I had a premonition last night.
There was a place not to go, a drink not to have, and there were bubbles.
Real or imagined, and obscured as it was, it had overtaken me long before dawn and I woke exhausted.
The walk from the village to the address perched precariously on a slim stone foundation took longer than it should have. I made my way around back to a small door and a flight of stairs leading up to the office of Dr. Raymond Bennet Cole.
The secretary sitting behind the desk was a mannequin. And not a pretty, leggy one. Sporting a chipped nose, her cheeks’ blush had long faded. Her hair was a matted nest of coiled brown strands. An old calendar from Anderson’s Auto Repair Shop was pinned to the far wall.
There were a few chairs, a battered bench, and magazines strewn about. I took a seat thinking the friend who recommended Dr. Cole had pranked me.
A man appeared in the doorway. “Yes, please come in, Mr. Lawrence.”
“Ah…”
“No matter, teeth are teeth, and I’ve seen them all,” Cole said, introducing himself in a gush and guiding me into the examining room. He had a noticeable limp and wore a smile that could only be described as unsettling.
The centerpiece of the examining room was an oversized wooden rocker. Two small stones positioned under the front of each curved runner tilted the chair backward.
“Before I take a look, I’m sure you’re as curious about my collection as any new patient.”
“My name is Gardner. Will Gardner.”
“Yes, of course it is,” he said, guiding me into a cozy, connected room.
At not more than twelve feet square, the walls were decorated with a tight horizontal ribbon of shrunken heads with mouths open, exposing rows of teeth, many in terrible condition.
“Don’t worry, they’re not real, but each in its own way, represents some of my best and most complicated work. Difficult dental conditions requiring the most careful execution of advanced practices and a steady hand. My patients love this room.”
***
The rocking chair was warm against my ass.
“Please open your mouth,” he said, hovering over me without gloves.
“I couldn’t find you online?”
“Yes, I know. I’m just too busy to fill out all those forms. Now let’s have a look at you.”
Then I noticed he wasn’t wearing socks or shoes. I took a quick look around the examining room. There were no medical appliances, not even an ancient autoclave or sparkling metal trays layered with probes, scrapers, plaque removers at the ready. Nothing but a half-filled box of tissues that was, by any measure, out of reach.
I jumped up. “This isn’t working for me,” I insisted, trying to get my bearings.
“Mr. Lawrence, I—”
“It’s Gardner.”
“Yes, but I need to examine your teeth first before I advise you on how to best care for them.”
“What kind of dentist wears no gloves, has no medical equipment in his office, including an X-ray machine, and walks around barefoot?”
He looked startled. “One who is so advanced that he needs few of those artificial trappings to offer quality care to his patients.” He opened a small closet door above the sink and pulled out an old X-ray machine that hung off the front of a scissored extension. “Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea. This is too eccentric for me.”
“I want my patients to feel they’re in expert hands and trust those hands to help preserve their teeth while doing the least invasive and least uncomfortable procedures possible.”
“I didn’t mean you weren’t qualified.”
“I just never took the time to post my degrees and awards and fill out those online forms praising myself and my history of successes.”
“I made this appointment for a simple checkup. I have no problems, pain or otherwise, and while I respect your unorthodox approach, it’s unsettling.”
The shrunken heads were going to haunt me forever. And I didn’t want to become one of them.
That was a prediction, not a premonition.
He thanked me for coming and waved off my gesture to pay for his time.
Relieved, I made my way back down the darkened staircase.
***
The afternoon clouds had faded, and the temperature was pushing up against thirteen degrees Celsius. I was already enjoying the three-mile walk back to town and considering a chocolate sundae. I made it to Hobart’s Soda Fountain Shoppe in record time. The hundred-year-old, colorful throwback menu of tasty floats, malted, and egg creams from the previous century covered the wall behind Wally Garnett.
No shrunken heads here.
Typical sundae shakes included a milkshake base topped with an ice cream scoop with classic toppings, including whipped cream, chopped nuts, and a cherry. Wally’s family concoction featured an overload of chocolate sprinkles and diced strawberries added to every mix.
“I’ll take a black and white float with an extra, extra helping of chocolate sprinkles, my good man.”
Wally took over his grandfather’s shop after he graduated from law school and realized the law wasn’t his calling. He was tall and friendly, though not particularly organized.
“The usual?”
“The usual,” I agreed and gave him a sanitized sketch of my morning experience.
“I’d rather have a heart transplant than go to a dentist,” he said.
“A friend suggested Raymond Cole in that strange wood and thatched structure down by the railroad tracks. Crazy place.”
Wally placed the mountain of sprinkle-coated ice cream concoction in front of me.
At sixty-six and too lean for my own good, a modest indulgence once in a while was perfectly acceptable. I took a mouthful and instantly smiled as a drop of ice cream escaped down my chin.
“Never heard the name, but that place has been abandoned for some time,” Wally said.
“What? Since…?” I managed to get out.
“Since a few years back. Maybe more. Don’t know who lived there, but it’s empty.”
“So, there is no one at that address?”
“I’ve passed it many times. The place is empty. Did you really go there?”
“No,” I admitted, “just pranking you.”
A room full of shrunken heads, the bare feet, the hidden X-ray machine, everything was winding up my internal clock of cynicism. I consumed the entire sundae in silence while Wally stood there looking like he was reconsidering his friendship with me.
“Want another?” he asked.
“Never had two.”
Wally wiped his hands on an already stained washcloth hanging from his apron. “Guaranteed to add twenty years to your life.”
“Then if I had two more, I could add another sixty years to my life?”
“I haven’t worked out the math but, yeah, something like that.”
“Then let’s get it done.”
“Prepare yourself for the treat of your life,” he said, and quickly, as an artist or magician might do, set another in front of me without cleaning away the sweet footprint of drool that sloshed down the glass sides of my first sundae.
***
I took my second sundae to a corner booth and considered what had happened, or didn’t happen, if Wally was right.
I dialed Danny Logan, the childhood friend who gave me Raymond Cole’s name. Logan never met him, but knew someone nearby who had.
“Hello?”
“Ah, is Danny there, Danny Logan?” I said, already nibbling around the edges of the double scoop of chocolate ice cream.
“Who is this?”
“Will Gardner? A friend of his.”
“Is this a joke?” the woman asked, visibly annoyed.
“No ma’am. I am a friend of his from high school.”
“I don’t know who you are, mister, but Logan passed away a year ago, before me and my husband bought his home. So, please don’t call again or I’ll call the police.”
I sat there for a while, senseless and confused. The table I had chosen was stained with the footprint of previous delights. A bright red blob, having had something to do with strawberries, I guessed, sat indifferently in the center of the table. The top of my table was in the same unkempt disarray as every other in the shop.
Three teenagers came in and sat restlessly at the counter. Wally obviously knew them and was tolerant of their incessant chatter, as though every word they uttered had some globally important meaning.
My appetite had abandoned me. I pushed what remained of my second float away.
“You want anything else?” Wally asked, coming over.
“Maybe, but what’s that?” I asked, pointing to the red mushy stain.
“I cleaned it off last night. You’re the only one who’s sat here all day,” Wally said, taking another try, but the stain wouldn’t succumb to his wet rag. “Strange.”
The reddish stain looked familiar. “Forget it. It’s not going to kill me.”
“So?”
“Ah, a cup of hot black coffee would be helpful.”
“Coming right up,” he said and pivoted away.
I could go home. I could stop off at my neighbor’s house. I could go to the police or the nearest emergency room. There were a number of options, including the possibility that I was delusional. Or worse.
“Here you go. Freshly brewed and on the house.”
“You’re a good man, Wally. A really good man,” I said. “Maybe you could do me a favor?”
Maybe it was what I ate of the second float that did it, but I was feeling strange. Unsettled. With all that sugar pouring into my system, I should have been prepared for a diabetic attack. Something was happening, and I attributed it to the stress of the last few hours.
“Anything. What do you need?”
So, not me in my premonition, and no dentist or Danny Logan, and the day wasn’t half over.
“Just the check. That will do it.”
“No favor?”
“A very small check then, and thanks.”
He pulled a check pad from his pocket and, without noticing, dropped it squarely on the small bubbling strawberry blob.
He scribbled, then stopped, as if frozen. And I froze along with him, a spectator as the tips of his fingers and the point of the pencil dissolved. They just melted away, vanished as if they had never been.
Bubbling?
Garnett didn’t react as the pink blur crept up his wrist, devouring flesh and shirt and pencil and check pad. The teenagers at the counter continued their antics as the blur ate away much of Wally and bit into the table and booth where I sat.
I was so transfixed at what was happening speech, motion, and rationale eluded me.
The blur, or emptiness where there was no matter or form or substance, seeped off the edge of my table and fell like a rain of transparent droplets on the cushion seat near my pants.
I didn’t move or try to evade it because, like Wally before me, I couldn’t. It became a bizarre fascination and finally reached my leg as the totality of my dear friend, Wally Garnett, vanished.
I wasn’t in pain, and I imagined Wally hadn’t been either.
Watching this unfold, my morning premonition came into detailed relief. I had seen something like this coming. A warning, but in the haze of sleep, it was too vague for me to understand.
At this point, I accepted the fact that getting my teeth checked wasn’t going to happen. Not much else was going to happen either, except maybe the premonition that eluded me because it was a harbinger of the specter that I would no longer be alive.
The pink blur fused to blood red and picked up speed as it raced across Hobart’s Soda Fountain Shoppe’s thoroughly aged linoleum tile floor. A thin branch split off toward the door to the street while the main body of nothingness advanced upon the raucous teenagers. Its spidery leading tentacles were already devouring the metal base of the stools on which they sat.
I heaved a few last breaths.
It was too late to grasp the all too obvious meaning of my premonition.
This was the place not to go. This was the drink not to have.
I watched, trying to clock the distance between the bodies of the teenagers and what remained of me. Competitive by nature, I had an internal contest going. Who would vanish first? Me, or the kids?
It wasn’t even clo…
