Fonny Boy had a lot to think about and it was time to head home for supper. He walked out of the storage room, shutting the door hard to make sure the dentist heard him leave, and failing to inform him that water and a tray of food would be delivered momentarily. Fonny Boy felt a pinch of guilt as he got on his bicycle and pedaled away from the clinic, still working on "Yankee Doodle." Maybe he should have been a little kinder to Dr. Faux and told him food and drink were on the way. Maybe he should work harder to do what he had been taught in church, but getting involved in military and mutinous activities sharpened Fonny Boy's edge.
He felt a bit feisty and in a mood to commit mischief and mayhem. He played his harmonica loudly and rode his bicycle faster than usual, speeding up full tilt when he crossed the two painted lines on Janders Road. Fonny Boy pumped furiously through chilly air and moonlight, scarcely acknowledging his aunt Ginny, who was headed to the clinic in a golf cart.
"Heee!" she called out to him as they passed each other in the road. "Doncha play the juice harp in the evening! You gonna drive the neighbors star-crazy!"
Fonny Boy tooted out a loud, rebellious reply and wished he hadn't swallowed the cotton again. Last time, it had clogged him up for a week, moving through his guts and criks with the slow purpose of a glacier until finally working its way out when he was in the bateau with his father, not a toilet or land in sight.
When Ginny walked into the storeroom moments later carrying a tray of crab cakes, hot rolls, and margarine, Dr. Faux was praying again.
"… Amen, dear Lord. I'll get back to you later. That you, Fonny Boy?" the dentist asked hopefully. "Lord have mercy, it's freezing in here. Where'd this winter weather come from all of a sudden?"
"Blowed in from they bay. I got supper and water."
"I need to use the bathroom." Dr. Faux was embarrassed to talk this way in front of a woman whose mouth he had excavated and exploited for years.
Ginny said "yea," as long as he promised to return to the folding chair and didn't mind her tying him up and covering his eyes with the bandanna again.
"If you tie me up and put on the bandanna, I won't be able to eat," Dr. Faux complained as Ginny freed him and he squinted in the dim light of the storeroom.
"I'll sit right here without you don't come back from doing your business, and on the back of that, I didn't come over for to tell you nothing." It was Ginny's way of saying she'd leave him alone while he used the toilet, unless he tried something sneaky, like escaping, and in addition, she had no intention of giving him any sort of information.
While the dentist headed to the bathroom, she settled herself on a box of free antibacterial soap samples and ruminated about the speed traps, NASCAR taking over the island, and what the trooper had suggested about the Islanders' criminal dental care. She and several other women had convened at Spanky's and set out to spread the word to the entire Tangier population by posting signs on chainlink fences and all the shops and restaurants. They had even told the ferryboat captains, who promised to incorporate the NASCAR news and dental fraud alerts into their guided tours as they carried visitors back and forth between Crisfield and Reedville.
Dr. Faux returned to his folding chair and asked Ginny how her dentures were holding up.
"The same," she said. "And now and again I feel a bit squamish from when you pulled them last teeth the other week. I spewed up the evening 'fore last."
"If you're feeling nauseated and throwing up, it must be a bug of some sort," Dr. Faux misinformed her. "And it sounds to me like your new dentures are clacking a little bit."
"When the cream wores off, they do."
"Well, if you need another tube of adhesive cream, you can pick up one while you're here." Dr. Faux hungrily ate a crab cake. "They're in the middle cabinet in the examination room."
Ginny silently watched him eat and began to struggle with deep resentment that was inching toward hate. She was a solid church woman and knew that hate was a sin, but she couldn't seem to help herself as she watched the greedy, indifferent dentist stuff food into his mouth.
"I always thought you was the best I ever knew at teeth, Dr. Faux," she finally blurted out. "But now I seen you for the truth, and you learned me we shouldn't trust neither one neither more. We're of a mind what things you been doing on us. I'm just so out of heart about it, and was thinking as much when I was renching the dishes right afore I brung your dinner. We gave you all what we could, mostly food and good words, when you come here to help us, and then what you did! Why bimeby, you got aholt of each and ever one of us and mommucked up our mouths so you could get mor'n you was supposed to from the gov'ment!"
"My dear Ginny, you know that's simply not so," Dr. Faux said in a cajoling tone. "For one thing, government officials audit dentists constantly and check for things like that. I could never get away with it, even if it would ever enter my mind. And I swear and kiss the Bible," he tossed out one of the Islanders' favorite exclamations, "that what I'm saying to you is true!"
"That's all over!" Ginny declared, indicating she'd heard enough of his tales.
Huh, Ginny bitterly thought. A cold day in Heck it would be when some government agent took the ferry out here and tried to poke around in the Islanders' mouths, looking to see if certain work had really been done or was necessary. She tried to pray away the hate in her heart by reminding herself that were it not for Dr. Faux, she wouldn't have dentures or adhesive cream or free samples of mouthwashes. She supposed she would have no teeth of any sort, except for the real ones that Dr. Faux had claimed he had no choice but to extract because of abscesses, root fractures, bad enamel, an over-bite, and she forgot what else.
"I don't want to hate neither one," she silently prayed, but reality settled on her like a huge stone she could not push away.
The truth, of course, was that she had been rather shocked to discover she had such major dental problems, but she had trusted Dr. Faux. The truth was, that up until a few years ago, her teeth were fine and people were always talking about her pretty smile. Why, she hadn't had a cavity since childhood, and then suddenly, she didn't have a single tooth left in her head. The more she brooded over this as she locked up the clinic and headed down the dark street, the more she began to entertain a host of poisonous thoughts about Dr. Faux. How many times had he told her that all of the Islanders were born with bad teeth and Tangier Disease due to inbreeding? How many times did she hear yet one more tale about someone's fillings falling out or a root canal going bad or a crown that looked like a piano key cracking smack in half for no good reason?
Huh, she thought with gathering agitation and grief as she crossed the painted lines on Janders Road. Maybe they ought to hold Dr. Faux hostage until all of his teeth fell out. Maybe he ought to have clacking dentures that didn't fit right and caused a lot of gum soreness and missed meals. Maybe he ought to spy an ear of sweet corn and feel overwhelmed by nostalgia and loss, or be embarrassed when it sounded like he was playing the Castanet while he talked on the phone.
"Honey, you look a norder! Why, you're sob wet!" Ginny's husband noticed that she was sobbing as she rushed inside the house and slammed the door.
"I want my teeth!" she cried out hysterically.
"You remember whar you laid 'em last?" he asked, as he began walking around, looking for the glass jelly jar she usually soaked her dentures in. "Well, I swanny!" he suddenly said as he put on his bifocals. "Durn if they're not in your mouth, Ginny!"
At a glance, it may not seem entirely honest of me to call this digression a footnote, because it should be plain to the reader that the text is not preceded by a number, nor is it at the bottom of a page.