I see the same man every day and the man looks like me. Or, he looks the way I would look if I were thirty years older and a man. Which is to say, he looks like my father–or how my father might have looked if he were still alive.
*
I see the man waiting for the bus outside my apartment window. I see him at the grocery store, at the laundromat, at cafes and coffee shops. I see him waiting in lines. I see him signing forms. I see him sitting on a park bench watching strangers. He is always alone. I am always alone, too.
*
I call my sister to tell her about the man. I leave out the part about him looking like me. She says, Did you get your meds refilled and when was the last time you saw your doctor? It sounds like she is eating potato chips.
*
My apartment sits above a dentist’s office. The dentist gives me a discount on my rent for answering the phones once a week. When the office closes, the dentist locks the door and says, Now let’s check those chompers. And I lay down in his chair while he puts his hands in my mouth.
*
One thing I remember about my father is his hands. His fingertips were so callused that when he touched me, it felt like he was wearing gloves.
*
Sometimes the man comes into the bakery where I work. I am not the baker. I clean up other people’s crumbs. I wipe up their spilled milk and put my hands all over their credit cards, their dirty cash.
*
The dentist once had a wife and a daughter, but all that is over now. He tells me about them when he checks my teeth. He says his wife drank too much wine and his daughter ate too many sweets. He keeps his hands in my mouth while he talks, and I don’t say a word.
*
Sometimes when I see the man, he is carrying a violin case and, I suppose, a violin.
*
My father played the violin. He tried to teach me, but my hands never got anything right.
*
After seeing the man every day for weeks, I have a hard time remembering what my father looked like. I have no photos of my father, but I dream of him often. When I dream of him now, I see the man’s face instead.
*
I dream I am playing cards with the man. He is winning. I have all the right cards, and I play each one exactly when he needs it.
*
The dentist says my teeth are a miracle. He says they’re so beautiful I don’t even deserve them.
*
My father had awful teeth. That’s one way I know we were different.
*
One day I see the man get on a bus. I get on, too. It is a line I’ve never been on before and I wonder where it will take me. I want to sit next to the man, but he props his violin in the seat next to him. I sit in the back of the bus.
*
One place I have never seen the man is at the dentist’s office. I would like to see him there. I wonder if he has good teeth.
*
My father died while he was playing the violin. One moment there was music filling the house, and the next, there was a crash and then silence.
*
On the bus with the man, we ride past the house where my father died. I feel my hands itching. I scratch and scratch, but they don’t stop itching. I am sure there is a bug on them, but there is nothing there. I look up and see the man’s violin case leaning against the window. It looks like it is dreaming about something.
*
The dentist asks me to dinner. He says he’ll give me a month’s free rent if I go with him.
*
My father always said the calluses on his hands were a sign of strength. He said the hard parts covered up the raw bits and that’s what gave him power.
*
I strain to see the man’s head from the back of the bus. All I can see is the sleek neck of his violin case. I can’t see its metal clasps, and I can’t see its handle, but I imagine the man wrapping his hands around it.
*
I call my sister. The phone rings and rings.
*
The dentist orders my dinner for me–chicken and pasta. I ask for a glass of wine, but he says wine is bad for my teeth. I drink only water. There is no dessert.
*
The man gets off the bus, and I follow him. He walks inside a music store. I stand outside and watch through the window as the man moves to the back of the store. He takes the violin out of the case and sits down.
*
After dinner, the dentist says it is time to floss my teeth. I lay back in his chair and he wraps a strand of floss around two fingers. I hear the snap of plastic, feel the pressure building. When he pulls the string out, it is lined with blood.
*
When my father died, the bow broke and cut his right hand.
*
I call my sister. I say, What do you remember about his hands? She says, Have you been taking your meds and when was the last time you talked to your doctor? I say, His hands, do you remember them? She says, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s someone in the background. I don’t know if she’s talking to them or to me.
*
Inside the music store window, I see my own reflection. Inside of that, I see the man sitting in a small metal chair playing the violin. I stand there for a long time watching us together like that.
Listen to the author read “Good Teeth”
Leslie Walker Trahan’s stories have been featured in The Forge and SmokeLong Quarterly, among other publications. She lives in Austin, Texas. You can find her on Twitter @lesliewtrahan.
“Good Teeth” is the winner of the 2020 Ryan R. Gibbs Award for Flash Fiction, judged by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint. Please see our contest page for more information.