Tag on the Papa Toe

He stood over the sink and tried to count how many teeth had been caught in the drain net, without actually having to remove the net. It was like guessing how many jellybeans were in a large glass jar at the county fair. He stood there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, stooping over slightly in his attempt to count all the teeth. 

He landed on the number nine. He removed the drain net from the sink and tipped the small net over so that the teeth scattered onto the kitchen counter. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten teeth. One off. A good guess, but not the right guess.

He scooped up the ten teeth into the open palm of his left hand, and he dumped the teeth into an open pocket of his jeans. He washed his hands under the tap and walked into the guest bathroom.

He flashed a smile in front of the mirror – two perfectly even rows of pearly whites. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his perfectly blonde hair, and ran them through several more times for good measure. He opened the medicine cabinet, located the painkillers, and popped two of the capsules into his open left hand. He looked at the two painkiller capsules and thought about the ten teeth, the ten teeth that were not so white as the capsules. He popped the two capsules into his mouth and swallowed them without water.

He left the front door open as he was leaving the house and didn’t bother to turn the front porch light off. He walked down the sidewalk to the intersection of 2nd and Market streets, and pretended like he was about to cross the road. The cars on all four sides were waiting for him to cross the road – he could practically feel the anticipation and the frustration emanating from all four cars on all four sides.

He took a few steps onto the road, that part of the road allocated for walkers and set by two clear white lines. Step with his right foot, step with his left foot, step with his right. Hands held out in front of him, like he was a blind man trying to find his way and making sure he wasn’t running into any walls or other obstacles. A few steps in, feeling the anticipation on all sides, the eyes so clearly on him, and then freezing. Freezing right there in his tracks. and then deliberately taking a few steps back, so that he was back onto the sidewalk. With his hands still stretched out in front of him.

The car closest to him jerked ahead and then stopped, quite clearly unsure of how to proceed. The man’s arms were so clearly thrust out and his knees were bent, his feet facing keenly forward, so that it appeared as if he might try and cross the road again, whether cars were moving and passing or not. And just as the car nearest to him moved, he also began walking towards the car, arms stretched out like a zombie, his footsteps quicker now that they were before, so that he almost touched the back bumper of the nearest car as it passed the intersection. The nearest car passed, and then the other three cars passed in their turns. He stood stock still in the middle of the crosswalk as they passed in their turns. He lowered his arms and stooped down, and then laid himself down flat on the pavement, in the middle of the crosswalk. Cars honked at him, and proceeded crossing in their turns while trying to avoid the man who had splayed himself out on the crosswalk. Cars continued to honk as each new set of cars came along and maneuvered around the man on the crosswalk as best they could. 

He laid perfectly still, flat as a board, on the sidewalk for nearly an hour.

At one point, a driver at the intersection got so frustrated that he stepped out of his car, walked over to the man in the intersection, and tried to forcibly move him away from the road. putting his hands on the man’s shoulders and trying to lift him up. It didn’t work – the man splayed out on the sidewalk was heavier and stronger than the man trying to pull him up. And no one else tried to help this angry driver in his efforts, so he eventually climbed back in his car, maneuvered around the body, and went on his way.

The police were eventually called – no surprises there. It caused a tremendous stacking of cars on all four sides. He tried to weigh himself down as much as possible –  make himself denser, more of the earth – so that the police had a hell of a time peeling him off the pavement and moving him into the back of the patrol car.

As they were driving him away, toward the police station and some type of fee they would slap on his wrist and record, he thought of his dear dead friend with the missing teeth, front teeth mainly. His dear friend being refrigerated in a box, tag on the papa toe, missing the ten teeth.

The ten teeth, not nine, hibernating in his pocket. The last vestiges of someone he knew, someone he had got along with rather well. As the policeman pulled him out of the car and led him toward the front doors of the station, they heard him muttering, “Bruise it til it heals…bruise it til it heals…”

They had no idea what he was talking about.