Week Forty Five

The Currents

Inspired by the ideas of Sam and Georgia Butcher

JinJo, the Man of Many Beans, brushed his dusty beard and heard the small kernels hit the rocky earth below his feet. Each time he inhaled, he swore he could taste the burnt remnants of giraffes - forever carried on the trade winds across the ocean. It had been many years since the Light, since the fire, and since the disease. It’d taken almost everything he had - including his sight - and left him with the only thing he now knew: loneliness.

JinJo had travelled three days out from Stone Town, and following the cordgrass shores of the estuary, he felt - no - he knew he was close. The years of searching, of following the wind, of chasing down rumors and stories, had led him to this point deep in the shadow of the Dairugger. The ions in the air twisted in charged fractals, and danced in the rhythm of the universe.

The girl with the metal teeth was here.

———

Charlotte’s lip was bleeding. Years of repeated slicing and puncturing had rendered the inside of her cheeks heavy with an almost impenetrable shield of scarred skin. But every once in awhile, she managed to catch the leading edge of one of her braces on her lip and send a scarlet line down her chin. She assumed it happened while she and BART were running after a cat near the wrecks. And really, Charlotte was running; BART was more like a hyper-caffeinated pogostick having lost her leg, but not her drive, during the weeks after the Light. Charlotte held a tattered and dirt-stained sleeve to her mouth in an effort to stem the bleeding.

“Where the hell did it go?” Charlotte asked, squinting in the sun in search of a small black creature climbing over one of the dozen or so rusted husks of oil tankers that had crashed and were lately decaying on the shore.

“Beats the hell outta me,” BART responded in her unmistakable southwestern Greenlandish accent, “Saw something up on the wheelhouse, but it might have been the wind.”

“Well, then we go up.”

The higher they climbed, the clearer they could hear them. A chorus of out-of-tune whines that sounded like a Satanic bellows stoking a chaotic fire: cats. Hundreds of cats. They exchanged knowing glances, and once setting foot on the tilted floor of the bridge and smelling the sancerre-tinged scent of cat urine, they knew they’d found him.

———

Dr. Havestock couldn’t play sports. He never played the piano. And despite his father’s collegiate legacy, he couldn’t grip an oar handle. Born with impossibly small hands, Havestock spent his childhood and teens pulling on his fingers in the hope that it would encourage growth. The brochures advertising boathouses slowly disappeared from his parent’s kitchen table, his father hung up his scull in the rafters of their garage, and the wooden oars he’d planned on giving to his son made their way into a bonfire during one of the elder Havestock’s drunken pity parties.

It wasn’t until his non-scholarship provided days in college that he discovered the one thing his deformity had blessed him with: the ability to reach easily inside people’s mouths. Bobby Ballhousen was in the dining hall four fifths of the way through a chicken leg when the bone slipped and lodged itself three fifths of the way down Bobby’s throat. Two fifths of the way down the table, Havestock, stood up, walked slowly over to the choking Ballhousen, and used his minuscule hands to pull a slimy grey chicken bone from Bobby Ballhousen’s throat.

A witness to this spectacle, Dr. Garber Van Garber, the head of the university’s Department of Orthodontics, put down his one fifth finished shepherd’s pie, and ran over to Havestock. Placing his arm around the student, Dr. Van Garber excitedly spoke about the wonders of orthodontic sciences, and specifically how one who was blessed with such impressive hands would succeed so tremendously.

Many years of schooling later, and Dr. Havestock opened his own clinic helping to correct every overbite, malocclusion, and crowding in the tri-county area. After the Light, and with most of his tools destroyed, he found himself without purpose once again.

Drifting through the coastal plains, he settled in a boneyard of half-eaten tankers and container ships, where he could feast on the marsh grasses, hide from the marauders high in the bridge of the Dairugger, and use his small hands to milk the cats that took refuge inside the derelict.

———

Charlotte pressed the back of her head deeper and deeper into the dental chair. Any millimeter of distance she could put between her and Dr. Holt, her orthodontist, would be beneficial. She was only 12, but knew enough to be, in her words, “skeeved out” by the man. He always spent longer with the girls, and his breath reeked of coffee and herbal penis enlargement pills. Despite his occupation, his mouth looked like the inside of a granite quarry.

“Yep, you’ve got one hell of an anterior crossbite,” said Dr. Holt pushing back from the chair. His cubist teeth aligned in the closest thing they could to a smile as the doctor imagined not only the thousands of dollars he was about to fleece from this girl’s parents, but the many sessions he’d get to spend with her while watching her teeth shift around her skull. “You’re going to need braces.”

The right of passage for any pre-teen white suburban child, braces not only ensured you physical pain as they resculpted your skull, but mental pain as everyone you came into contact with would see the row of medieval torture device-like food magnets jutting out from your face.

Charlotte’s life was over. At least for the next 2-3 years as Dr. Holt’s diagnosis indicated.

On a sunny Tuesday morning, Charlotte sat in the very same dental engine as Dr. Holt and his two “I only dance to put myself through orthodontist assistant school” assistants attached the braces to her teeth. Charlotte instantly had a headache, and she spent the next five hours re-learning how to close her mouth.

As the sessions and years went on, Dr. Holt’s diagnosis increased in length. 2-3 years turned to 4-5. And finally, as Charlotte sat in the waiting room of Dr. Holt’s practice on the day she was to get her braces off, the FBI raided the office and took Dr. Holt away in handcuffs.

Charlotte would be spending the foreseeable future with her dental work until she could find another orthodontist. She’d heard of a doctor north of her town, one who did amazing work, but the Light happened before she could track him down.

Now, 15 years on from the Light and 20 long years with braces, Charlotte had found the man who could finally remove them.

———

Dr. Havestock sat in the darkness listening to the ocean waves crash through a breach in the hull hundreds of feet below him. He saw the women climb up the Dairugger’s tower, heard them enter the bridge, and grew nervous as his collection of cats turned silent. His fingers were too small to hold a gun, and the various tools he had on board were too small to do much damage in a fight.

The one missing a leg spoke first, “Dr. Havestock? We’ve spent years looking for you. We need your help.”

He shifted uneasily in his perch.

The second one with the strawberry blonde hair spoke, “Dr. Havestock? Please. It’s incredibly important.”

When the woman spoke, Dr. Havestock saw something he hadn’t seen in years. Something that brought him back to a time before the Light. Something that made him gasp audibly.

The woman with the strawberry blonde hair had braces.

———

BART sat on the side of the road. The partially burnt wooden oar she’d used as a leg rested broken and splintered next to her in the sand. She removed a can of Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake Tobacco from her backpack and shoved a wad of it into her bottom lip. She was still three weeks out from Stone Town, and with one leg and not a whole lot else, she’d decided this was a good spot to die.

Maybe someone would come along and give her a proper burial. Say a few words about her unknown life. Talk about things that never happened to her. Maybe an animal would feast on her corpse, return her to the earth - a real Circle of Life type of moment.

She dove blissfully into her recurring dream where she was riding her bicycle through the roads of her hometown of Kangerlussuaq with her radio mounted to the handlebars. She’d listen to the stations out of Kangaamiut, Eqalugarssuit, and Qaqortoq as she rode, with two working legs, along the shores of the fjord. And then - water. In her face. Enough to wake BART from better times.

“I seriously hope you’re a pirate. Or, at the very least, someone who cosplays as a pirate. You’re missing an opportunity here if you aren’t,” said the mass of colored lines standing over BART.

“What the fu- who the hell? Who are you?” Bart wiped her eyes, squinted into the sun and began to make out the woman standing before her.

“I’m Charlotte,” said the woman, reaching a hand down to BART, “And you’re coming with me to Stone Town.”

“No. What? No! Leave me here to die. I’m shit company. I’ve got one leg. And I’ve determined that this shall be my final resting place.”

“How about this?” Charlotte took a seat next to BART, “You come with me to Stone Town. I promise not to ask too many questions. And when we’re done, I’ll bring you back to this exact spot so you can kick the bucket.”

“Really? You’re going to use a term like ‘kick the bucket’ with an amputee?”

“Sarcasm. I like it. Come on, let’s get a move on before nightfall.”

BART launched a comet of brown tobacco spit into the sand, exhaled, and stood up. “Name’s BART.”

Charlotte looked at her skeptically.

“Yes, BART. And before you do what I know you’re about to do, let me remind you that you said ‘no questions.’”

“Technically, I said I wouldn’t ask A LOT of questions. But fine. Nice to meet you BART. Let’s go find an orthodontist in Stone Town - no questions asked.”

———

JinJo felt his way along the rusted metal pipes. He carefully sidestepped open expanses that dropped into oblivion. Occasionally, he’d startle a cat which would hiss and run off into the maze of twisted metal that remained of the Dairugger. Despite all the metal, he could still feel her presence. A pulse of white flashed quicker in the dead ends of his optic nerves as he got closer and closer.

He pulled a kidney, a black-eyed, and a pinto out of his pocket. He’d need the protein for the climb up to the bridge.

———

Dr. Havestock, moved slowly out of the darkness. He sidestepped a few waiting cats, past shelves of vacuum tubes, diodes, a stationary bike, and a row of batteries. He raised his small hands above his head, all the while never taking his eyes of the strawberry blonde girl’s mouth.

“You… you have braces,” he stuttered incredulously.

“Yeah. No shit,” she quipped.

“It’s just that… it’s been so long since I’ve seen them.”

“Yeah, well they’ve been an absolute pleasure to have for the past 20 years. And as much as I love them, I feel like it’s time we parted ways. That’s why we’re here.”

BART hobbled forward, “I’ve spent the last five months listening to Charlotte complain about these things. So if you can’t remove them, I’ll just grab some of your pliers and give it a shot myself.”

Dr. Havestock felt a spark at the back of his neck. He hadn’t felt useful in years. “Of course. Uh… let me just get my tools.”

His small hands tentatively gripped a worn leather satchel. He placed it with a rattle onto the wheelhouse’s chart table and began removing rusted items from within. Charlotte stared at the mess in skeptical horror.

“When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?” he asked.

“You know, I was just going to get one the other day, but I was too busy sipping giardia-laced water out of the runoff pond from a decommissioned nuclear power plant - what with it being the end of the world and all.”

“Right. I’ll go slow.”

———

JinJo, slightly out of breath and fumbling forward along the tilted floor of the wheelhouse, tried to shout. It had been years since he had spoken, and all that came out was a tiny whisper. It was enough to stir the collection of cats patiently waiting to be milked by the orthodontist with tiny hands, and their cries alerted BART, Charlotte, and Dr. Havestock - who’d just started poking around the scarred insides of Charlotte’s mouth.

BART jumped over to the blind man, and helped guide him to a dilapidated captain’s chair. Dr. Havestock brought him water. Charlotte, with her mouth held open by numerous rusted torture devices, could only gum out vowels in protest.

Barely audible and with a sigh of relief, JinJo said, “Thank you. I’ve come a long way for this. For her,” and he pointed an old bony finger toward the strawberry blonde woman with a face full of metal.

Charlotte attempted to say, “Oh fuck no!” but all that came out was, “Oh uck oh!”

“I mean no harm,” JinJo continued, “You have something I need. Rather, your braces do.”

He spun a wild tale about how high-quality stainless steel was an almost extinct commodity these days, and how he’d heard tales about Charlotte and her mouth full of the precious resource. He needed it, he claimed, to use in radio transmissions. These broadcasts, he said, would cross the wastes, the shores, and oceans, and help bring unity back to the remaining people of planet Earth.

Charlotte mumbled something unintelligible.

“OK, so let’s do it,” BART said, pointing toward Charlotte, “Let’s pull it out and give it a shot.”

“Well, it might work better if we left the metal in her mouth,” JinJo said, “and used her saliva to aid the conduit and the cavernous space of her mouth would make an excellent amplifier.”

“oh ay. oh! Asouey ot. et e uck out o ere ol a,” Charlotte protested.

Dr. Havestock looked around the bridge of the Dairugger, and quickly did an inventory. Quickly, and silently, he went to work assembling a small radio.

“We’ll need power,” JinJo whispered.

“Well, I can’t hold the handlebars,” Dr. Havestock showed the old man his minuscule hands, “but perhaps BART here could use her leg to pedal the stationary bike. That should generate enough friction to power the radio.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, and the rig was set up. Charlotte, had all manner of diodes and vacuum tubes attached to her teeth. Two alligator clips pinched molars on either side of her jaw. And BART began to pedal.

It started as an itch. A small tingling on Charlotte’s gumline. It then increased as BART pedaled faster and faster and generated more energy through Charlotte’s braces which would then occasionally arc into her wet gums. Her eyes watered as small flashes of electricity lit up the void inside her mouth.

And then there came the distinct sound of a human voice. A man’s, deep and distant, echoing out of Charlotte’s mouth. The group smiled. BART laughed. JinJo repositioned one of Charlotte’s arms much like one would rabbit ear antennas. With each movement, the man’s voice became clearer.

Dr. Havestock reached inside Charlotte’s mouth to flip a toggle and instructed JinJo to speak through a makeshift rudimentary microphone.

JinJo spoke, quietly and deliberately. He said who he was, (roughly) where he was, and that he was looking for someone - anyone - out there. When he was done, the small disparate group huddled high above the ruined mass of the oil tanker, sat in silence - waiting.

Charlotte, whose mouth looked like a WWI war zone, and whose gums still ached with the energy pulsing through them, sat quietly.

And from the ether, the radio waves flew through the ghosted air, bounced off the decomposing walls of the Dairugger, and sparked wildly inside the metal maze attached to Charlotte’s teeth. A voice, loud and curious said, “JinJo, you’re coming in loud and clear.”

A tear fell down Charlotte’s cheek out of hope, happiness, or having thousands of volts of electricity spin through her face.