Vox Mentis

Don't lose your cool.

"Okay," you say. "Can we talk this over, please?" You draw out the word please, make it sound like police, to remind everybody that shit like this can get you arrested. "Oh. I know you. I know your mom." This isn't true, but totally believable in a town this size. The point is to bring moms into the picture, to join police.

"You came on to my boyfriend," says the girl.

This you recognize as a speculative assertion, what they called test balloons in class. When people make speculative assertions, they hope to be disproved. It means the girl isn't going to hit you with the chain. If she had said, I'm going to fuck you up for what you did to my boyfriend, you would have been in trouble. But she's just standing there, waiting for you to respond and explain how it's all a crazy misunderstanding. You almost feel disappointed, because it had been an interesting mental challenge there for a minute.

Make them lose their cool.

Well, this is it. This is what control buys you.

Guess it's time to lose it. They didn't deserve what they had.

"Actually, he came on to me," you say, and you must want to be hurt; it's the only explanation. The girl stares at you, trying to believe her ears, and another girl says, "Oh, it's on, bitch," and you run. You almost get through a girl with bad acne and scared eyes but someone grabs your collar and drags you to the ground. The girl with the chain comes at you in pure rage, and despite the imminent ass whipping you feel a mild pleasure at successfully pushing her beyond pre-cortex control. That's not easy. You really have to sock a person in the core of what they believe to do that. You throw your arms around your head and curl into a ball.

Pain explodes on your back. You try to roll over, and the chain catches you across the face. Your mouth disappears. You find your knees and try to crawl away. Something bright and bloody lies in the dirt. A tooth. You feel sad and stupid and want to go back in time and not be such a dick.

Lights flare. You can't see where they're coming from but apparently they're relevant because the girls fall away. Shoes slap concrete. There are no new blows. That's an improvement.

Someone takes you by the shoulders. You flinch. He says, "It's all right, relax, I'm helping."

"Moof," you say, which is supposed to be My tooth. The man's fingers invade your ribs. He goes away and you feel lost. He comes back and snaps something around your neck. You try to rise but he says, "No, no," restraining you with one hand. All you can see is his hair, which is long and the color of sand. He slides something beneath your butt, which turns out to be a trolley. "Muh toof," you say. He ratchets you up and sails you across the parking lot to a white van that you know passes for an ambulance out here. Before he closes the doors on you, his eyes scan you in a quick, professional way.

By the time the vehicle stops and hands begin to unload you, you're not sure where you are. "Pub brawl?" someone asks, and the man says, "Girl fight out back of Tangled Threads."

A woman bends over your face. "She's lost a tooth."

"It's in my mouth," says your rescuer. This sounds funny to you, and you smile, and after that you don't remember anything. Time must have passed, though, because you're sitting in a hospital bed in an open ward with morning light streaming in. You're wearing a thin gown and your neck is encased in a brace. Your back is full of golf balls. You have a loose tooth in your mouth and probe it with your tongue but then think you probably shouldn't do that. Your head is glass but otherwise you feel pretty okay.

A nurse stops by. You've seen her buy soy milk at the local supermarket sometimes. "Morning, darling. How are you feeling?"

"Good," you say.

The nurse puts her hands on your face. "Open up. Good. You're leaving that tooth alone?"

"Yeth."

She releases your mouth. "What happened?"

I lost control. I proved that I belong here. "Nothing."

"Gary wants to talk to you."

"Whoth Gary?"

"The police sergeant."

You try to shake your head. Pressing charges would be a bad idea. You have no identity. "How long do I wear this?"

"Six weeks. And count yourself lucky."

You do. It could easily have been worse. "Who picked me up?"

"The para?"

You don't know what this means. "The man with the ambulanth van."

"Paramedic. That's Danny. He kept that tooth viable."

"Can I thank him?"

"He's off duty," says the nurse. "But I'm sure you'll see him around. It's a small town, if you've noticed."

"Yeth," you say.

~

You've seen that van around. White with yellow and orange stripes; you must have seen it twice weekly since you got here. But, of course, now that you're released from the hospital, leading with your chin because of the brace, it's nowhere to be found. Sometimes you catch a flash of white and turn to see if it's him, pain spiking through your neck, and when you're too slow, you think, I bet it was.

It's very junior high, being attracted to an ambulance driver. Falling for a man who had rescued you. You feel stupid. But your thoughts keep returning to how he carried your tooth in his mouth. Also his hair in the ambulance headlights. You feel hot and restless, and go for lots of walks, during which you might encounter a white van with yellow and orange stripes.

Should you even bother with this guy? Do you want to thank him? Or should you just keep to yourself and go back to your usual routine? Or what? You don't know. Bah. You feel stupid.