Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Boy-o-boy, it rained today!

Not enough to wet the dirt's spit, but at least it rained some. I got off my first submission today. It's for consideration for the William Richey Short Story Contest with The Yemassee Journal. That's the University of South Carolina's Literary magazine. I suppose it's a bit sentimental on my part. But it would be nice if my first professional recognition came from my home state and alma mater. I'll be submitting to College of Charleston's Crazyhorse Journal tomorrow.

If you would like to follow things beyond the development stages I workshop here on the blog, you can go to my EditRed page:

Rosie on EditRed

You can join for free and request to be one of my readers if you'd like access to the pieces I'm moving towards publication. Once I decide to move a piece in that direction, the roughs you enjoy reading here will be disappearing from the web. The early version of "The Dark Hole", for instance, is no longer available unless you are one of my EditRed readers.

Anyway...here's a bit more Porn and Donuts....

*************************************************

Dr. Jefferson was a dentist. More precisely he was a wizard with the pliers that the dental profession called extraction forceps. His clinic specialized in cheaply extracting teeth in an assembly line operation. For 50 dollars he’d extract one tooth and there was a 25 dollar charge for each additional tooth. When you left, he’d give you a script for 30 #10 hydrocodones and the antibiotic of your choice.

Lucius was there for the hydrocodone. He sat down in the cracked dental chair. All of the metal fittings in the office were either rusty or covered with a dull greasy film. The mirrored surfaces looked to be flecked with something that looked like spit. Dr. Jefferson breezed in quickly and applied the novacaine injections so quickly, Lucius didn’t have time to flinch.

Jefferson ripped off his gloves and delivered his parting shot as he scuttled off to his next victim.

“Meth mouth.”

“E’s ‘ot!” Lucius protested as his face was going numb. He was losing the ability to blink his right eye.

But Jefferson was already gone. Lucius had bad teeth, but they were bad from chewing assorted narcotics like they were Flinstones vitamins. He was particular about his addictive substances and eschewed the frantic joys of amphetamines for the mellow high of opioids. Those combined with a steady diet of Mountain Dew, pink creme-filled coco-choco snowball cakes and Milky Way Bars had done his teeth in before their time. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the tooth he was getting pulled today. He had already run out of bad teeth to pull.

He could see across the way into the next room. The girl, Kellie, was over there and all he could see were her legs from the thighs down, resting on the dental chair. They were kicking in that odd way when one is trying to stay still against every instinct that screams at you to flee.

“Aaargh…Aaar….Aaargh!” She gurgled, loudly.

Lucius found himself getting aroused and moved his coat to cover his lap. He tried to lick his lips but his tongue had gone numb. Soon the drumming of her feet stopped and Jefferson sailed out of the room, snapping off a pair of gloves.

Now it was Lucius’ turn and Jefferson was in his mouth and out in a matter of moments with a bloody tooth. The taste of iron and salt hit the back of his throat and a gauze pad was crammed in there. Jefferson was gone from the room by the time Lucius sat up.

Kellie was standing in the doorway with a handful of bloody gauze pressed to her mouth. Her face was flushed and her eyes were a bit too bright. They made their way up to the checkout desk together, each glancing shyly at each other with their frozen faces and bloody gauze wads.

They collected their hydro scripts and went to the pharmacy together. They had rarely been separated since. Somehow, they just knew they had found their other half.