Make Some Noise

A club. Better than a bottle, perhaps, but with none of the inherent dignity of a knife or a gun. He was also relieved of his watch and his shoes. All he remembered was a shuddering, painful darkness that descended on him as he walked down the sidewalk. The likely culprit? A pick-axe handle was what the combined expertise of the police and doctors divined. The assailant was never identified. The medical prognosis was that he would never walk again, broken jaw and his teeth were cracked in half. What the hell happened? Nothing could cut the pain. A year of keeping it at least a handful of pills away had now made it his constant companion.

A club. Why not? He just found out. There wasn’t enough time to throw a party together, but he wanted to celebrate, to make some noise. He would take an Uber or… a taxi. Money was no object. He could order top shelf. He could actually afford to buy a round or two of drinks. But he had been cautioned. The guy at the lottery office in Sacramento said he probably shouldn’t spread news of his good luck too far and wide and might even want to undersell it. Go out and have a blast, he had said, but just tell everybody that you won $5000 on the scratchers or something. Hell, he didn’t even have the money yet, but he had close to two grand in his savings account. Soon enough, that would be peanuts, but he wasn’t the kind to just throw money around. He’d invest in a decent property to live in, some kind of trust fund to live off and would have to find a suitable companion to live with. In order to do that, he would have to get cosmetic dental surgery. His personality was a “go,” but every time he smiled it was a “no.” He would treat himself to a new smile and a Rolex, but beyond that it would be moderation in all things so that he could live out the remainder of his life in peace.

A club. Being a patient of Dr. Hzu was like being a member of a club. Not just because of the exclusivity of his clientele, but because he was an artist of prosthetic dentistry. He could faithfully recreate what your mouth should look like or create the mouth of your dreams from scratch. Our hero’s mouth was in such poor repair that it would require the replacement of over sixty percent of his teeth. It had to take place over several weeks so that the jaw would have time to heal between surgeries and the pain was considerable, but enough painkillers were prescribed to last for a month. This made the experience bearable, but was ultimately his undoing. Once his last prescription had been exhausted, he was forced to procure his tolerance from unsavory sources. One, a few feet from where he took his last steps.