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Byrom Lighthouse Bush was involved in medical consultation with an oral surgeon he thought a little on the sadistic side with his giggling whenever he spoke of pain but Byrom waved this fear aside as he thought of his father "The Old Warrior" who had insisted during their last visit that, indeed he was afraid, Byrom needed a set of upper dentures: "For a man without a smile has as much luck in finding a position as a nigger - unless he be a supreme court justice and one of our in house plantation folk who gives off lies while smiling with his pearly white teeth - has of being asked to a join one of our country clubs in my great United States of America!" Those words among many others were said the week before when Byrom visited him after his brief stint on the Great Lakes after a ship went down with all seaman lost just thirty miles from them and told him he had lost his ninety-fifth position due to being fired by a French Canadian first mate whose father had probably been a Vichy collaborating with the nazis but this only brought on a whiter shade of pale of disdain on his father's face as he defended the French who had not surrendered but had signed an armistice so in essence were friends with the Germans who were only trying to shape a one world order .... Byrom reluctantly opened his mouth allowing the dentist's worm-like fingers to probe inside and felt like when he was in his father's presence and could not allow what he wanted to say to escape from the grip of his impediment which had him faltering with the first word being smothered to incoherence as it was now trying to answer the doctor's question while his cheeks were braced against the wall. After his mouth was freed Byrom asked - using his speech therapist's suggestion he whistle before saying a word that began with a consonant making sure he used enough words beginning with vowels which he had no difficulty saying; having on its surface an aspect of coherence - if he could have a golden plate that would enrich his smile even more but Doctor Dole, suspecting Byrom couldn't even afford the price of a filling after Byrom had shown him medical coupons, that he really wasn't interested in taking on that kind of work. He laughingly called Byrom "Whistling Man". After Byrom told him that his father a retired chemist who had graduated from Cornell - one of the most elite schools in the East and he belonged to "The Eye of the Owl in the Face of the sphinx secret Society" that was just as potent as Yale's "Skull and Bones" which was also planning a better world for the riff-raff only charging them their freedom - was paying a third of the bill did the doctor become interested in Byrom as a for real paying customer but pushed aside his ridiculous notion of a golden denture by telling Byrom of the two teeth that were "copulating" under the same section of gum and so before any grandiose idea could begin he would have to remove one of them to prevent them from continuing to bump uglies in his mouth that might very well be the cause for his speech impediment and he promised on the graves of all the prophets it would involve "very very little pain!" The doctor giggled into his hand; a hand that Byrom had wondered as to where it had been after seeing the great looking red-headed assistant who kept dropping instruments and wiping them off on her skirt - after saying: "Oh, shit!" Byrom didn't like the second "very" especially since the good doctor was going to be working close to his eye nerve and if he slipped a fraction, Byrom would become a one-eyed photographer dashing his latest aspiration. He could see himself trying to make out in a dimly lit bar as music was playing softly in the background while he in a suave way looked up to the woman sitting above him; adjusted his Moshe Dayan eye patch before saying: "(Whistle) want (whistle) to (whistle) make out?" No matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop himself from imagining her saying: "Fuck off - you one-eyed nazi gasohol!" as she hunched her shoulders in coquettish way far forward while banging her drum slowly .... Byrom climbed out of the chair attempting to use a seaman's masculine movements and brushed away some nonexistent lint from his ten year old Brook Brothers' suit his father gave him which he wore when he wanted to make a good impression and jokingly said: "(Whistle) some advocate using one eye (whistle) when operating a (whistle) single (whistle) lens (whistle) reflex (whistle) camera." "Does this mean you won't let me separate the one tooth inside the other, Mr. Byrom?" Byrom told him he would let him know as he was going to rural Ohio where a militia was stationed to oust non-Christian like people and consult with his father. He left unsaid that he doubted "The Old warrior" would pay for both procedures recalling his father's often said words: "Money is everything! It defines a person's worth! The more one has - the more worthy he feels and can push away any and all feelings of disgusting inferiority!" Byrom walked to his second hand big gas guzzling ten year old car, his brother Stephen gave him after his congregation of white Baptist owners of large farms in rural Mississippi wondered how he could afford such an expense on what the church fathers were paying him, asking himself as to who would want to wear a patch? He could see himself on a knoll at Kent State attempting to shoot pictures of another college student massacre while wearing his patch. Damn, he had been only five miles away from that scene where the crying girl was draped over the dying student. If he had shot that picture he would have become famous and his father would have been delighted he had captured such a winning picture; firmly believing like his father that all those who spoke against his great country should be put away into concentration camps and at last the Old Warrior would have been proud of him and not ashamed of a son who was in search of a proper smile. If he had to have one - and he agreed totally with the Old Warrior who had never given up his fight for a great one world order that it was indeed a necessity in a world of ignorance - he wanted the world to see a golden plate glistening in the sun and not a half-blind man wearing a patch over what was once a good Jack London eye. "Whistle) no (whistle) thanks (whistle) Mister Oral (whistle) surgeon," Byrom had whispered as he hid a smile behind a trembling hand. The dentist's stern statement was similar to the one his father often wore when he was administering his punishment on six year old Byrom for having accomplished his fifth nasty dirty infraction while he burned the boy's palm with the wooden match that made him fall into a heap into his father's legs and then onto the floor to lie still. Very very still. END
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