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| Author: |
Tony O'Neill |
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Tony on How Maria Lost Her Tooth: “This one is one of those weird stories that came out of nowhere. I always watch the people who dress up in goofy costumes outside Mann’s Chinese Theater and wonder what goes on in their private lives. I recall once seeing a dwarf dressed in a Chucky (Child’s Play) costume cursing out a tourist who tried to pick him up without asking permission first. The tourist kicked the dwarf and ran away, leaving Chucky laid out on the sidewalk.”
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| Submission Date: |
| 15 Jan 2010 |
Category: |
Short story
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In Podcast and Chap-book
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How Maria Lost Her Tooth
At four o'clock Charlie Chaplin walked into The Frolic Room, on Hollywood Boulevard. He pushed the door open, bathing the startled afternoon drinkers in vicious white light. They screwed up their faces and blinked with eyes long used to beer light and cathode hum, then looked away until the door fell shut again. Chaplin adjusted to the gloom and sucked in the cool, stale air. His shirt was undone at the collar, the bow tie hanging askew, crushed hat in his hand, and his tattered jacket slung over his arm. His white face was melting away at the forehead, patches of pink dissolving through the pallor, the exposed neck and throat a different hue than the face.
Chaplin didn't raise any eyebrows as he shuffled across the bar and pulled up a stool next to a pock marked old Indian with hair down to his ass. The Indian was reading last week’s LA Weekly and nursing a beer. Chaplin ordered a Budweiser and a shot of bourbon, carefully placing his crushed hat in a beery pool. The girl returned with the beer and the bourbon. Chaplin raised the smaller glass to his lips and drained it in one defeated flourish, sliding it back over towards her. He motioned for a refill, and dug through his baggy pant pockets for a crumpled twenty. He placed it on the bar as she brought him another.
The barfly to Chaplin's right watched as he drained the second shot glass in the same manner that he had the first. He slammed the glass down, and quietly rested his head in his hands. “Arugh,” breathed Chaplin.
“Wass with the costume, man?” the barfly asked.
Chaplin turned and stared at him. He stared at the barfly for several seconds without blinking. His look wilted the barfly, who returned to his paper without another word. Chaplin raised his pint glass to his lips and took a long drag from it; sucking the beer down, down, down in a practiced, languid movement. He replaced the frothy pint glass on the bar and burped. He collected his change, and left his hat and two dollars at the bar. As he stalked out, the bar was momentarily thrown into light once more.
When the darkness returned the barfly nodded at the hat and said to the bar girl “That guy forgot his hat.” When she didn't respond, he picked up the hat and punched the inside of it, knocking it back into a semblance of its original shape. He placed the bowler hat on his head, and continued with his beer and his paper.
*
After the second knock, Maria put an eye to the peephole. She saw Manny standing there (for that was Chaplin's real name), disheveled and sweating in his ridiculous get up. She undid the chain lock and opened the door.
“What's the matter with you?” she said, “You get fired or something?”
“Yes. Very perceptive.”
He walked straight past her and into the apartment. He opened the fridge. There was a single can of Schlitz left, sitting next to a carton of leftover ramen noodles. He opened the can, and took a slug.
“I hope you're gonna replace that beer, motherfucker.” Maria said, without humor.
“Fuck off, baby, I had a hard day.”
*
“So what happened? You show up drunk again?”
“No. I only had one drink. To steady my nerves. I needed a drink. So would you if you had to go out there and demean yourself for beer money.”
“What, so your boss smelled it on you? Old Mr French finally booted you for showing up drunk?”
“Nothin’ like that,” Manny snorted. “He didn’t smell shit on me.”
This was true. He had bought a quarter bottle of Russian prince vodka and a pint of orange juice, downing it all in the sick, morning sunlight, before walking over to Mann’s Chinese Theater. At the Theater his job was to pose with the fat tourists from Arkansas and Delaware who swarmed around the boulevard like flies on shit. After he’d finished the drink he had chewed on a clove of garlic to mask the smell. An old drinkers’ trick. After you chew on the clove, nobody will want to get close enough to smell the booze on you.
“So what went on?”
“I was attacked. Some fucking nigger pushed me, so I clocked him. The next thing I know Mr French is ranting and raving about calling the cops, and I’m booted.”
“He attacked you.” Maria repeated.
“Yeah, you deaf or something?”
“Out of the blue. Totally unprovoked, some guy just attacks you.”
“I stepped on his foot. I tried to apologize, but he started getting in my face, showing off in front of his girlfriend. I guess he was wearing Nikes or whatever else it is those people put on their fuckin’ feet. He wouldn’t listen to reason. Then the prick shoved me. He knocked my hat off and stamped on it. I had to hit him! It was self defense…”
“Bullshit!”
“Huh?”
Manny looked up, startled by the sound of Maria's voice. He had been so caught up in his own story that it was as if she hadn't even been there anymore.
“Manny... how long have I known you?”
“I...uh...”
“Five years? Six? “
“Sure, but what-”
“Then don't give me fucking fairy tales, Manny. Save that for your fucking probation officer! I know you. You were drunk, right?”
“No!”
“Kiss my ass, 'no'! You were drunk. You just told me you’d had a drink before you showed up for work.”
“One drink! My nerves can’t take it otherwise.”
“One drink. Uh-huh... So you show up fuckin’ sauced, and then you attack some black kid because he looked at you funny. Again. ”
“No! It wasn't like that at all! He attacked me! It was a RACIAL attack!”
“Racial! All I hear out of your mouth is nigger this, nigger that, and you have the nerve to claim this kid attacked you because he was a racist? You're the most racist person I know!”
“I am not racist! I just call a spade a spade!”
“No you don't, Manny. You call 'em fucking niggers, and you know it!”
“Ah, there's no talking to you!”
Manny drained the can, sat on the bed and started pulling his shoes off.
“What you doing?”
“Taking my shoes off.”
“No you ain't. You're going to the liquor store and getting more beer. You finished the last one!”
“We'll drink wine.”
“I finished the wine.”
“Then we'll drink whiskey!”
“I finished the whiskey too. Now go to the store. You got any dinero?”
Manny started cursing and pulling crumpled bills out of his pocket. Maria counted through them, stuck the majority of the money in her bra, and handed Manny a twenty.
“Go get a bottle,” she said.
“You really finished the whiskey too?”
Maria nodded.
“Jesus Christ.”
Manny pulled off the outfit, changing into a plain white t-shirt stained with grease and full of holes. He slinked out of the apartment reluctantly. Maria went over to the mirror and started applying her makeup. She was in her 40s but life had taken a hard toll on her. Her face was spider-webbed with broken blood vessels and swollen in the manner of those who drink every day. While she loathed Manny, and learned to fear his drunken rages, she loved him too. They both clung to each other, even as their weight dragged each other down under the surface.
*
It happened later, after he had returned from the liquor store, and they were both sat silently drinking and smoking in their underwear. Her tits flopped lifelessly against her corrugated torso, nipples pounding towards the threadbare carpet in a lifeless fashion. When she was drunk enough, Maria stood and walked over to where Manny was sitting. He had tried to wash the shit off of his face, but he still looked pasty and strange. Maria was drunk enough to ignore it. She asked Manny, “So you gonna fuck me, Charlie?” Manny put down the glass and said, “Sure.”
He needed something to take his mind off the idea that he would be back to walking the streets tomorrow, trying to figure out a gig that would make money in the short term. This world was so ugly, so pointless. He took another swig, draining the glass. “Come here,” he grinned and Maria straddled him, pinning him under her soft, meaty legs.
“I love you, Manny...” she whispered, breathing alcohol fumes softly into his face. He grunted his acquiescence as he started kneading her soft tit.
*
“Don't look at me that way!” Manny hissed
“What way?”
They were on the bed, naked. Maria was looking at Manny with a detached expression, and Manny could not stand it. She had refilled her glass, and sipped at it silently. His limp, lifeless penis was between them, small and useless.
“Maybe you drank too much?” she said, softly.
“Don't talk to me!”
Maria shrugged, “Hey don't take it out on me. It's not my fault you can’t get it up. Maybe you're getting too old, Charlie... past your peak.”
Manny closed his eyes, and visualized taking the glass from her hand and crushing it into her face. Shoving the broken shards in there, turning her face into hamburger meat. He groaned again and repeated it, almost a mantra this time. “Don't... talk... to... me...”
“Okay. Okay.” Maria watched him, his face collapsed in, eyes closed, breathing softly. On the television they were talking about elections and bombs. The same old song, over and over. Maria sniggered to herself a little, choking it down inside of her throat. Manny opened a single eye, and looked at her with a lizard’s calm.
'What?”
Maria shook her head quickly, and said nothing.
“I said what is it, Maria? What’s so fucking funny?”
Maria's face grew hard and she stared Manny down. Then a smile, which betrayed no humor, cut itself into her face. “I was just thinking,” she said, “That it's the story of my life. I think I'm getting the great dictator,” she said, pointing to his limp penis, “and instead I get the little tramp.”
And that is how Maria lost her tooth.
One of Tony’s favourite youtube videos: HOWLIN' WOLF - Backdoor Man
Stand-out lyric: “Well the men don’t know / but the little girls understand”
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