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Ivory Dreams

Matthew Lett

    Peter Slate was a clever young man, intelligent and resourceful. He was 10 years-old, husky, but not overweight. His eyes were a dark almond color, and he kept his mop of black hair parted to the right, like his father’s.
    Currently, the hour was late, and Peter was in his bedroom counting his stash by the shimmering light of the moon.
    “...three...four...five...six...” Peter stopped counting. Six was good—six was more than half-way there. But eight was better. Eight would get him that 4-pack of Captain Triumph comic books. He’d asked for them for his birthday, but instead, his mom and dad had gotten him a bunch of shitty old baseball cards. And he didn’t even like baseball! Dad had said it was an investment —money in the bank— but all Peter could see were pictures of old men that he didn’t know or care about, their faces wrapped in cellophane that he wasn’t allowed to touch. Big deal!
    Two more, Peter thought smiling. Gathering up his loot, he stashed it beneath his pillow. Beside the pillow lay a Toolmaster hammer. Peter picked it up, hefting its comfortable weight in his hand. Just two more, and tomorrow morning he’d find himself walking down the sidewalk to the Comic Emporium with four dollars in his hand. Which just happened to be the exact cost of the Captain Triumph (and his Rowdy Rangers) comics.
    Slipping out of bed, Peter took the time to put on his slippers, and then walked out into the darkened hallway of his home. It was quiet and still; the house groaning like an old man turning in his sleep. His parents’ room was at the end of the hallway, and Peter made his way down as quiet as a church mouse. He opened their door for the second time that night, and stepped in.
    Dad was still lying there bathed in a pearly shaft of moonlight, Peter’s mother curled up to his chest like a sleeping baby.
    They were dead, both of them. His father with a hole the size of a quarter bashed in his forehead. His eyes were open and staring at nothing but eternal shadows; his mother, the back of her head shredded by the steel claws of the hammer in Peter’s hand. The blood around their lifeless figures was cold and tacky now, the color of midnight in a stagnant universe.
    Peter climbed up on the bed and opened the mouth of his mother. As a much younger child, he’d received fifty-cents for each tooth he’d lost courtesy of the Tooth Fairy. And she was real, oh yes. Mother had told him so on many occasions. And with three teeth already taken from dad’s head, and three from mom’s, and with a little simple math put into action, Peter needed two more teeth. He’d just miscalculated on his first trip, and had had to come back.
    Taking careful aim as not to hit his own finger, Peter drew the hammer back over his shoulder, and brought it down in a quick, decisive arc. The head of the hammer connected squarely on his mother’s left front molar, and popped out just as neat as a newborn babe.
    Peter repeated the process three more times before leaving his parents’ bedroom for the night. There would be tax on the comics, something he’d realized while working on his dad, and extra teeth would be required.
    Peter returned to his room, shucked off his slippers, and slid into bed, the teeth of his parents’ tucked securely beneath his pillow. The Tooth Fairy would be visiting soon and he had to get to sleep.
    It’s like dad said, Peter thought drifting off behind heavy eyelids, money in the bank.



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