Lazy

"Oh, my God-"

Mark looked up from his runny eggs, a yolk-soaked piece of toast in his hand. "What?"

"Isn't this your teacher?"

"Who?"

"Irwin Cook? Isn't he the one whose house you used to go to?"

"No." Mark chewed off a slimy bite and swallowed it. "I mean, I only went over there once. I left right away. He was a creep-"

"He was murdered-"

"I know-"

"And this girl, did you know her?"

"Not really. She was in my English class. She was a whore-"

"Mark! Your mouth-"

"Whatever. She was. A whore, that is. She slept with everybody-"

"Well, she was murdered too. That's not nice to talk about her like that-"

"What do you know? Maybe she deserved it."

Sarah looked back at the newspaper on the table in front of her with a shake of her curler-strewn head.

Mark yawned and rubbed some more sleep out of his eyes. He circled the last of the transparent egg white and hardening yolk off his plate with his last piece of toast and devoured it as he put his plate in the sink. "Where's Lightning Dan?"

"Mr. Wheate to you, Mark-"

"Yeah." He coughed. "So where is the old fart?"

Sarah shook her head again. "He's run up to the hardware store. We need a plunger."

"Is that what they're calling Viagra these days?"

"Shut up-"

Mark laughed. "Are you finished reading that crap yet?"

"Mark, this is serious stuff. They haven't caught anybody yet-"

"They never will-"

"Yes, they will, and when they do, I hope they string him up-"

"That's nice. Then you'll be just like him-"

"Mark, we've been over this-"

"Too many times." Mark rubbed his bare belly with both of his veiny hands, looking at the nub protruding from his nylon rugby shorts just below. "I'm going up to my room."

"Did you know this Phil kid too?"

"Not really. He was some retarded kid they put in my Art class so he wouldn't feel different-"

"Oh."

Mark was in his room in ten seconds, locking the door behind him, sliding his shorts over his erection and off his body. He sat bare-assed at his tiny desk, on which sat an old computer monitor, CPU, and keyboard, a stack of graphic novels, a large file, a small, battery-operated hand drill, and 32 teeth. The trash can next to his desk was filled with sticky Kleenex tissues and the New York Giants sheets on his bed were crumpled with a restless night's sleep. He picked up the last tooth he'd been working on, which he had filed into the shape of a triangle and leaned back in his creaking chair.

It was Daniel's tooth. One of the top canines. So it was easy to make it a triangle and not some other geometric shape. The incisors were harder. But not. They were more fragile, but they were larger. If you were careful, you could make any shape you wanted. If you weren't, then you were fucked. Just little floaty bits that you couldn't do shit with. The molars were the worst. Very thin. And you had to split them. Just right. Or it was another mess and a prayer the SuperGlue would work.

He put the triangle to his own canine, which was so sharp that he'd cut his tongue just brushing against it a couple times. He wanted to SuperGlue Daniel's over his. But he couldn't. Because it'd look like shit. Everyone'd call him Mr. Ed. So he stuck it in his dickhole. Daniel's dick was perfect. A perfect fit. He could fuck it all day without it hurting but he'd feel it intensely against his prostate the whole time. Daniel'd been the only boy who'd made him come just by fucking him, without touching his little dick.

FUCK! MEMORIES! They were nothing. Nothing but bruises on the brain. Nothing but pain. People are masochists. Which is why they keep mementos. Clothes, jewelry, love letters, teddy bears, furniture, whatever. Teeth. They stab those parts of their brains over and over - and fucking feel good about it. Because they're scared they might feel better without it-

Mark sat up quickly and pulled the tooth out of his dick before it slipped so far in he couldn't get it out and placed it back on the table in a puddle of his pre-ejaculate. He queued up the music player on his computer and began filing as the song he'd written and recorded on his old Hewlett-Packard let loose through the speakers on the floor beneath his desk:

"I fell in love with a boy
until he told me
to shut the fuck up
to shut the fuck up
to shut the fuck up
Just shut the fuck up"