Though Jason Bennett was sixty-five and a slab of pate showed through his thin web of hair, he was still a youthful man. Life for him had been fertile, spiced, confluent. He had married at twenty-nine, had sired a son, Michael, at thirty. Michael. Michael, now himself thirty-five, was unhappy. He had recently arrived home bearing a divorce. "We were not compatible," he said. "She did not appreciate my freedom." Jason, a widower, mused on the decline of marriage, the state of disunion -- everything was becoming food for the churchyard. "Why did it take you three years to see what I saw on the wedding day?" Jason asked him. "I see things slowly," Michael replied. "I have slow eyes." Jason gnashed his teeth in quiet distress.
When young Jason had been blessed with white and strong and lustrous teeth. He had scrubbed them twice daily. He carefully dug his brush into the back crevices to exorcise any hidden food, diligently flossed his teeth like a shoeshineman over a spit polish. Jennifer, his wife, who died from tuberculosis, had admired his teeth. "I fell in love with your smile the very first time I saw you," she said, grinning in her attractive way. He continued the ablution of his teeth, with yearly visits to the dentist, until he was well into his fifties. Then, in his sixties, he began to believe his teeth had become dull; he was cursed with the sensation that they were all unanchored. The dentist joked with him about his "horse's teeth" and told him that they were as securely moored as tree roots, but he sensed that the gums he had so lavishly tended were nakedly shrinking.
"Maybe the flossing contributes to the loss of my teeth," he told Jennifer. "Maybe I should go instead of every year to the dentist every month to have my teeth cleaned."
"Do you have any teeth in the palm of your hand yet? What are you worrying about?"
"You don't understand. Did you know that half the people in the United States lose their teeth by the age of sixty-five?" He punctuated the air with his index finger.
"It could be hereditary," she said. "You can't do anything about that." She was a slim woman, with auburn hair and small hips.
"So what should I do? Advise me."
"I don't know." She shrugged. "It's a common occurrence."
Each day, as Jason brushed his teeth, he noted with dismay how they felt even more unfastened, though they stood mockingly solid in their upright ranks. Like cemetery stones, Jason thought. Leaning into the mirror he peered as best he could into the corners of his mouth. Jennifer, after inspecting his teeth like a vet would a horse's, doubted anything moved in his mouth except his complaining tongue.
He went to an oral surgeon who told him losing teeth was hereditary, moreso for men ("as usual" he added) and quizzed him on the strength of his family's teeth. After Jason responded "no" to every inquiry, the doctor prescribed a solution to be rubbed on the gums. "You may be experiencing the beginnings of pyorrhea, though I doubt it. This will encourage blood flow to the gums and should help get rid of that tingling sensation you told me about." He also told him to cut any sweets or fried foods from his diet.
"I don't eat those sorts of things," he answered stiffly. He took the prescription.
Jason had Jennifer pry open his mouth and rub a solution-soaked Q-Tip along his gums; she was more patient than he was. She reminded him that he was the one who went to the dentist and was so worried about his virility, so he should shut up and pay his piper. He said that he was not at all worried about his virility; but that thought joined all the other ravens in his mind. He began to hate to see himself, hating to think.
"Jennifer, if I lose my teeth, I will lose something important."
"Men always think they're losing something important."
"What will I do?" he pondered.
Jennifer mused. "Why not try another doctor? The one you go to looks too young. I think it could be nutrition."
"Nothing gets better. I pull the floss through my teeth more carefully, and I brush less often. Nothing gets better."
"What do you think is causing it?" Jennifer said, tapping her head slyly. "Perhaps a trauma when you were young?"
"Perhaps I get it from you. Your father, you know, lost his teeth about this age."
"My father always had good teeth. He passed them on to his children."
"Ah, but he lost them in the end. No guarantee," Jason said. "Maybe it's a man's curse. And he was married four times."
"You must be envious of him," Jennifer said, "or you wouldn't bring him around."
"Who I envy or don't envy is of no concern right now. That state of being gets us nowhere."
"I bet you liked his state of being. I imagine you envy Michael his strange life."
"I don't like to talk like this," Jason stated flatly. "It gets us nowhere."
Jennifer paused. "What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know. My hair?"
She paused again. "I'd rather not."
The next day Jason went to a new dentist, a holistic doctor who anointed his teeth with a salve of herbal remedies and flooded him with vitamin pills. He said not to unduly stress his system. The dentist could not guarantee anything.
"I have no confidence in this. Some things," he pondered, "do not have to be experienced to be known."
"Then face it, Jason. If the methods don't work, you can think about getting false teeth. There is nothing dangerous about them. Many men have them."
Jason thought. "I wouldn't like them," he insisted. They'd feel like a second tongue."
"Your first tongue needs help," Michael said.
"At least have respect, Michael," Jason answered. A month later Jennifer died. The medical insurance covered the costs. Michael and Jason looked ashen and twisted.
One day, after staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, he resolved to do something to bolster his sagging pride. He dressed nattily, even to folding a handkerchief in his breast pocket, and walked to the new styling shop for men. He looked at the toupees, one by one, shook his head and went determinedly into the shop. The owner, a slim young man with reddish-brown hair, greeted him casually.
"May I try," he found he couldn't say the word and pointed instead, "one of those? Maybe two?"
"It can be arranged."
Jason pointed out the ones he wanted, a chestnut brown one from the window and a black one from the mannequin in the shop. Don, the owner, brought them to him as Jason sat at a three-paneled mirror. As he looked at himself, he noticed for the first time that there were two other young men in the shop, both slim-hipped and with thick curly hair. Don glanced at them as he put the toupees on the counter.
Jason thought his heartbeat was audible. He tried on the first one, a drab brown with straight hair combed to the side. Don fitted it deftly, taking out a red comb to straighten it. "There," he said, stepping back to let Jason view it from the front and side, "it fits you well."
"It really feels like a heavy hand."
"It's not all that heavy," Don answered. "Let's try this." Don lifted the first toupee off and settled the second one down gently. In the mirror Jason could see the two young men watching languidly with a half-smile on their faces, and he avoided their eyes.
"What is the material of this?"
Don primped the toupee. "It's made of Dynel fiber and doesn't frizz in the heat or humidity."
"How do you take care of it?" The two men had gotten up and walked slowly over the mirror, behind Jason.
"Wash it with a mild soap in warmish water, let it air dry or blow dry it. Or, if you prefer, leave it with me. I'll style and dry it for you."
One of the men said, "Yes, he's good at that."
"Will it make me sweat?"
"No."
Jason removed the toupee. "What is that one there? The one parted in the middle?" It looked faintly reminiscent of his earlier hair. "I like the style."
"It's made of Vietnamese hair."
"Real hair?"
"Yes."
"Oh," said Jason, "I don't think I'd go for real hair."
"Why not?" the other young man said.
"I don't know, but I'd be wearing someone else's body. I would not be myself."
"You are not yourself anyway," Don said. The two men smiled. "You don't want a toupee, you want a guarantee. The toupee has a guarantee. Perhaps that's all you need?"
"I am myself," Jason said petulantly. "And you are a lousy salesman. I came to buy a toupee. I didn't come here to exchange frivolities." His hands began to shake.
"Then," Don said, with an extravagant gesture, "the door is yours."
"Shit," Jason said, regretting it immediately, and walked out of the shop.
In the street he was deeply angered. It took him five minutes to unclench his fists and even then the blood pounded in his temples. He thought of Jennifer and looked at the sun-lit busy street. His teeth ached in retribution.
That evening he and Michael quarreled. As they ate dinner Michael said that he had met a woman and would be moving out to live with her after her divorce.
"What woman?" growled Jason. "Someone at a bar?"
Michael cut into his meat. "She works in my dentist's office."
"Are you going to marry her?" Michael was tapping his finger slowly. Jason knew this sign of his discontent, but pushed on. "Why don't you try living on your own for a while? It does no good to plunge back into the water after you've nearly drowned. You've got money from your mother. Travel!"
"I want to save that. Emergencies."
"What do you see for yourself, what's in the stars?"
"There are no stars. Just ahead of me."
"No goal, no direction?" Jason sighed. "You are thirty-five years old."
"And you are sixty-five. And I'd say we're about even." Michael chucked his fork on his plate. It clattered loudly. He got up to leave.
"Sometimes I feel sorry for you," Jason said.
"And I feel sorry for myself. Pity is all we got." Michael stalked out of the room. Jason was sick in his heart and the food nauseated him. He went to his room and laid down on the double bed.
He wanted to forget the quarrel. Jason rose and went through the treasure box he and Jennifer had kept. Here was a miniature of Jennifer, in a locket. She'd given it to him one night under the moon. Dried roses, an old silver comb, a service picture of him in Germany, 1943.
Among the paraphernalia he found a picture of his father, the original Bennett, taken at the family's annual reunion, surely not more than thirty years ago, just after Michael was born. His father, kneeling on one knee, with Michael balanced on the upraised other, was laughing, and in the tilt of the head toward Michael the teeth were dingy; Jason imagined he could see gaps between them. Perhaps it was the camera lens, the film, the light, but he knew it wasn't. His father, so long dead now, with the betrayal like ashes in his mouth. Jason had never really noticed, and now, when he did, it didn't matter.
Oh Dad, Jason thought, did we ever know?
After a while Jason padded to Michael's room and knocked on the door. He wanted to say he'd been nervous, on edge. When Michael didn't answer, he opened the door a crack and said he would like to apologize. Michael did not respond, but the light was on and Jason pushed ahead into the room.
His son slept, mouth slack, in his easy chair in the corner, the architect lamp from the desk glaring down on his face, an open book on his lap. Jason wanted to put his hand on his son's shoulder but felt awkward and embarrassed at the thought.
"Goodnight, Michael."
Michael didn't move. Jason, standing close to him, saw something he had long ago put out of his mind: the man's gums were slinking away from his teeth. They looked red and irritated and the teeth were an unhealthy yellow.
Michael continued to sleep.
Jason, though wrenched by the sight, didn't speak. The next morning he rose early and scrubbed his teeth with delighted vigor. For two minutes he did nothing but suck the clean morning air in over his now-secure cleansed teeth.