Dentist's Chair

"He hit me!" Phil whined.

"Did you see Mr. Petitjean hit him?" Paula asked one of the orderlies.

"No ma'am came up and saw him just laying there," the man said, face bland.

"You?" Paula asked the other orderly.

"Like my boy said, came up and he's just all laying there," the other orderly said, smiling slightly.

"Best go on get out of here," the first orderly ordered Phil.

Jill burst into sobs of relief and clung to Arthur. Arthur looked at Paula, clearly uncomfortable with a young girl clinging to him.

"In the future, Mr. Petitjean, if you believe there will be a problem, I would appreciate it if you'd let me know," Paula said. "Fortunately, Ramon here..."

She indicated one of the orderlies.

"...had seen Mr. Books loitering around and figured he was up to no good. But, if he had been seriously injured, the hospital would have been liable and as Accounts payable can tell you, our insurance is already high enough," Paula smiled tightly.

"This Phil guy; he know where you live?" Arthur asked Jill when she quit crying.

"No, I don't think so," Jill sniffled.

"All right, get on home; see you tomorrow," Arthur said.

Arthur had to be careful not to bite down while gripping the steering wheel of his automobile, which he'd, covered in a pebble grain leather.

"Not ice cold in the winter, not burning hot in the summer," he had explained to Yvonne, but she declined his offer to wrap hers for her.

But if he bit down while driving, he'd see, in his mind's eye, himself driving and it would distract him from driving.

At home, he put his hand on the tile countertop when glancing through the mail but no images came to him.

The tile had been coated with a non-porous sealant the salesman had convinced Yvonne to use. No matter how much Arthur pointed out that the old counter top had not been sealed, his mother's counter top had not been sealed, her mother's counter top had not been sealed, and they'd all survived not having sealed countertops, this one just had to be sealed. The salesman knew better than to smirk at Arthur's consternation

At dinner, he also noted that the glass tabletop gave no information, no matter where he touched it.

"Arthur, what are you doing?" Yvonne finally snapped at him. "You're getting smudges everywhere."

"Table feel kind of warm to you?" Arthur quickly covered up his investigation.

Again, that night, she rebuffed his advances, but gave in when he reminded her that it had been nearly three weeks.

"No, I don't want..." she snarled when he kissed her lovingly.

The anger he felt when he touched her pillow wilted his erection and he rolled off of her.

"Oh, what? Just because I don't want..." she snarled.

"No, no, you're right, it's late and we're both tired," he mumbled.

"Fine, fine," she huffed, slapped her pillow and rolled away.

"Hey, how old is this mattress?" he suddenly asked.

"What?" she asked, surprise over such an odd question driving her anger out of her thoughts.

"Just wondering when we put the old one in the camper," Arthur asked.

"And that's another thing; we really need to sell that thing' we having used it in what, two years now?" she said, pulling her panties back on.

"Uh huh, about, three, no, four, four years ago," Arthur said, ignoring her.

"It hasn't been that long," she snapped.

"We put that mattress in there, let's see, Steven was three, no four, remember? He almost drowned falling into the river," Arthur said.

"Are you even listening to me?" she snapped.

"Just as much as you're listening to me," he said and rolled away from her.

Four years was somewhat soon to be replacing a bed, but Arthur saw that a queen sized, or maybe even a king sized bed would be more in line with their new arrangement of hostile resignation and antagonism.

When they'd first gotten married, a full sized bed was plenty large enough, although his feet did tend to dangle over the edge. Even in her ninth month o pregnancy, belly poking him in the back, a full sized bed was large enough.

But lately, she had been complaining that he was 'crowding' her, that she had no room.

"Maybe if you lost some of that anger, you'd take up less space," Arthur almost said out loud, but did not.

In the morning, AJ was humming something to himself; it was obvious to Arthur that the boy was once again attempting to write a song; he kept repeating the same phrase over and over.

"Here, tired of y'all scratching the table all up," Yvonne snapped, slapping down woven placemats.

Still humming his phrase, AJ picked up one and put his plate on the straw mat.

"God, stop!" Yvette finally snapped at him and AJ did stop.

"Thought you loved music," Arthur said to his daughter, resting his hand gently on her shoulder.

"Yeah, well, not the same thing, over and over," she snapped, glaring sullenly at AJ.

"Dad, this Saturday, we do that car?" Steven again asked.

"Yeah, you got it, buddy," Arthur assured him.

"But I got..." Yvette reminded Arthur.

"That's at one, right?" Arthur smiled. "Not a problem; Me and Steve-a-reno can knock out the car, drive it down to New Orleans, and still be back in plenty of time," Arthur assured her.

Even Yvette let a rare smile escape as Steven laughed about driving a model car to New Orleans.

Chapter 5

The table and the chairs were right where he and AJ had moved them, nearly six weeks ago. Arthur resisted the urge to storm back into the house and demand an answer from Yvonne, why. How hard could it be to make one call, just one call to the Salvation Army; they would send a truck out that day.

He reminded himself, it would be just as easy for him to pick up his telephone and make the same call, so he bit back the anger and smiled at Steven.

"Okay, Buddy, you're always saying how strong you are? Time to man up. We're going to move this over there, on that wall, okay?" he said, pointing to where he wanted to go with the cumbersome table top.

He grabbed the end of the table, preparing to walk backward, and saw an engraved invitation that he had not seen before.

'Samuel Joseph and Patricia Ann Melks announce the engagement and upcoming nuptials of their son Steven Christopher Melks to...'

Arthur opened his mouth, nearly dropping the table.

He could remember Steve Melks, a handsome young man with an impressive physique and an aversion to wearing shirts. The Melks had lived two houses down and because there were no trees in the four front lawns from the Melks house on the left to the Tuttlebaums on the right, there were often five or six young men and their girlfriends playing football in front of their house.

Yes, they got loud, yes, one or two of the boys developed smart mouths and had to be sent away, but for the most part, no one minded them playing in their yards.

"Hey, at least we know where they are, right?" they'd say to one another.

Sam had been offered a promotion that moved the Melks to St. Louis Missouri right after Steve graduated from Cabrini High School. Arthur remembered, Yvonne had been quite despondent over their move and remembered wondering why. They'd been friendly with the Melks, but since Sam and Patty were nearly twenty years their senior, had not been especially close to them.

Now, Arthur lifted the table and saw his wife reading the invitation then putting her head down on the table and sobbing bitterly.

If the wedding had taken place, Steve and Pamela Wendy Davis were coming up on their second month as husband and wife.

Arthur wondered when the invitation had come in. In his mind's eye, Yvonne still had her long brown hair, so it could have been as long as six months ago.

"There?" Steven asked and Arthur nodded and they put the table top down and leaned it against the wall.

He looked at his youngest son and could clearly see that eighteen year old boy as he and his friends laughed, squealed, cavorted, and even occasionally fought in front of the house.

"Okay, these chairs and..." Arthur said and put his hand on one of the chairs.

He saw his daughter's unhappy face and his own face as he picked up two of the chairs and pushed them aside.

He saw AJ's face and also felt the chair jiggling slightly; this almost made him smile. The chair was jiggling, obviously because AJ was tapping his foot to a rhythm only he could hear.

"All right, future NASCAR winner, let's see if we can get you going here," Arthur said with false cheerfulness as he started up the saw.

Steven had attempted to draw what he had envisioned in his mind and Arthur shut off the saw and grabbed a pencil off the workbench.

"All right, see, what you got there is an add-on and what we're trying to do is cut away," he explained why they couldn't put the 'blower' his son wanted.

"We could glue it on?" Steven suggested.

"Uh huh, got one?" Arthur asked and Steven had to shake his head no.

"So, how about..." Arthur said and quickly sketched out a sleek looking car.

"And then we can paint it and..." Steven agreed.

"Uh, no, then YOU can paint it and put numbers on it; remember? I got to take your sister to that school meeting," Arthur reminded him as he started the saw again.

He made quick work of trimming the block of wood, handed Steven the sandpaper and put the boy to work smoothing out the project.

Yvette was not in her room when Arthur knocked on her door but the door did swing open.

Arthur stepped in' the room had not changed much since the last time she'd been permitted to enter her sanctuary. There were still far too many stuffed animals and there were still the four ballerina dolls she'd just had to have and would have died if Santa Claus had not put them under the tree for her. Four Christmases in a row, he and Yvonne scrambled, even driving as far as Houston, Texas to find them.

He picked up the closest one, the most expensive one out of the bunch and bit down, remembering how hard it had been to locate the doll. It had been the last doll she ever asked for.

Suddenly, he saw his baby girl as she clung to the doll, sobbing about her first period; terrified of becoming a woman.

"And then I'm going to get boobs and won't even be able to dance," she sobbed.

Even at her young age, Yvette was quickly developing into a very shapely young woman; almost a carbon copy of her mother.

"Dad!" Yvette shrieked, catching her father in her room.

"Hey, door was open," Arthur smiled, putting the doll back down. "Remember ho hard it was to find this one."

"And, that gives you the right to just come on in?" Yvette screeched, incensed that her sanctuary had been invaded.

"Uh, I pay the mortgage here," Arthur said, very quickly growing tired of her attitude.

He turned to leave, then saw something very odd on her desk; a hunting knife and there was a smudge of blood on it.

"What the..." he asked and picked it up.

"Dad! No!" Yvette screamed, lunging for the knife.

"Good God, what in the hell, huh? Do you really need to be screaming like this?" Yvonne snarled from the doorway.

"Dad, give me that, that's mine!" Yvette begged, tears beginning to spill from her eyes.

"Oh my God," Arthur said.

In the split second he'd touched that smudge of blood, that split second he'd been able to hold his jaw firm, he'd seen the numerous cuts on Yvette's arms, seen the euphoria she felt when she cut herself, the endorphin rush. He also saw the two haughty girls that bullied and tormented her at school.

"I don't know why you have this," he lied, handing the knife to his beautiful, anguished little girl. "But you are not to take that to school, do you hear?"

"Answer me; why do we need all this screaming?" Yvonne snapped.

"Door was open, I came on in, was looking at her doll; remember when we got her this one?" Arthur said, extremely angered with his wife, but not wishing to fight with her in front of his daughter.

"That does not answer..." Yvonne said.

"He's not supposed to be in here," Yvette screamed, quickly shoving the knife into a desk drawer. "No one's supposed to be in here!"

"That does not excuse..." Yvonne snapped.

"Come on Honey," Arthur pushed his wife into the hall.

"Hey, get dressed, I'll take you to Tommy's before we have to go to that school thing, all right?" he yelled through the door.

"So you're going to reward her bad attitude?" Yvonne shrilled at him.

"Why not?" he snapped back. "I reward yours."

Yvonne was stunned into silence for a moment, and then followed him into their bathroom.

"And what does that mean, you reward my..." she shrilled at him.

"When?" he asked her. "When is the last God damned time you've had anything nice to say to me? Huh? Please tell me, because I sure as hell don't remember."

He turned and began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Now, if you don't mind I need to do the three 'S's and take my daughter for a father daughter lunch," he said.

Even though it was a warm day, Yvette was dressed in a long sleeve shirt and horribly baggy jeans. Yvonne almost said something about the outfit but Arthur hustled the girl into his car before Yvonne could say anything.

"Hey, that's looking good, what color you thinking you might want to paint it?" Arthur said as Steven held up the block of wood for his inspection.

"Blue," Steven said immediately.

"Well, it's almost ready," Arthur said. "But why don't you wait until I get home? You know if you make a mess, Mom will get pretty bent out of shape with you."

Kizzy's School of Dance was next door to Tommy's Po-Boys and Arthur looked over at Yvette as they watched a group of leotard clad girls trouping from Tommy's back to the studio, several carrying soft serve ice cream cones.

He could see the anguish in her eyes and put his hand on hers. For a brief moment, she let him hold her hand.

"Man, haven't had a soft serve, oh, I love chocolate," Arthur said as Yvette jerked her hand out of his.

Inside the restaurant, Arthur felt Yvette tense up and he looked over to see a girl smirking at Yvette. He recognized the girl as one of the bullies he had seen when he had held Yvette's knife.

"Good God, she hasn't met a candy bar she doesn't like, huh?" Arthur said, none too quietly to his daughter.

The bully's mouth opened in shock as she looked at the man that dared give voice to her worst fear. She was not severely overweight, but did have a few extra pounds of baby fat to lose.

"Still like shrimp?" Arthur asked his daughter who was staring at him in shock.

"Uh yeah, yeah," Yvette agreed. "No..."

"Pickle, I know, add ketchup," Arthur smiled.

He ordered their food and walked past the no longer smirking girl and an older woman, a carbon copy of the girl.

"Just say 'No' to the doughnuts, Blimpy," Arthur said, hand on his daughter's shoulder.

"Dad!" Yvette whispered hoarsely.

"Really? She goes to your school?" Arthur said. "Wow, can tell they don't have a weight restriction, do they?"

The girl shoved her sandwich away, in tears now.

"What gives you the right..." the girl's mother now stood in front of them, face red with rage.

"Free country, Porky," Arthur said. "I can say whatever I want, especially if it's true. But I can see where your daughter gets her bad eating and grooming habits from. Have a nice day."

Their order was called and Arthur stepped around the woman, making a big display of how widely he had to step around her.

"I don't think Allison, that's her name, right, Allison? I don't think that snotty little bitch will be giving you any more trouble," Arthur said as Yvette unwrapped her sandwich.

"How'd you..." Yvette asked, a single tear dripping down her face.

"Not important how I knew," Arthur said. "And I saw you watch those girls; I know, I know you may never be the ballerina you'd like to be, but I really really would love it if you'd go back to dancing. Honey, you loved it. You loved it so much, the music, and the movements."

"But it's a waste of time," Yvette weakly argued.

"Do you like it?" Arthur asked.

"Well yeah, but..." Yvette said.

"Then it's not a waste of time, or of money," Arthur said.

Kizzy Clark, the owner and primary teacher of Kizzy's School of Dance was waiting for the last of her eleven o'clock class to leave when Arthur hustled Yvette into the building. The brunette's eyes lighted up at seeing her former student.

"Hey, was wondering if you have a class for fifteen year olds, fifteen on up?" Arthur asked.

"Hi, Mr. Petitjean, yes, yes we do fifteen to eighteen; Yvette, have you been keeping up with your form?" Kizzy asked.

In the car, just outside of Northside High School, Yvette turned to her father.

"Love you, Dad," she said.

Chapter 6

Steven, of course, did not wait and Arthur screwed up his face as he used the paint thinner to first remove the enamel paint from Steven's hands, then from the garage floor. Steve Melks, as he remembered, had been an impetuous youth, unable to sit still, unable to be patient.

"Those jeans, I'm afraid, are history," he said while Yvonne harangued the eight year old.

"And your father told you to wait didn't he? You did tell him to wait, didn't you?" Yvonne screamed.

"Enough, okay? That's enough," Arthur said as he dabbed up the chemicals.

He kissed the upset boy, and then swatted his backside.

"Love you, boy but you're a mess, you hear?" he said. "Now, go wash them hands, all right? Wash them good. With soap, you hear?"

"What is the matter with you?" Yvonne now screamed at Arthur when Steven scampered out of the garage.

"Sam and Patty know they got a grandson?" Arthur asked calmly as he put away the paint thinner.

"Huh? What?" Yvonne asked, face a mask of shock.

"I'll be getting a D.N.A. test done, but I think you and I both know how it's going to turn out, don't we?" Arthur said. "And then I'll be going after Mr. Melks for eight years of child support."

"What?" Yvonne asked, still reeling from Arthur's sudden revelation.

"And there's absolutely no doubt I'll be going for a divorce; damned if I'm going to stay married to a slut that'll sleep with an eighteen year old kid," Arthur said throwing the stained rag into a five gallon bucket then securing the lid on the bucket.

"Arthur, don't," Yvonne said weakly, pleading.

'When'd you get the invitation?" Arthur asked, looking around and not seeing anything else he could fiddle with in the garage. "Huh? The wedding invitation?"

"I, how'd you, I threw that..." Yvonne stammered.

"Oh, I know you threw that away, then cried your little eyes out about your lover deciding he'd be better off marrying someone his own age rather than wasting his time with a fat ass wrinkled up old slut," Arthur said.

"How dare, how can you even talk to me like that?" Yvonne asked, tears of anger streaming from her eyes.

"Easy, actually," Arthur smiled tightly, avoiding biting down. "As shitty as you been treating me last four or five months? Really easy. But don't worry; in front of the children, I'll be as nice and polite as I have to be."

He opened the door to the kitchen and could hear Yvette talking with AJ.

"And I'll be going on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right after class but it's right next door to Tommy's so I can just walk there<" Yvette said.

"Too cool; I'm so glad you're getting back into that," AJ encouraged.

"Oh, Yvette's going back to Dance, but don't worry, I'll pay for that," Arthur said to Yvonne.

"I was telling..." Yvette said eyes alive with happiness.

"I heard," Arthur smiled a genuine smile. "And I heard AJ say that he thought that was horrible and terrible and really stinky."

"Dad, I did not!" AJ laughed.

"Oh my God! Tuesday's just... I have to get into form!" Yvette shrilled then dashed to her room.

"I really wish you'd ask me before you make..." Yvonne snapped.

"I have a new job, the new job pays a hell of a lot more," Arthur said, having to avoid biting down, having to fight to keep his voice civil in front of AJ.