my bones, breathe out white clouds. Across the drawbridge is already half-lit and the sea-lake beneath tiding low. We live on the North End, shoulder end of town, so whenever I head out, it’s like catching up time. I look forward to it but not just for that—the bridge has teeth. They’re nearly a centimeter apart and zigzag the view. I pause halfway, thread my fingers through the gaps. Below a couple trawlers pass, quiet and momentary as shifting light within a forest.
It’s still early enough reaching downtown that I drop into the bp for a few lotto tickets.
Only one car’s at the pumps. Inside, this harbor worker is buying cans of dip.
“Spearmint and the long cut,” he says. He already smells sweetly of the stuff but packs his lip before shouldering out the door. The woman behind the counter eyes him going. By the window I notice stacks of daily papers, the locals and nationals, take one each.
“Dallas is here,” the woman yells at somebody over my shoulder. The heat fan’s clicked on and the whole place rattles. I turn. This guy in the same red-collared polo is slouched against the beer coolers. “He’ll be wanting fresh brew.”
It’s true: all the half dozen decanters on hot plates are down to a centimeter. The guy unsticks himself from the fridges, slumps off.
“Guess Dallas loves his coffee,” I say to the woman, grin. “He’s the tow,” she nods outside.
I look. At the stoplight, a pickup with animal patterns over the tire flares signals left.
Hovering the bed’s an iron hook almost exactly like circle bait, only swinging heavy even with nothing snared on the line.
“This all?” She taps her fingers on the counter.
“Two of the Black Tickets,” I say, then on second thought, “plus a shot of Dallas’ jolt.” When I leave, the tow’s pulled to the curb. Turns out that flare paint was just a bunch of Texases.
Around now 18-wheelers line the fishery storefronts, packing the morning haul. The air has a stench but not rotten. Fresh fish doesn’t smell dead, just raw, like high tide spilled into the streets. Farther along I come across this leftover flounder, flat and perfect on the asphalt. I crouch a moment and sort of stare it down. Only the thing’s tire marked and dusty, its gaze gone dry.
My breath is still showing up smoky. The bank tower flashes 19 and I remind myself that in a month, it’ll be 19 below and the sea smoking. I reach the restaurant. The place is wrapped with casement windows and glass doors, solar panels spread like solitaire over the pine shakes. An old dive named the Ice House used to stand here. It was decorated by half a full-sized bushplane through the roof, the only reason anyone went in. The beers were never cold. Kirby swears this glass is bulletproof, and I believe it. Around back his glossy Land Rover’s missing from its usual spot—on another lavish bender or he’s got his kids for the weekend. He’ll show up late and do a few lines in his office, come out smiling.
Kirby loves coke. So much his nose is often dusted with it and on his breath lingers something like bleach. He’s sad and addicted with two children he spoils like another sickness whenever he’s got custody; returns them with souvenir uniforms from courtside games, signed ticket stubs from pop star concerts, neon shoes and bags of dim sum leftovers. Last week it was custom performance snowboards. Either way he ends up smiling.
I push through the kitchen door, clock in.
It’s only me and the sous’ for now. We don’t talk, just prep. I start on the bar: run the keg lines clean, cut limes. Stray juice stings my finger knicks. I listen to the chefs’ knives going, woodpecker knives. Last summer this skinny pine fell across our yard, neat as if axed. Only up-close you could see the million tiny holes through the bark that really brought it down.
How long they must have been at it.
After a while daylight turns like a switch. Through those tall windows pours an almost metallic brightness, same kind that turns airplane wings white. I scan the room. For all the shit Kirby gets blowing millions building the place, I give him credit. The bartop’s one stretch of petrified wood and the high walls are sheeted in hammered copper. Everywhere gleams.
Squinting, I can glimpse the Interstate ribboning around the bay. Speeding cars crawl the stretch. That highway ends in breakwall and the fastest sunrise on earth. I imagine it as the opposite of Florida, with a flashbulb dawn going off and off with every blink, and colored sky. I will take it.
Over hours just like this one I’ve come to realize that for every town on Lake Michigan is a bar with someone looking for a reason to leave. I know their kind. Six months now I’ve had the route mapped and still haven’t gone, just watch the highway counting trucks and thinking how easy fast looks in slow motion.
The window panels flicker and Kirby’s SUV pulls up. He swings around, opens the restaurant door with his foot. Neon kicks.
“Well fuck,” he announces, “what a beautiful day to be hungover,” and drops into a seat at the bar.
“Rough night?” I ask.
“You know,” he says, “that was a word in Jack’s spelling bee?”
“What, hungover?”
“Fuck no.”
I laugh, but he’s already staring blank and copper. The sun is high and we cannot look away. He pushes back his barstool, doses out some top-shelf Herradura.
“Tequila and lime,” he toothpicks a fresh slice. “Only marriage I believe in.”
He downs it and coasts the shot glass my way, glittering tiny rainbows along the bartop. “Beautiful,” he says.
Then swaggers up into his office. I hear the deadbolt slide, thank god. Only once I walked in on him, head sideways and disappearing the powder off his laptop keys. If I could unsee that.
Outside, far-off gulls speckle the view, daytime constellations. I wonder if their shadows land huge below and swoop. That’s one way to track a hunt. I am trying not to remember crows when the entire room explodes, and all those shimmery walls go off reverberating, and my head between the cymbals—any second now everything is coming down, and all that flashes before my eyes is what I am already looking at. Then Kirby’s Wu Tang remix picks up. Surround sound. A pinkish mess floods my cutting board and I realize I’ve slipped the paring knife. I rinse my thumb beneath the bathroom faucet until the cut shows, thin as a splinter. I thought I’d halved the fingerprint at least.
Outside, far-off gulls speckle the view, daytime constellations. I wonder if their shadows land huge below and swoop. That’s one way to track a hunt. I am trying not to remember crows when the entire room explodes, and all those shimmery walls go off reverberating, and my head between the cymbals—any second now everything is coming down, and all that flashes before my eyes is what I am already looking at. Then Kirby’s Wu Tang remix picks up. Surround sound. A pinkish mess floods my cutting board and I realize I’ve slipped the paring knife. I rinse my thumb beneath the bathroom faucet until the cut shows, thin as a splinter. I thought I’d halved the fingerprint at least.
Back around the bar Kirby’s finishing off a round of oysters. They’re a forty-foot dive to harvest, lifeblood of the Mid-Coast. The same sort of rudimentary as so much of the industry up here. Down the white oaks, barge haul. You’re born with two hands for good reason, she said. I had let the conveyer belt vanish our luggage again.
“Cheers,” he tips a half shell into his mouth, swallows. “Why are you here anyway?”
“What?”
“Day off,” he says, “got that wine tasting tonight.”
To offset the winter tourist lull he books the place out sometimes. “Right,” I say, “what’s it for again?”
Kirby grins: “Bunch of rich people.”
I finish on the garnish, trash the scraps. And I’m getting my coat on again when he offers me a ride—there’s a par three over in Cheboygan he’s been meaning to hit, and some pop-up brewery selling hundred dollar six packs.
He turns his flat brim backwards. The grin’s fallen off his face.
“Jack is a little genius, I swear,” he says. “And I’m a piece of shit.” Between tracks those penny walls go still; the quiet just hangs.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, take him up on the lift.
The Rover glides us along a different route than mine. With the soundproof windows up, inside feels standstill while outside everything rushes. I watch the harborfront reel. A stretch of Dune Beach shows through the swinging gantry cranes. It appears almost the same as summertime, only bare. I spot a bunch of music notes floating the waves, black and tiny—winter surfers in their full bodysuits. I don’t linger on the truth.
We reach the drawbridge, Million Dollar Bridge, and the lever gates lowering. On the other side, highway turns to runway: smooth concrete into the sky. Kirby cranes a look at himself in the rearview, rubs his throat.
“I’ve been considering a neck tattoo,” he says, “but my mother already cried over the sleeve.”
His left arm’s a mosaic of coral and scales. It swims when he flexes and he’s been proud ever since. I sort of get it—I was raised at least to admire doing something with yourself. For a second I flashback to his decorated kids. Maybe we’re only let to do so much. Abruptly I laugh, nothing about him. A few feet away is a road to the universe and for months I haven’t noticed.
Below the water’s clear for the incoming tanker. Spills brought the law about for ships to idle in; those massive enough for 20 million gallons of crude oil and a few bomber planes on deck. I stare and wait. A miniature tug scrolls by, then the great double hull.
No planes.
The Rover stutters forward—Kirby budging the gas pedal within an inch of the gate arm. When we move zero to smooth sixty I down the window to know the speed. The cold’s ragged and alive, and I’m part of the rush. I stop him where my street begins.
“You sure?” he asks, but I’ve already swung the door.
“A neck tattoo,” I say, “would look terrible.”
He laughs across the passenger seat, switches the radio on country. Americana wails as he peels out; I wonder how long he’ll keep the window open.
This charcoal breeze kicks up quicker than I’m walking, but my eyes don’t water. Around high noon nothing lasts. Pretty soon I glimpse the house, same salt-beat wood as those pulled docks. Most places around here are sided that way, like off one mass shipwreck. And it’s alright, alright. All the sidewalks in Miami are bleached.
She notices me a beat ahead. I’m through the doorframe and she’s sitting in the kitchen as though we never left—only her facepaint’s washed and high boots on. A little tinge is left on her skin.
“You’re home early,” she sounds like I’ve walked in on her.
Down the hall I can see out the back door, not really what’s through it. My mouth is dry. I want to say the same but realize hunting hours don’t run through daytime; I’ve just never stuck around for her coming back.
“Confused the shift.” I take a seat. Up-close I realize her right eye’s actually blooming bluish where that paint used to be—I was seeing bruise. I lay the newspapers down, for a second try to scan the headlines for something new. Nothing sticks.
“Seriously, Mom?” I say. “You look after a fistfight.”
She sighs deep, looks at me. “Lost control of the kickback. Happens.” And for a split second we’re walking away from Nikons and Canons and into monotone sunlight, and I cannot explain how she’s different in the moment before it’s over. Then she goes right on browsing the front-page photographs.
“They’re widening the bridge,” she says, brighter, “did you know?”
I try to imagine what that looks like: you break the pieces down, you build them up again, greater, bigger. She triggers the birds and more fly in again, faster, bolder. I listen to her laugh, can’t say at what—maybe her imagining is something better. I stand so quick the table slides back a little. For a long second I see myself flipping it, and after the bang, spilled coffee soaking pages on the floor into a dark mâché.
“I’m leaving.” I suppose I really mean don’t follow, but why would she?
She smiles at me. “Does it matter,” she says, “that the New York Times is writing about the movies?” There’s a steaming mug in her hands I hadn’t noticed, but nothing I can call her out on. And for a second I’m stuck to move. When I finally turn heel, she’s still smiling. But it’s the shadow-painted face I’ll never shake.
Out back, I expect more crow and find it. The black heap’s doubled in size, but something is off about the bodies. Up close I realize it’s all gone to dust. A few eyes blink up at me. I can feel the residual heat of a put-out blaze. Only an hour ago, this smoldered. I lean over, pick out a whole beak. The bottom half immediately dissolves, but the top is hardened iron. I go to pocket it, find the Black Tickets—that beak proves better than a quarter, even lucky. I scrape the foil numbers for the fifty-dollar Auto Win.
I turn my back on the crows, what’s left, and she’s been watching out the back door all this time. I wander around to the Subaru in a blind spot. Maybe I’m looking for more bodies. To be honest, I don’t know. Nothing about her is accidental, and all that’s in the trunk is the rifle. I take it out, safety’s on, aim at a noise in a pine top just because. I want to feel urgency like fight. Then I notice the keys hanging in the ignition. Sunlight catches the metal. I take the front seat, start the engine.
I turn my back on the crows, what’s left, and she’s been watching out the back door all this time. I wander around to the Subaru in a blind spot. Maybe I’m looking for more bodies. To be honest, I don’t know. Nothing about her is accidental, and all that’s in the trunk is the rifle. I take it out, safety’s on, aim at a noise in a pine top just because. I want to feel urgency like fight. Then I notice the keys hanging in the ignition. Sunlight catches the metal. I take the front seat, start the engine.
It’s only after a good few miles out that I realize my fingertips kept some crow dust. In the rearview I swipe black marks beneath my eyes, see her reflection in the kitchen at dawn— the most beautiful thing that will ever haunt you. Then I’m watching the last of town behind me shrink. Even in the distance I can see the drawbridge raised. Somehow from this direction it appears completely different, like my front yard and the trees that could have been any trees. I’m not used to seeing them from the outside in. But I don’t worry about forgetting. Crow, boats. That rise, when Elsewhere there’s another just a few hours off. Only now am I starting to know the difference between having reasons and leaving.
I push the gas. My chest feels thin as tissue paper that my own pulse might tear on through. I’ve always wondered how that felt.
Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 10. View full issue & more.