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Jeff’s toothache was, it seemed, worse today. Jeff held his aching jaw and moaned. His sister, Tara, visiting for the week, tutted and asked if she could help.
Jeff recalled that a dentist had set up shop down the street, and that Jeff had intended at one point to go anyway. They decided Tara would drive Jeff to the dentist’s office and see him in, but then she would absolutely need to go back to see what her friend (whose name Jeff could not retain) needed, because she kept texting. And Tara needed the car.
Jeff agreed immediately and without reservation. The pain in his jaw clamped down and shook him like a wolf worrying a rag. There is no leverage like a toothache, as the Sage has been known to say. Tara, undeterred, continued asking. Anyway, she said, Jeff owed her from the time when, six years ago, Tara had let Jeff borrow her sunglasses. It was so sunny, she recalled, and Jeff was as desperate as a human could be, did he remember?
And, although he absolutely did not remember that, and was incensed at the idea that borrowing a car and borrowing sunglasses were even in the same sentence, much less the same category of favor, Jeff agreed with fulsome might. Each pump of his heart sent knives into the underside of his sinuses. Tara continued.
Didn’t Jeff, really, owe Tara the occasional use of the car? He traded that old blue jeep for this car, and the blue jeep was a hand-me-down from their aunt who had a stroke and could no longer drive, and was supposed to be their car through high school and college, so it was really half hers anyway, so wasn’t this car also perhaps somewhat hers?
A tear slowly crawled out of Jeff’s eye to get away from the hell inside his skull. Jeff stopped short of offering to sign the car over, but agreed with her in no uncertain terms. Yes, at least, very much so. Jeff knew very well that the old blue jeep had burned up and there was no trade-in. This was a car purchased clear by him. And yet, the angry box of bees and spitting serpents that perched cruelly atop his neck bobbed and nodded agreement and assiduously agreed, yes, anything. Tara continued.
Had Jeff considered anyway, that he might just offer to let her use the car, on a whim, from time to time, her being his only sister and all? Sometimes, she reminded him, you do nice things for family just because they’re family, and you don’t need a firmer place to stand or a longer lever to move that particular world. The rest of what she said was drowned out by the thudding of blood in his ears as he stood. He pressed the keys into her hands, smiled as best he was able, and told her to have a good time. The edges of the world got dark and swam.
She continued asking his back as he walked out the door. Didn’t he owe her unsingable friend, too? Hadn’t she come to his birthday party and brought him those two lovely sparkling-
Jeff shouted a cottony “love you” as the door slammed behind him. The office was six blocks, not far, a mere hop.
The day was lovely and entirely lost on Jeff. Beautiful chill breezes had been carried in on the wings of a storm that brushed across the face of the earth like a lover. A soaking wet lover, perhaps, who occasionally perfumed the air with lightning crepitation, but who are we to judge our mother’s choice of amorous partner?
The cool air felt good to him, momentarily numbing his throbbing jaw. Jeff turned left and began to trudge toward the main road. The first block almost ended him. Jeff found he despaired of ever being anywhere. The idea of physical motion through an uncaring and antagonistic universe tore away any resolve he might have once felt.
Jeff found that he was counting steps. As each foot bounced off the pavement and the tinnitic ring shot up in his ear, he worked his way through the soup of real space. Two steps for each painful line in the sidewalk. Thirty steps put him past a house. Two hundred steps and he was to the edge of a block.
Two more blocks along and one thousand counts later, the streets widened. He turned left again. Some immeasurable eternity, eight thousand counts and four blocks later, he saw the building. It was a squat white brick of an office, clearly built to house a tax preparer as awkwardly as a law firm.
The sign at the curb was a crisp white and blue. It said “Your Dentist,” with a logo resembling either grinning teeth or a small anvil. The text was reduced to a blur of pain. Under that was written two words. “Doctor Jeff.” Jeff found the momentum within himself to be mildly amused at the reflection. His eyes unfocused and the world twisted around his poor, mad mandible. The two words, while remaining two words, somehow became “Doctor You have traveled far and will find a home on a river where left undisturbed a great villain will rise from ashes of the damned to laugh at your meager accomplishments.” Then, back to “Doctor Jeff.”
Jeff shivered and went inside. Ten steps across the parking lot. Fifteen steps to the door. Three steps inside.
Two steps across the disinfected air of the waiting room to the desk. One step to the left as an unseen shadow seemed to sweep past Jeff and push him off his feet. Zero steps as the pain inside his jaw joined the pain outside it with a crack and a thump.