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Hello and thanks for grabbing a copy of this short story!

I’ve been writing for many years, and have had the great honor of having four of my books become best sellers. It’s been a pleasure to see so many people enjoying the fruits of my labors. I look forward to giving my readers many more stories for a long time to come!

I hope you enjoy this short story enough to try

one of my books if you haven’t already done so! And when you’re ready, you can find them on my website at authorcmcurtis.com.

Thanks, C.M. Curtis

The Toothache

I’m sittin’ in the barber chair, talkin’, not sayin’ anything partic’larly important, when Teddy, the town barber, starts to chuckle. Well, I know he ain’t chucklin’ about what I’m sayin’ because what I’m talkin’ about is somethin’ everybody’s already heard fifty times, since it happened almost a week ago. It was that thing about old Jim Tanner gettin’ drunk and shootin’ Mabel Smith’s cat, and her fillin’ his behind with rock salt from her scattergun.

Anyhow, like I said, it had already been a week since the incident, so I knew Teddy wasn’t chucklin’ about that story. Which meant he was thinkin’ about one of his own. So I did the right thing and shut up and waited for him to tell it.

Teddy never disappoints. He said, “My sister and brother-in-law were in town for a visit this past week.”

I knew they had been visitin’, but I hadn’t heard about anything unusual happenin’. This made me feel a little twist of anticipation in my stomach. Maybe me and the other boys in the shop were gonna be the first ones to hear this story. So I waited, and I noticed there was a lot less talk goin’ on among the other guys too.

“They spent a week,” said Teddy. “They left just this mornin’.”

He was draggin’ it out for suspense. He knew we all knew how long his relatives had stayed and when they had left. But we didn’t mind the buildup; that’s one of the tools of the master storyteller, and Teddy is

nothin’ if not a storyteller. Good thing too, because if he depended on his barberin’ skills he’d starve.

He was done with me, so he untied the sheet, shook my hair clippings all over the guys closest to the chair, and motioned for Luke Mackey, the owner of the feed store, to climb up and take his chances. Luke gets in the chair and starts to tell Teddy how he wants it, but Teddy is already into the story again, and we all know that Luke ain’t gonna walk out of there lookin’ like he had planned.

“Well, Friday evening,” says Teddy, “my brother-in-law—his name is Bill—owns a little spread over by Pistol Butte . . .”

Here, Teddy looks around the room as if to make sure the information has registered with everybody, as if it has some special significance to the story, which it don’t.

“Yep, Bill. He’s a good man with a rope. Small, though—’bout as big as a gnat.”

We all knew Bill’s reputation as a calf roper, and Teddy knew that. We knew Bill was a small man, too, but speakin’ for myself, I suspected that here was a fact that had some true bearing on the events Teddy was about to unfold.

“Yeah, Bill is short, but there are short men who are still good sized—got a bone structure and some muscle, if you know what I mean—but Bill? Why, he’s so skinny he turns sideways you lose track of him. Anyhow, Friday night Bill develops a toothache. It wasn’t too bad, so he decided he would wait and see if it went away. I told him there was a dentist in town,

but Bill has a mortal dread of dentists. All day Saturday the pain was pretty much level, but Saturday night it got worse.”

Right here Teddy looks up and lets his hands continue cutting Luke’s hair, unsupervised, so as to philosophize a bit about the perverse nature of a toothache. And he was right.

“A toothache,” says Teddy, “is an intelligent and malicious thing. It knows when the dentist’s office is closed. It even knows when the dentist is off fishin’, which he was. It knows when it’s the Fourth of July weekend, which it was. So Saturday night Bill’s tooth flares up with a vengeance, and Bill doesn’t sleep all night. Same thing all day Sunday, and by Sunday evening it’s so bad that old Bill is half out of his mind. We try different pain remedies, but nothin’ seems to work. About midnight on Sunday, he says to me, ‘Teddy, go wake up Doc Harms and bring him over. I can’t take any more.’ But I said, ‘Doc Harms likes his sleep. He’ll just tell you to drink a pint of whiskey and wait for the dentist to get back. I’ve got a better idea, Bill. They just built a fancy new hospital over in Brookdale. They got doctors and nurses workin’ there night and day.’”

Teddy finishes up with Luke, lowers the chair, and waves Duck Haynes, owner of the Lazy J, into it. He takes his time shakin’ out the sheet and cinchin’ it up around Ducks’s neck. Duck is a big man, and we watch his face slowly turn blue. Teddy starts pumpin’ the foot pedal to get the chair to the right height. He knows

we’re waitin’ for him to get on with the story, so he takes his time.

In order to create a little suspense at this important juncture, Teddy asks Duck the customary question: “How do you want it?” Duck hooks a finger in the sheet to loosen it from over his vocal chords and starts to gag out some instructions to Teddy, but Teddy ignores him and starts talkin’ again. Duck obviously doesn’t understand the system. The question has to be asked and gotten out of the way, but it has no bearing on what’s going to happen to your head while you’re in that chair.

I have a theory about that. The way I figure it, barbers have different kinds of brains than ordinary folks. When you walk through the door of the shop and the barber looks over at you, his brain cranks up a picture—kind of like a tintype—of what you’ll look like when he’s done with you. He only asks how you want it out of professional politeness. There will be no discernable relationship between how you tell him to cut your hair and what you wind up lookin’ like when you walk out that door.

Anyhow, Teddy starts talkin’ again: “Yeah, old Bill has had all he can take. He begs me to hitch up the buggy and drive him to that new hospital, and I say it’s an hour away, and he says, ‘Then let’s get goin’.’ I say okay. So we slap an ice bag on the side of his jaw and off we go to the hospital.”

Right here, Teddy scrunches his face into a frown to prepare us for what he’s going to say next, and I feel

myself frownin’ too. And, lookin’ around, I see all the other boys unknowingly doin’ the same.

Teddy says, “But there was somethin’ that worried me about takin’ Bill over to that hospital; somethin’ I didn’t tell him. It had to do with Sufferin’ Joe Peabody. I had heard he was back from doctorin’ school and was workin’ at the new hospital, and I knew that if he was the doc on duty when Bill and I got there, old Bill would be out of luck.”

Teddy was right about that, and we all knew it. We were all noddin’ our heads and murmurin’ agreement. Every man in the room knew about Sufferin’ Joe Peabody, but none of them knew him better than I did. I had worked with him on the old Circle T before Ted Moody bought it and changed the name. In fact, I was with Sufferin’ Joe when he received his “call to glory,” as he referred to it.

Joe was always a preachy type: he’d preach about temperance when he was drunk, and he’d preach about fightin’ when he was in the middle of a brawl. There was no kind of sin he wouldn’t preach against—generally when he had just finished commitin’ it.

Well, one day me and him was out roundin’ up strays when he shot a rattlesnake. Right away he started preachin’ to me about how it’s wrong to shoot any of the Lord’s creatures—as he got off his horse and went into the brush to pick up the dead snake so he could skin it and make himself a hatband. Well, either the snake wasn’t dead or it had a pardner, because Joe got bit.

I said to him, “We got to get you back to camp so Cookie can doctor you,” but Joe starts to preachin’. He says, ‘There’ll be no need for doctorin’; this here snakebite is my call to glory. The Lord wants me to quit punchin’ cows and serve Him, and there ain’t no snake in the world that can kill a man who has been chosen and called.’

“Well, we rode back to camp, and I worried about Joe the whole way. He was turnin’ a yellowish-green color and was gettin’ pretty unsteady in the saddle. When we get to camp, all the boys are there eatin’ lunch, and Joe don’t even get off his horse. He starts right in to preachin’. He told them he was snakebit and was sufferin’, and he said that was a good thing because man was born to suffer and the man or woman who didn’t suffer wasn’t doin’ things right. Well, right there was where he got the name Sufferin’ Joe.

“Anyhow, when Joe blacked out and fell off his horse, we figured he was a goner. But he pulled through, and without goin’ into all the details, I’ll just tell you he became a preacher. He didn’t make a go of that, though, because all he preached was that misery and sufferin’ and pain are good things. No new widow ever got comforted by Brother Peabody. Nobody who was sick or dyin’ ever got an ounce of sympathy from him. Folks just found Joe’s preachin’ to be downright depressin’.

“Well, since he couldn’t make any money out of religion, Joe decided to go into a profession where you don’t just preach about sufferin’, you actually make it

happen. He went out and became a doctor. So now you can see why Teddy was worried about takin’ his brother-in- law, Bill, over to the hospital where Sufferin’ Joe Peabody was doctorin’.”

Anyhow, Teddy got on with his story: “We get to the hospital in good time, but it turns out we hurried for nothin’ because there’s been a brawl at O’Leary’s saloon and some of the casualties have beat us to the hospital. So we just sit there for hours. Bill is a moanin’ and a groanin’, but nobody seems to care. I guess they hear so much moanin’ and groanin’ in those places that they get used to it, kinda like me with the train. When me and Zella first moved down to Third Street by the tracks, I used to wake up every time a train went by, but after a few years I got so I didn’t even hear it.”

Here is where Vern Bates commits a serious breach of etiquette. He interrupts Teddy right in the middle of a story. He says, “Once, my wife bought a cuckoo clock, and it used to wake me up sixteen times a night . . .”

Teddy cuts him off. He hates competition when he’s tellin’ a story, and Vern should have known better than to break in like that. So Teddy says, “Same kinda thing, and then you got used to it and now you probably don’t even hear it.” He says it real fast so as to finish Vern’s story for him so he can get back to his own.

But Vern’s not through makin’ a fool of himself. “Nope,” he says. “One night I took out my ten gauge, and I went bird huntin’, and that was the end of that.”

Sometimes Vern can be downright socially unconscious. He put Teddy off his stride, and Teddy hates that. He clenches his jaw and shoots a look in Vern’s direction that would have barbecued a slab of ribs. Doin’ so distracts the small part of Teddy’s mind that actually engages in cuttin’ hair, and he cuts off the tip of Duck’s right ear. Duck lets out a squeal and his hand flies up to the side of his head, but Teddy slaps it away. Everybody is mad at Vern—Duck most of all. He sits there and glares at Vern while blood flows down the side of his neck.

For a while everybody stays quiet. The only sound in the room is the angry gnashing of Teddy’s shears, and you can see Duck give a little flinch of fear with each snip. After a minute or so, the shears calm down some and Duck begins to relax. Then Teddy starts to talkin’ again and the room warms up.

“So we wait, and Bill’s gettin’ more wound up with every minute that passes. A couple of times he goes up to the desk and asks the nurse there how much longer it’s gonna be, but she only looks at him sideways and says she don’t know. She says the doctor is with some patients who have ‘real problems.’ Well, Bill don’t care much for that because to him his problem is about as real as they come.

“Then some guy comes in limpin’ and holdin’ his belly. He’s with two women who are cryin.’ The desk nurse gets up and takes the fella and the two cryin’ women back and leaves Bill and me all alone. Here’s where Bill really starts to worry me. He gets up and starts to swear and yell and pace the floor. He kicks

over a spittoon and slams a chair against the wall, and I say, ‘Hey, Bill, I know you’re hurtin’, but be careful. There ain’t any dentists in the jailhouse.’ Bill just looks at me and swears harder. His eyes are glazed, and I’m not so sure but what he’s gone over the edge. The nurse comes back out and sees the spittoon layin’ on its side, and then she sees Bill’s eyes and you can see her get kinda scared. Bill goes up to her and puts his face right up to hers and screams, ‘I have a toothache! I want to see the doctor right now!’

“Well, she gets shook up and disappears again, and I’m sure she’s sendin’ somebody for the marshal. But in a minute the doctor comes out, and, just like I had feared, it’s Old Sufferin’ Joe Peabody himself. Now you boys all have seen Sufferin’ Joe. He’s a big man—maybe six foot four—strong as a bull. He looks pretty mad, and now I know why the nurse didn’t see the need to call the marshal.

“Sufferin’ Joe—or I guess I should say Doctor Sufferin’ Joe—walks out on the floor and says, ‘Who’s the ranny with the toothache?’ Bill walks over to him, and I can tell he’s thinkin’ his misery is just about over. ‘I am, Doc,’ he says. He opens his mouth real wide, like a dog gettin’ set for a nap. He’s ready to let Sufferin’ Joe pull his tooth right there in the middle of the waitin’ room. But Joe has different ideas. He looks down at Bill like a one-legged spinster lookin' at a crippled mouse and says, ‘Mister, we’ve got people here with real problems, people who’ve been stabbed and shot and kicked by mules and run over by ore

wagons, and you come in here whinin’ about a little toothache.’”

Here Teddy stops talkin’ and looks around the room for effect. We all wait. At that moment in time, there is a part of each of us that is Bill, and we hate Sufferin’ Joe. We’re all thinkin’ about what we’re gonna do next, but we know Teddy will have to tell us—we’ve lost our free will—so we just wait. Teddy smiles and benevolently pats Duck’s hurt ear. Duck flinches so hard his neck pops, and then Teddy begins talkin’, and we all start breathin’ again.

“Well, that’s the straw that breaks old Bill’s back. He just snaps. He lets out a growl, grabs Sufferin’ Joe by the throat, and starts flingin’ him around that waitin’ room like he’s a throw rug. The receptionist screams and runs out hollerin’ for orderlies. Meanwhile I grab hold of Bill’s arm, and I’m tryin’ to break his grip, but I might as well have tried to stop a wild bull by holdin’ on to its tail. This is it, I’m thinkin’, Bill’s goin’ to jail, and I’ll probably get arrested along with him.”

Teddy reaches for a bottle of some hair preparation that’s about ninety-nine and a half percent alcohol and pours a pint or so of it over Duck’s ear to disinfect it. Duck nearly screams, but he’s smart enough to hold it in. His face turns from blue to red in about half a second, and his lips get so tight they could’ve flattened pennies. His eyes bulge out, and he makes a sound way down in his throat like a bullfrog with a kidney stone. But he holds it in. We were all real proud of him. Then Teddy gets on with the story.

“’Bout that time a deputy comes in. He was on his rounds and heard the commotion. An orderly runs in too, and between the three of us we try to surgically remove Bill’s hands from around Sufferin’ Joe’s throat. At one point I’m pullin’ on Bill’s wrist, and my hand slips off and I accidently backhand the deputy in the mouth. He yells and puts me in a headlock, and I’m out of the action.

“Another orderly shows up, and they finally get Bill subdued. We’re all huffin’ and puffin’ like we’ve just run ten miles. The deputy lets my head loose, but he holds one of my arms twisted behind my back like I’m a dangerous criminal. Sufferin’ Joe straightens his shirt and rubs his throat and just stares at Bill. I figure then that there’s no hope. When a man gets mad at you and cusses you out or punches you, most times he’ll call it good. He got his pound of flesh, he gave you your comeuppance, and he’ll let it go at that. But when a fella just stares and doesn’t say a word, you know he’s thinkin’ judges and lawyers and jailhouse, and you can already feel that cold steel around your wrists. I look at Bill’s face, and I can see that similar thoughts are goin’ through his mind. He’s calm, but the orderlies are still hangin’ on to him like he’s Butch Cassidy, and Sufferin Joe is still standin’ there, just starin’ at Bill and rubbin’ his throat. The deputy says, ‘Doc, should I haul ’em both over to the jailhouse?’ Joe doesn’t take his eyes off Bill, but he shakes his head. Then he says to Bill, ‘Pardner, looks to me like you’ve suffered long enough. Come on back, and let’s see what we can do for you.’”

When we finish laughin’, we all stand up and thank Teddy for a good story. Duck apologizes to Teddy for gettin’ blood on his sheet, and Teddy shoots a scowl over at Vern Bates. The rest of us all do the same. Vern looks down at the floor and scratches his armpit as an admission of guilt. After that, the incident is forgotten. Teddy’s not the kind of man to hold a grudge.

*

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