The Antebellum

Brian had finally done it – he had tried to open a bottle of beer with his teeth, and just like that, in one brief second of pain and surprise, he had chipped one of his incisors. He wasn’t that dumb; he knew not to attempt getting the cap off with just his teeth. Instead, he had worked it almost all the way off with the bottle opener, and as his left hand was holding a tray of bread and cheddar on the way from the kitchen to the sofa, he had brought the bottle up to his mouth and softly bit on the cap to pop it off. Except he had only worked it almost all the way off the bottleneck, and it resisted his jaw enough to take a piece of his tooth with it – a chip off one of the teeth Brian, like everyone else, brushed more than the others, because they were so front-and-center.

The worst thing about it was, Dee had warned him against opening, holding, and pulling on things using his teeth.

“Didn’t your parents teach you not to do that?” she would say. “Every dentist will tell you that it’s the worst thing you can do to your teeth.”

“My parents’ advice is usually not too good,” he said, “and teeth chew through very challenging stuff all the time. How’s opening a plastic bag by biting through it going to harm the enamel? I chew through steak and beef jerky with these.” He added, “Well, back when I ate meat, I used to.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Dee said.

Brian put the tray down and headed for the bathroom. There was not much pain in his jaw. For a second he thought that maybe he hadn’t chipped anything at all. Maybe the sensation had been that of a piece of the cap breaking off.

He thought he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hallway mirror, and the reflection had a strange, uneven look to it. The tooth – it must have been obvious even at such a brief glance. Brian walked in the bathroom and looked up at the mirror very slowly. His lips were tightly shut now, tongue pressed against the roof of the mouth. He didn’t dare look just yet. The reflection may have been just his imagination. It wasn’t so much that he saw it, but that he saw himself seeing it. He would know as soon as he parted his lips and looked – not yet, though.

His tongue flicked up on its own and touched the sharp hole on the outside of his front-right tooth. It felt like a spiky rock, pointy and unpredictable, and he pulled back the nervous tongue quickly. Ok then, he said to the mirror, it won’t just go away. The mouth opened crookedly and revealed the asymmetrical tooth right away, missing a squarish piece in a very clear, very visible way. A rock sank in his gut and after a cold minute, Brian accepted this development now. As soon as he did that he couldn’t look at the damaged tooth closely enough, inspecting it for other cracks, bits that may yet break off, judging the size of the hole and finding it to be anywhere between “tunnel-like” and “no big deal” as his comprehension swung between the unimportance and the permanence of the injury.

It wasn’t going to kill him. But it was not fixable as far as he could tell. It would eventually be like any other scar. But it was in such an unfortunate place, and it didn’t come with a cool story the way most scars did. There was no real pain, but it bothered his tongue which also meant he would probably have to have it filed down even further. It was just a chipped tooth. But Dee had warned him about it.

Dee was going to be at Brian’s place in less than an hour, and he had forgotten what he was going to cook after his cheese snack. It was Friday, and nothing could be done about the tooth now, so he decided to focus on getting through the evening.

She was going to find out - no if or but about it. His fabulous, know-it-all girlfriend of six months was going to see his freak grin tonight and they were going to spend that evening, Saturday morning at breakfast, and random times that weekend discussing how it had happened and what could be done. She was going to be supportive - after a while, anyway - but she had quite clearly and seriously cautioned him against messing with his damn teeth and hard objects.

The first time she told him he had a nice smile Brian was still in his low-self-esteem phase. He rolled his eyes, but he smiled, and she smiled at his smile. “Your eyes are very pretty, too,” she said.

“Girls always say that. That, or how smart and friendly I am.”

“Do they, now?” she said.

“I mean if – if they give me a compliment at all. The few that do, that’s what they say - it’s always about my eyes and wits.”

“Instead of talking about what?” She wasn’t taking it seriously, and he realized that he no longer was either.

“I don’t know. My pecs.” And again with the smile.

He made a tomato sauce with peas and burgundy wine (tonguing the chipped tooth constantly) and he had started boiling water for pasta in a large pot when he heard the sound of a car downstairs. He peeked through the blinds over the kitchen window and saw Dee walking out of her car carrying a tall paper bag.

She looked amazing. Brian didn’t felt comfortable with the word “beautiful” because it reminded him of flowers and vases and calendars instead of live people. Dee would constantly amaze him regardless of how attractive or plain she looked. She would say sad things and negative things and they would still fill him with respect and awe. The way she carried that paper bag that evening – it was so unlike the way anyone else carried a paper bag.

With the sauce off the heat, the plates and forks out, and the water still a few minutes from boiling, Brian’s mind raced as he looked out the window. He needed to do something to keep Dee’s attention off his face. A quick scan of the living room gave him no ideas, and he headed for the bedroom. There were a few hats on the junk table, but those were no good. Wrong end of the head, he thought. Headbands, bandanas, tennis balls, a Japanese paper fan (too silly), belts, bungee cords, and… A-ha!

An Eric-the-Viking beard, left over from Halloween. It was brick-red and bushy, with a hanging walrus moustache. Brian grabbed it and ran to the bathroom again, slapping the rubber band around his head and behind his ears. It had looked good on him at Halloween. He’d thought of growing out a beard afterward, though one not as extreme. Now it seemed to him like he couldn’t grow it long and unruly enough. The moustache covered his upper lip completely. Even when he smiled, the curly polyester hairs hung over his teeth and distracted from everything else.

There was a knock at the door. Brian answered it almost jubilantly.

“Aye, greetings!” he did his best to roar.

Dee didn’t waste any time on shock; she just laughed. He loved that about her.

“Well, aye to you too, sailor. Or lumberjack.”

“Step in, step in,” Brian said.

“I forgot my wench outfit, I’m afraid.”

“No matter, dear lass. As the poet said, "whatevz.”

She walked into the kitchen and took a bottle of wine out of the paper bag. “I got a Spanish this time, is that alright?” She stood with her back to Brian, fiddling with wine glasses. He did something he knew wasn’t wise.

“Hey,” he said as he slipped his hand around her waist and faced her. They kissed.

“Hey,” she said, scratching her chin. “So, what are you cooking tonight?”

She didn’t notice anything. He was safe.

They spent a few minutes setting up the table and Dee talked about her day at work. Most people complain about their co-workers or their boss, and even when there’s nothing to complain about, they find something – the commute, or the weather. Dee would point things out and sometimes they were negative, but it never sounded like kvetching.

The tooth was no longer bothering Brian so much. His tongue was getting used to the uneven surface. In fact, the fake beard was bothering him more – he had forgotten how itchy and hot it could get. He must have scratched it a little too much, because during dinner Dee said, “You should probably take it off while we eat. You don’t want peas all over your Grizzly Adams.”

Brian thought about coming up with some jokey excuse. Nothing seemed to fit, though, so he took off the beard and put on his best tight-lipped smile. He had to scratch his chin and cheeks now, and that covered up his teeth pretty well.

“What was the beard about, anyway?” Dee said.

“Nothing… Just a goofy thing that’s been sitting around for months. How’s the penne?”

“Excellent. Eee-xcellent,” she repeated, fingers coming together before her face in mock menace.

“Woo-hoo!” Brian exclaimed, only half-mockingly. They both chuckled.

“Hey, you’ve got a piece of something on your teeth,” Dee said.

Brian brought a hand up to his mouth. He ran fingers over his teeth as if searching for a piece of basil he knew wasn’t there.

“I think I’ll go floss it out. It seems stuck,” he said.

Dee drank more wine and read the label on the bottle.

With the red beard off, the chipped tooth now stood our more than ever. I look like a Bubba, Brian thought, standing in the bathroom again. He had locked the door. Dee would probably find it odd that he would need that much privacy just to floss. Even if she didn’t get suspicious about whether he was really flossing, it seemed a distrustful thing to do.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said through the door.

A second later, that seemed like a very dumb move. Why was he reminding her that he might be taking care of other business in here? He hoped she couldn’t hear him in the other room.

“What’s that?” she said.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

Brian looked at the tooth again. Stupid tooth and stupid beer bottle! If only he could go back and open the bottle safely, like a normal person. He would have his snack, make dinner without a worry, and enjoy every moment of the evening with Dee. Awesome Dee. She didn’t deserve this stupidity – her boyfriend holed up in the bathroom, lying about flossing, holding a fake beard in his hand. Afraid to walk out and face her, and even when he gathered the courage to do so – which he would, eventually – he would give her the gift of a forever misshapen smile. All because of a bottle of beer he didn’t even like. It was just so dumb!

Things would be better after a while, of course. They would both learn to live with it, and Dee was not the type to bring up her warning to him as a way of winning some argument later on. In fact, she would probably show him some unexpected way of dealing with it, as she always did with things. He just had to get over the initial discomfort of the revelation. What if he could just wake up to it, go not backward but forward in time, to when the chipped tooth was no longer an issue?

Yes, yes, what if. But for now he still just stood in place, separated by a locked door from his girlfriend. This was no way to go on, hiding in his bathroom, afraid to open his mouth. He’d get out any minute now – no moment was better than another, right? Waiting would only make it more awkward.

Stupid, stupid Brian!