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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “6 Feet Under” Down in the Dirt (v136) (the May 2016 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book A Stormy Beginning the Down in the Dirt Jan. - June 2016 collection book		get the 318 page Jan. - June 2016 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

The Inspector

Michel Ge

    Well first she was digging around in my mouth like she was dissecting it with those barbed scratchers of hers; I felt like she was engraving something into my teeth. She was really focused. I looked her in the eye to see if she would look at me back, but she was intent on my teeth, peering over her blue surgeon’s mask like there was something really important there that she needed to find out. Like she was going to die if she didn’t.
    But the only one I thought would die was me. I kept feeling like she’d slip and hook the barbs into the sides of my mouth, or even my throat, and drive them deep down and twist. I was so scared of that. I tensed my legs and splayed my fingers on top of them, arched upwards. She dug deeper and deeper into my mouth, to those flat teeth all the way in the back and the side. She leaned closer and asked me, was I doin’ okay? I think I nodded. Her face was backlit by these glaring lights, like interrogation lights, and I swear for a moment it was someone else prying those hooks into me.

    When I walked in she asked me in a cheery Southern voice, was I taking medications? and I told her I took a cream for the oil on my face. Thank you, she said, but thank you for what she didn’t say. She seemed a nice enough woman, anyway. She used the water-squirter a lot, trickling it into my parched mouth, saying okay when she wanted me to close my mouth and have all the moisture sucked out of it like a vacuum. Once it spilled off the edge of my lips onto my chin; it was warm, like blood. She wiped it off with a napkin. Your lips are dry, she said. She sounded really innocent, insistent. I just kept my mouth open because I didn’t know what else to do.
    She started scraping my teeth again, but soon she stopped. Now she sounded stern, like she was an old mama expecting something out of me. What do you drink? was what she said. What? I kept saying. What do you drink? she said. Water? I said. Soda? she prompted, but I felt like she meant something else. I kept thinking well I drank with the boys, I drank beer, but that was years ago, so I didn’t say anything. She looked at me and sighed. Look, she said. She got out a little mirror and showed me a dark spot on my teeth. It was really small, like right in the crevice between my two front teeth. That’s a stain, she said. Oh, I said. I didn’t know my teeth were stained. You never noticed this? she said. It wasn’t there before, but I didn’t tell her that. She wouldn’t have believed me. She got it off, anyway. I didn’t see it anymore after that. But she had to use the water drill, and that wasn’t soft like the squirter, it was sharp and it whined as it went. I felt like it was tugging on my teeth, trying to pull them out by their roots. When she moved deeper I thought I’d lose those weak little teeth at the back, for sure. It whined louder and louder. The water drill strayed a bit and it bit into the inside of my cheek. I twitched but she didn’t stop to ask if I was doin’ okay. I stared at her blond neck hair, waving at me as some eddies swirled around it. The whining was pulsating now, going high-pitch low-pitch high-pitch low-pitch as she moved it up and down on a tooth. It was like the ringing in your ears after a bomb goes off. I was afraid my teeth were going to break off, but she kept going. I stared at her neck hair and all a sudden I was stumbling through it, like it was this real tall grass, and it was a really hot day and the boys were all around me and we were looking for a place to set up camp. This is fucking tick paradise, George was saying. The sun was setting behind a rusty haze. Hey Mushroom Head, he said. That’s what they called me, because of my hair. They also called me Chipmunk, because they said I had round, shiny cheeks like one from some cartoon. Isn’t this tick paradise? George said. I don’t get ticks, I told him. Fuck you, he said. I was really hot that day, and all I wanted to do was put my stupid rifle down, and sleep somewhere, not be cussed at, so I told him if God didn’t want me to have ticks, then who was I to complain? You want to see something? George said. He started lifting up his shirt and trying to stick pink patches of skin in my face, all of them with some small dark dot on them. He had one on his ass, he said, which he promised to show me that night. All a sudden there was a white flash and boys were screaming, and somewhere up ahead someone got blown to bits, and all his bits were flying everywhere, and two more boys were thrashing and shrieking on the ground. That’s when they came, emerging out of the grass like a band of hyenas. They had their guns on us. They shot Sarge. By the time we knew what was happening we were surrendering; they were taking our guns, and out from the grass this tall man in all black appeared. The Inspector looked at me for the first time.
    She took a poker and started prodding my teeth while the water drill went, closer and closer to the hollow of my throat. I was trying to gag but the way she had her hands over my mouth, her fingers pinning down my tongue, stopped it from working. She was so focused with her drill, stroking a tooth that felt like it had gone loose, the way the Inspector stroked his instruments down George’s thigh while George thrashed and screamed, lashed to the interrogation table, the Inspector tinkering away in his tender flesh. And I was fighting and screaming and she was putting her knee on my chest and pinning me down and digging into my mouth and smiling widely and laughing and it was not her face, it was the Inspector’s, get away from me, GET AWAY FROM ME! I drank, ma’am, I wanted to scream, I drank and that’s why there’s a stain on my teeth, and I only brush my teeth at night, and I lied to mama about not getting a job offer, but I was gone from school for so long that I can’t draw anymore, I can’t, and when the Inspector was done and George was bleeding all over the floor I didn’t help him like I should’ve, I just hid my face in my knees and stopped up my ears—I’ll tell you everything, ma’am, please!
    Are you doin’ okay? she said.
    The water trickled off.
    I couldn’t speak, not even if I’d wanted to. Almost done, she said, like she could read my thoughts. I lay there panting. I found my voice. I need to take a break, I told her. She looked at me, concerned. She was older than I’d thought. Are you alright? she said. I’m fine, I told her. She studied me and nodded, saying she’d be back in a minute.

    She was gone a lot of minutes. So I sat and watched Wheel of Fortune, the letters silently appearing while white captions appeared on black strips beneath. A woman had won $28,000, but missed the bonus $50,000 and I knew she would be regretful rather than happy, and it dampened me to think that. Then the commercials came on. There were a lot of cars, and I couldn’t afford most of them. Not that I was poor. I just couldn’t draw anymore; couldn’t go back to school, either—too expensive. I did get that one job offer designing posters, but I told the woman I wasn’t up for it like I used to be. Mama took good care of me, anyway. Only sometimes she talked about the other boys, pointing like they were in the room: the other boys are doing this, doing that. I’d tell her the other boys work at gas stations and lift boxes. You could do that, she’d say. But I didn’t want to lift boxes so I always said no. Then what? she said. Are you going to live here forever? No, mama, I said. I’ll get a job when I’m ready.
    The commercials ended and some reality T.V. show started, which I started getting into, but then she was back. Ready? she said, sounding tired. I looked up at her and nodded.

    She brought out the scratchers this time. I was glad that my teeth still felt intact, but now she was carving into them like Moses carving the Ten Commandments into a stone tablet. Your gums are bleeding pretty badly, she said. Well that’s because she was knifing up my mouth, I thought, but I didn’t say that. Are you flossing? she said. Yeah, I said. Have you been doing it every day, or maybe missing a few days, she said, like she was listing things. She paused. How often do you floss?
    Every day, I said. She gave a small sigh and I felt bad all of a sudden. Are you comfortable on how to floss? she said. She got up to look at some files. I think, I said. You think? I think, I said. I paused for a long time, and said, but if I think I do and I don’t, I guess it could be bad. She made a small laugh noise, like a hiccup. It made me feel better.
    You’re going to have to start flossing, she said. I do floss, I said quietly. Your gums are bleeding, she said. Are you sure you’re flossing right? I don’t know, I said. Are you flossing every day? she asked. Yes, I said. She grabbed a floppy plastic model of an enlarged set of teeth and showed me how to floss. Just go up and down each edge, she said. About twenty times. She ran the minty floss string up and down each edge about twenty times.
    I sat quietly for a while. She kept looking at me.
    Your gums are really infected, she said. I know, I said. You really need to start flossing, she said. I lowered my eyes.
    Okay, I said. I will.
    She put an extra tin of floss in my gift bag, with the toothbrush and toothpaste samples. Then she let me go, just like that. Was it that bad? the receptionist asked. No, I said. It wasn’t. I didn’t look at her. It was dusk and the sun was streaming through the windows, lighting up dust in the waiting room. I went out the door and into mama’s car, the one she was loaning me. And as I was driving away, just as I thought I was free, I looked over and saw that from behind the window the dentist was watching me. I couldn’t see her neck hair, but I didn’t need to. Because when I passed by, for a second her face darkened, and she gave me a wide, wide smile, a smile that knew all of my secrets.

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