As I Lie Trying

GREG

I come up from the parking lot. The dentist building is low, crabbed like a dyspeptic ghost of future memories. I enter the lobby. Mama isn't there. The nurse tells me she'll lead me to her.

"Can't I wait out here?"

"No," she say, with a smile of fading precision.

Between walls displaying escutcheons of coruscating mouths, I'm led to the surgeon's operating room. And there he is, the surgeon, standing snow-white and abstemious, the living integer of proud mammalian rectitude. Mama's back is to me. Her fluffy hair is edged in gold, the shadows all around a web of smooth undulations bespeaking the contumelious ardor of life. I am drunk.

Eighteen teeth extracted. The drill most likely sounded like an adze, and hurt like burning hell. The surgeon looks at me. The nurse chirps in brittle bright tones.

"The unveiling!" they say. "The unveiling!"

Mama is slowly turned. I lean against the wall, to gather myself. I don't want to be there. I'm just there to pick her up and take her home. Why are they making be there? I don't want to be there. I long to be somewhere else, not there. I long to play basketball. To

                                                                        Chuck.      Chuck.      Chuck.

the ball at the basket.

MAMA

Where are my sons? Here I am getting new teeth and no one cares. My sons Greg, Les and Mike. Today is Thursday. The nice surgeon holds up fingers. How many? Three. Three sons. Where are they? Why does no one love me? But the surgeon is a good, sweet man. His name is Dr Something. The ether is making my head swim. My mouth feels like a coffin in there. The good surgeon reassures me. Everything will be all right.

I wish he was my son.

LES

Needed money for them new teeth. Lonely woman, lonely with her pride. Needs a man, so I tell mama. A tragedy in my comedy like peanut butter in my chocolate.

I hitch up my Adidas overalls. Going to rain before morning. Lousy Nuggets.

When I gives her the check she cried right fierce. She wept and cried when I gives her the check. Here's the check, mama, I said. Then she cried buckets. Because of the check I give her. Tears came like dogs and cats. A flood. My daughter Toots was almost drowned in them tears.

What's a metaphor?

TOOTS

Pa, I said. Pa! I tell him I want to see granny. And I'm sick of cleaning the outhouse. And the scarlet letter sucks.

GREG

Turns, turns. Mom turns in the chair. The surgeon grins.

"The unveiling!" he say.

"Goody," I say.

Slowly mama turns around in the chair. She has been instructed to smile big for me. Her face is swoled like a hoghead melon. Black and vermilion and oxblood like the dimming clarion for the fallen Confederacy. I gasp. Mama looks up at me. She smiles, cheeks lumped and stretched like a syphilitic harlequin. Threads of blood depend from her mouth.

"Isn't she beautiful?"

"Uh......."

Cooing, the nurse takes out the bottom teeth. I see the bloody sockets.

The horror, the horror.

MAMA

If it's a judgment it ain't right. The Lord will protect me. And smite those who are wicked. Like my children.

My teeth hurt like the durn.

"I must feed Bingo when I get home," I say as my odd son drives me home. "I must feed Bingo. Bingo needs to be fed. Poor Bingo, that poor dog. He needs to be fed."

"Yes, mama."

"Poor Bingo. He needs to be fed."

Bingo needs to be fed. He needs food. He needs to be fed right proper.

GREG

I drive. Mama asks me do I believe in the Lord? No, I do not, I say.

"That will be a judgment on you," says mama, with her teeth in her mouth. The bottoms do a jig on her jaw.

"I hate these durn things. Will I ever eat food again?"

"Of course, mama."

It's a judgment, says mama. She talks more about the Lord. And sin. We all of us are sinners. I talk about free will and determinism.

"You are a strange boy," says mama.

"Yes, mama."

"Ronald Reagan was an atheist," says mama.

"Oh?"

"Junior, I mean. How sad."

How sad, mama murmurs.

LES

Red Lobster will be good for mama. I reckon she can at least eat some soft crab. But Greg has a witch look in his eye. He don't care for the Lobster. That's too bad. Mama like the soft crab. She got them new teeth.

TOOTS

"Stop speaking in big words, uncle," I say. "You sound like a snob."

"Me a snob?" say uncle. "Heaven forfend, my child."

WAITER

That mama is a fish--because of all the crab she et.

I hope I get a big tip.

GREG

I sit back, luxuriating in that supremely gutful lassitude of nothingness. The conversation around me is mere words to shape a lack. Yes, lack. That apotheosis of inviolate recidivism, spurned by the High Prince himself--Father. Why, father? I said. I do not hate him. I do not. I do not hate him. I look up. People scream. People run from smoke, furious flames. Someone set the Red Lobster on fire!!

How awful. Stay safe out there, folks.

MAMA

Glad I got my new teeth. We went through flood and fire to get them. The Lord tests us all. But now my son is getting the help he needs. Les laughs and says tee hee farm. The laughing academy. It's not funny, I tell him. He warn't in his right mind when he set fire to thet Red Lobster. Ha, ha, say Les. SHH! I shush at him. It's never not ever funny.

We visit him in his new room. Clean and nice. Hopefully they give my wayward child some good Bible larning.

GREG

They come to visit me. The walls are nice and soft. So is the food. I guess I don't even need my own teeth. The ex-cruciating irony of it all.

Mama stands before us. Les, Toots, Cee. Mama holds Bingo in her arms. She wears her finest dress,  and a long gold necklace. Her teeth shine.

"Everyone," she says, kind of hangdog and proud too. "I married my sweet Bingo this morning." She holds up Bingo, who wears a black bowler with a string. He growls at me. "Meet Mr Johnson."