would’ve been any of your fucking business, but did you say, ‘Hey, Teddy, now that you’re no longer a famous musician, does your life suck?’ No. Instead, you pretended to be my friend, you snapped some pictures of me, and a few years later, you stabbed me in the fucking back. I even bought you a goddamn drink.”
He turned his body in my direction as if we were in couple’s therapy. “No, no. My exhibit is showing fame is very painful for famous peoples. If you are happy or sad for real life, this not matter.”
“It matters to me. Hey, you know what? Maybe I’ll write a song about some miserable oaf who lives in the mountains and takes pictures of people having dinner and pretends to understand them. And maybe I’ll call that song ‘Song about Heinz-Peter Zoot’ and I’ll post it on YouTube and play it in Times Square. What do you think?”
Heinz-Peter looked troubled. “What is this—miserable loaf ?”
I leaned back and held the cold compress to my lip. Tires crunched gruesomely over either a thick branch or a crossing guard. A woman in a billowy dress hung clothes on a line outside a small red cottage while a young boy straddled a bicycle. They were going to have meat pie for dinner.
“I am very sorry, Teddy.” The sentence was delivered cleanly—noaccent, appropriate use of a linking verb. No doubt he could apologize proficiently in most of the world’s languages. “I am big fan. I don’t try making fun at you.”
“Oh no? Faded Glory ? It Feels like a Lie and It Looks like a Mess ?”
He threw me a look of confusion.
“That was the name of your exhibit, remember? The name of the photograph.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Marius, my assistant, he make names. I don’t too good English.”
“You don’t say.” I should’ve guessed that there was a coconspirator, someone with the necessary tools to slander and be cute about it.
“My pictures say only that you are human being like other peoples.” Heinz-Peter continued to plead his case.
“Well, other peoples aren’t hanging in the Tate, staining themselves with nachos.”
Without any warning or the slightest decrease in speed, the car lurched off the road into a small, unpaved parking lot. “Here is dentist!” he announced.
At the far end of the lot sat an old stone hut. The front door was a thick slab of oak, reminiscent of that pub in Dublin. I noticed a chimney and thought it a curious feature for a dentist’s office.
“Are we meeting him at a bar?”
Heinz-Peter got out and headed toward the door of the hut.
I had no choice but to shadow the big lug across the gravel parking lot, a hand on my battered jaw. “Faded glory,” I muttered. “Faded fucking glory.”
Inside, a prune of a man who seemed to be a casual if less than enthusiastic acquaintance of Heinz-Peter’s led me back to a dim room with a reclining dental chair. A cigarette dangling from his lip, he peered into my mouth, then shook his head in discouragement. “I don’t know,” he mumbled in a thick accent. He frowned at a tray of sharp metal instruments. “I don’t know.”
He then proceeded to hack and claw at whatever remnants oftooth were still wedged in my gum. He pulled and tugged, at one point practically kneeing my chest for leverage. After ten agonizing minutes, he dejectedly tossed his tool—Early Man’s version of an X-ACTO knife—back into the pan and extinguished his cigarette right next to it. “I don’t know,” he grumbled again. “I don’t know.”
I asked this ray of fucking sunshine for some novocaine. Startlingly, the word was not within his lexicon. “Novocaine?” I repeated with growing alarm. I, of course, had no clue how to say “numbing agent” in any dialect but my own. How do you pantomime “local anesthesia”? I said ouch and ow and winced with great cinema until he got it and, looking annoyed, shuffled away to see if he had some lying around.
He returned a few minutes later and unceremoniously injected a gallon of
He turned his body in my direction as if we were in couple’s therapy. “No, no. My exhibit is showing fame is very painful for famous peoples. If you are happy or sad for real life, this not matter.”
“It matters to me. Hey, you know what? Maybe I’ll write a song about some miserable oaf who lives in the mountains and takes pictures of people having dinner and pretends to understand them. And maybe I’ll call that song ‘Song about Heinz-Peter Zoot’ and I’ll post it on YouTube and play it in Times Square. What do you think?”
Heinz-Peter looked troubled. “What is this—miserable loaf ?”
I leaned back and held the cold compress to my lip. Tires crunched gruesomely over either a thick branch or a crossing guard. A woman in a billowy dress hung clothes on a line outside a small red cottage while a young boy straddled a bicycle. They were going to have meat pie for dinner.
“I am very sorry, Teddy.” The sentence was delivered cleanly—noaccent, appropriate use of a linking verb. No doubt he could apologize proficiently in most of the world’s languages. “I am big fan. I don’t try making fun at you.”
“Oh no? Faded Glory ? It Feels like a Lie and It Looks like a Mess ?”
He threw me a look of confusion.
“That was the name of your exhibit, remember? The name of the photograph.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Marius, my assistant, he make names. I don’t too good English.”
“You don’t say.” I should’ve guessed that there was a coconspirator, someone with the necessary tools to slander and be cute about it.
“My pictures say only that you are human being like other peoples.” Heinz-Peter continued to plead his case.
“Well, other peoples aren’t hanging in the Tate, staining themselves with nachos.”
Without any warning or the slightest decrease in speed, the car lurched off the road into a small, unpaved parking lot. “Here is dentist!” he announced.
At the far end of the lot sat an old stone hut. The front door was a thick slab of oak, reminiscent of that pub in Dublin. I noticed a chimney and thought it a curious feature for a dentist’s office.
“Are we meeting him at a bar?”
Heinz-Peter got out and headed toward the door of the hut.
I had no choice but to shadow the big lug across the gravel parking lot, a hand on my battered jaw. “Faded glory,” I muttered. “Faded fucking glory.”
Inside, a prune of a man who seemed to be a casual if less than enthusiastic acquaintance of Heinz-Peter’s led me back to a dim room with a reclining dental chair. A cigarette dangling from his lip, he peered into my mouth, then shook his head in discouragement. “I don’t know,” he mumbled in a thick accent. He frowned at a tray of sharp metal instruments. “I don’t know.”
He then proceeded to hack and claw at whatever remnants oftooth were still wedged in my gum. He pulled and tugged, at one point practically kneeing my chest for leverage. After ten agonizing minutes, he dejectedly tossed his tool—Early Man’s version of an X-ACTO knife—back into the pan and extinguished his cigarette right next to it. “I don’t know,” he grumbled again. “I don’t know.”
I asked this ray of fucking sunshine for some novocaine. Startlingly, the word was not within his lexicon. “Novocaine?” I repeated with growing alarm. I, of course, had no clue how to say “numbing agent” in any dialect but my own. How do you pantomime “local anesthesia”? I said ouch and ow and winced with great cinema until he got it and, looking annoyed, shuffled away to see if he had some lying around.
He returned a few minutes later and unceremoniously injected a gallon of
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