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Toothpick for Two

  by

  Gordon A. Kessler

  A Story of True Love (or something kinda close to it)

  Toothpick for Two

  Copyright 1993 by Gordon A. Kessler

  ISBN: 978-0-9831905-7-8

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, their animals, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information address: Gordon A. Kessler at: [email protected]

  Or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/gordon.kessler1

  Comments welcome.

  Also read Gordon A. Kessler’s thriller novels:

  Brainstorm

  Jezebel

  Dead Reckoning

  and THE book on fiction writing: Novel Writing Made Simple.

  Also available from Gordon: "Jack Knight" a coming-of-age/nostalgia short story.

  Hi! My name is Gordon Kessler, and I'm here to tell you a true and moving story about a sort of cousin of mine. Actually, he's my sister's uncle's only sibling's only son. But, to protect the innocent, let's just call him Benny Bevermeyer.

  Maestro, a little piana music if you please.

  “Toothpick for Two”.

  Benny Bevermeyer gripped the steering wheel of the big Buick as if it were a lifeline to salvation, and there were sharks in his shorts. He hadn't seen it storm like this in all his forty-seven years, except once. That would be the time, twenty-five years back, when he had the bright idea of going camping in a pup tent on his honeymoon. Grace would never let him forget those four days of wet hell, nor would she ever let Benny have a bright idea again. To make matters worse, half a slice of Aunt May's roast beef was jammed up between the first molar and last bicuspid on the right side of Benny's mouth. The huge chunk of meat had been clinging there tenaciously for the past two hours, and his tongue was sore and tired from trying to push it loose.

  Benny snuck a brief glance across the Le Sabre's bench seat to read Grace's disposition. He was surprised to see her relative calmness. Her lean, tall body sat in its usual stiff posture which always made him think she might have that broom stick she rode stuck in a place where the sun would never dare to shine. Her face showed some concern, her crow's feet enhanced by a frown not much more intense than was the norm. Benny attributed her surprisingly relaxed state to the fact that, in this storm, there was no chance of her getting her flannel pajamas drenched like on that fateful night when the tent blew off. It didn't matter that tonight she wasn't wearing her flannel pajamas. It'd be just as bad if she got the fluorescent orange jump suit with big purple flowers that she now wore soaked.

  Distant lightning made shadows and lines more than usual on Grace's face. It took on an uncanny resemblance to the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz.

  Weird, Benny thought, and a chill scampered up his spine.

  Suddenly, lightning flashed, accompanied by a deafening clash of thunder.

  Grace turned to Benny with a glare, shadows and lines even more pronounced.

  Resembled heck, her face looked exactly like that witch!

  "Watch the road, fool!" Grace cackled.

  "Ahhhh!" Benny yelled, startled.

  Grace's sudden outburst caused Benny to snap his head to the front and stand on the brake pedal. This knee jerk reaction put the big blue bomb into a spin on the slick asphalt and made something pop in Benny's neck that felt like Bruce Lee had just demonstrated his famous flying death kick on Benny’s upper spine.

  Benny amazed even himself as his stubby little fingers danced around the steering wheel in a demonstration of pure Mario Andretti driving skill. After making only two complete loops in the middle of the highway, along with mowing down a "Slick When Wet" sign, they came to a stop on the shoulder.

  "Derned fool!" Grace observed.

  Benny frowned at Grace with what felt like could be a permanent and painful new twist of his neck.

  "Wh-wh-what do you mean, f-fool? We're alive, a-ain't we?" he responded, in his usual frustrating stutter.

  "If your shoes stink, wear 'em," Grace retorted.

  "It's, 'if the sh-shoe fits, w-wear it'," Benny said.

  "That's not what I say," Grace said.

  "No, but it's what they s-say," Benny said, with restraint in his voice.

  "They? They who?" Grace asked.

  "Th-they they," Benny answered.

  "They they who?" Grace demanded.

  "The w-ones that s-say it," Benny answered, beginning to show his impatience.

  “The ones that say what?"—Grace seemed confused.

  The w-ones that say, 'If the sh-shoe fits, w-wear it,'" Benny said through gritting teeth.

  "That's not what I say," Grace came back, her eyebrows raised.

  "I n-know, it's not what you s-say, it's what they s-say," Benny said.

  "They can say whatever they want," Grace answered. "That's not what I say. I say, it'd be down-right bad manners for a person with the nasty foot to take his shoes off in company; that's what I say."

  Benny blew out, frustrated. This was nothing but a vicious circle, and he was the dimwit chasing his own tail. He knew from experience that the chances of schooling Grace on the proper wording of old sayings would be slim to none.

  The rain had let up some when Benny, smarting neck and all, pulled back onto the road. Sitting with his body in the natural driving position made his stiff and grudgingly sore upper vertebrae angle his head half in the direction of his not so adoring and seldom sympathetic or understanding wife, Grace.

  Benny winced, half from pain, half from the realization that he was lost as he looked down the road out of the corners of his eyes. It was only once a year that Benny ever made it out this way, and that was for what Grace's folks called the “Boogerman Family’s Festival of Holidays and Hangings.” Those thrifty Boogermans crammed into one family get-together all their big celebrations including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the anniversary of Great Uncle Larry-the-horse-thief’s hanging. Actually, the big hubbub was only an excuse to have the rest of the family bring cover-dishes since the Boogerman men were all unemployed and the women who were still married into the family were too busy taking care of kids and working two jobs to cook. This year, driving back home in the dark with two bridges washed out and three detours, Benny was in trouble. He feared the worst from Grace as soon as she figured out that he knew no more where he was going than a lop-eared bunny at a coyote convention.

  "Quit staring at me," Grace said in a frosted voice, her face pointed forward.

  Benny's eyes shifted to Grace. "I ain't s-staring at you."

  Grace glanced at Benny with a glare, then looked back to the road. "You are too staring."

  Benny made sure his eyes didn’t detour from the blacktop in front of him. "N-no, I ain't."

  "You are too, I saw you," Grace insisted.

  "N-now Grace, I ain't s-staring at you. I got a p-powerful crick in my neck and I k-can't help the d-direction the d-darn thing's b-bent," Benny pleaded.

  "I don't care none about your neck," Grace said, "just quit your staring."

  Benny realized he was chasing after his own tail again and shifted his body to the left until his knee pressed against the door panel. This made driving even more awkward and to a certain extent dangerous, but the risk would be worth what little peace of what little mind Benny had left.

  There were lights to the side of the road up ahead, and Benny slowed to get a good look at what he was about to pass. Soon, he was able to read the big neon sign, "Wanda's Diner."

  "You'd better pull over and ask directions," Grace said in an even tone.

  Benny became defensi
ve. "Wh-why? I-I ain't lost."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I ain't," Benny said, "But I do th-think I might just p-pull in here and get m-me a t-tooth pick. I got a b-big piece of your Aunt M-May's roast beef stuck up between my t-teeth."

  "Uh-huh."

  Benny pulled in and flung himself from the Buick in the downpour, or at least that's what he tried to do. During his first step into the vicious storm, he caught his huge "If you ain't Acme Fertilizer, you ain't manure!" belt buckle on the door's window crank. That window crank got a good hold on the buckle, and since that point on the stubby little man's body was just about his center of gravity, he was upside down with his face in a mud puddle in a blur. The old Buick's door then commenced to robbing Benny of his wallet, pocketknife and whatever change, extra keys and Juicy Fruit gum he had before the buckle gave loose and the window crank ripped through the fly in his britches. Benny looked back with twisted neck, from between his legs, on his knees, with his pants down to his ankles, in the mud puddle, out of the corners of his eyes—at Grace. Grace glared back.

  Benny snatched up what belongings he could find, stood, yanked his pants to his waist and held them with both hands as he made a dash to the front door of the diner. He showed the agility of a Brahma bull wearing ice skates as he tried to avoid the water puddles covering the gravel lot. Three quick baths and a desperate leap and Benny found himself standing just inside the door in front of Sergeant Bill Walters and Officer Roy Brainard, two of the biggest sheriff's officers Benny had ever seen. Both studied him suspiciously as he gaped back out of the corners of his eyes, panting, still holding onto his pants, mud rolling down the sides of his face.

  Benny shuffled toward the pretty little waitress behind the register. Bessie Galbraith had long, auburn hair fixed into a ponytail, a round face and big brown cow eyes, and she stared from them curiously at Benny. With his head angled to the officers, Benny shifted his eyes back and forth from the counter to the two big cops. Their suspicious gazes remained. He stopped in front of the register still glancing back and forth. Bessie goggled back at Benny, waiting for him to speak.

  "H-hi. K-could you be so k-kind as to d-direct me to Route 34 to B-Blackwall?" He asked sheepishly, then glimpsed back at the cops.

  "Two miles down," she said, pointing in the direction they had already been traveling, "and you'll run smack into it."

  "I-I p-probably will," Benny said, more to himself than to her.

  The waitress cocked her head and examined Benny with a questioning look.

  Benny glanced back and said with a fragile smile, "Th-thanks."

  Now, to get out of there without further incidents. He had been lucky so far. They wouldn't have to turn and go back down the road from which they came, thus proving to Grace that he had not been lost.

  Benny took three steps toward the door with his face now directed away from the officers. In a way, he wished he could see them, to see if they still eyed him, and in a way he was glad he couldn't. They were surely bird-dogging him just as closely as before, but now with their hands gripped to their .327 Magnum, double action, nickel plated, pearl handled, Smith and Jones, automatic revolvers, with twelve inch barrels and hair triggers. This would be especially true since Benny was looking away in what could only be perceived as an obvious attempt to hide something unlawful and dastardly.

  "Oh, tarnation!" Benny said under his breath as he froze in place. The toothpick! Grace would be expecting him to come out of the diner with a toothpick.

  Benny's heart started doing Barnum and Bailey type acrobatics inside his chest. He hadn't felt so watched, so scrutinized, so guilty for something he hadn't done since he was twelve, and his brother Donny blew up the Blackwall Baptist Church's outhouse at the annual new members’ picnic—with Benny inside. The apprehension he felt now would run a close second to that time when he sat there gawking out over the astonished congregation from the wall-less, smoking privy.

  Benny was about to do something stupid. He knew he was, he could feel it. But there was no way to stop. The two cops and the waitress viewed Benny's statue-still body with anticipation. Anticipation for what, they could not know, nor could they ever even attempt to guess. It was a good ten seconds before any of them moved, and Benny was the first. Something inside had pushed the wrong button.

  Benny spun around 180 degrees and dove for the toothpick dispenser on the counter. Bessie Galbraith reeled back with her hands to her face in surprise, as he came at her, pants now back down to his ankles, arms reaching. He missed. Benny’s right hand did find the ticket nail that they put the meal receipts on. It passed through his hand dead center. Benny's eyes bugged from the pain, but he somehow restrained further emotion and reached casually with his left hand for a toothpick. With the tiny stick safely between his fingers, he popped it into his mouth, pulled up his britches, then took his right hand, the hand that everyone already knew had been shish kebabbed by the ticket nail—since it was still attached—and hid it behind his back.

  Benny turned once again and rushed for the door. His neck still being bent in the awkward and difficult-to-see-in-front-of-him position that it was, he ran into a steel support pole that seemed somewhat unwilling to give in to the left side of his head. Beijing at suppertime would be the closest comparison to what he heard inside his skull, with all those little Chinese folks ringing their dinner gongs at the same time. His body slipped around the pole and almost into one of the sheriff's officer's arms. The two big cops looked at each other much like the right and center fielder at a little league ball game, not knowing who should catch the fly ball. The ball—Benny's head—bounced twice in the outfield.

  —*—

  "Are you sure you can drive?" Sergeant Walters asked, as he and Officer Brainard helped Benny into the driver's side seat.

  Grace couldn't drive, or at least wouldn't in rain. Benny would have to anyway.

  "Yeah, th-thanks guys, I'm f-fine," he said while easing his now bandaged right hand onto the steering wheel. He closed the driver's side door quickly.

  Benny expected the full wrath of Grace as he slowly twisted his sore neck toward her.

  "I got my t-tooth pick," he said nonchalantly.

  "I don't suppose you bothered to get me one?" Grace asked.

  Benny’s mouth fell open. "You didn't s-say you wanted one," Benny argued.

  "You didn't ask," she came back.

  Benny grabbed the door handle and yanked open the door. "You're about as d-dumb as a p-post," he said in a mumble, taking care not to let Grace hear.

  But Grace had heard.

  "Don't throw up in a grass house," she responded.

  "Wh-what?"—Benny didn't understand.

  "Don't throw up in a grass house," Grace repeated.

  Benny thought for a moment. "They s-say, ‘p-people in glass h-houses shouldn't throw s-s-s-stones!’" He said in anger.

  He pushed himself out of the car off the shifter lever.

  "I don't care what they say," Grace said from the car as it rolled backward.

  The door mowed Benny down flat in the mud puddle as the car started descending the hill, toward the road and the river on the other side.

  He lifted his face from the muddy water and watched as the car picked up speed. For a brief instant, his life with Grace flickered before him. She wasn’t a witch. For twenty-five years she’d fixed him three squares a day, cleaned his clothes and carefully laid them out for him every morning, and gently placed a kiss on his chubby cheek every night. Grace couldn’t just back out of his life, now.

  In an instant, he leaped from the mud and sprinted toward the car, then stumbled and rolled once when his pants fell back down to his ankles. Remarkably enough, Benny was able to kick his britches off and was on his feet and in pursuit of the runaway Buick without missing a beat. He reached for the prankish door and swung around to the inside, just as the car made the road, barely missing a passing semi. He stomped on the emergency brake by the time they made the opposite shoulder, within ten feet of th
e swollen river.

  Grace seemed unfazed. "I say it'd be quite an awful mess cleaning up that slimy goop from between all that grass, that's what I say."

  “Don’t throw up in a grass house,” Benny remembered. He just sat for a moment, soaked and pants-less, staring out the window at the passing traffic. "You're right, Grace. That would be an awful mess," he agreed, wiping the mud from his brow. Then, wide-eyed, he realized he hadn't stuttered. A smile came over his face, and he turned to her, neck no longer complaining.

  "Say," Benny said, now with a bigger smile, amazed at his cured speech and neck. "I don't need to go back in there for another toothpick." He pulled the wooden sliver from his mouth, turned it around and handed it to Grace. "We can share mine."

  Grace mooned at Benny, and a little smile that was not often seen sprouted on her lips as she took the toothpick and placed it in her mouth.

  "Oh, Benny!" she cooed, scooting across the bench seat. She laid her head on Benny's arm. "You'd give me the hair right off of your back, wouldn't chu?"

  Benny gave a long sigh, and his smile grew even bigger. He remembered then that you really can't judge an old dog by its bark. After all, Grace's book wasn't as bad as the cover, and even though he couldn't teach her new tricks, she never did bite.

  The End

  Remember, a little grin can easily be mistaken for gas. So let's all smile really wide and keep in mind; sharing something small with the one you love can mean something very big.

  ###

  Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

  If you enjoyed “Toothpick for Two,” please read Gordon’s thriller novels Dead Reckoning, Jezebel and his latest Brainstorm, all available in eBook, trade paperback, hardcover and, coming soon, in audiobook.

  And, for the future novelist: Novel Writing Made Simple.

  Also available in eBook is: "Jack Knight" a coming-of-age/nostalgia short story.

  You may contact the author at [email protected]

  Visit his website at: www.GordonKessler.com

  Your thoughts and comments are welcome. You may contact the author from his website at www.gordonkessler.com or on Facebook at: www.Facebook.com/gordon.kessler1