Chapter 22 - No Money No Teeth

Brush your teeth everyday. And, as the saying goes, only floss the ones you want to keep. It’s easy to sit back and dole out this advice to people, but as an everyday activity, it’s much harder to practice. It is also made that much more difficult when something has happened to your pearly whites that makes you wish you never grew any stupid teeth in the first place.
People lose their teeth for a variety of reasons. Most have the means to have something done about it so that the defect is corrected and they can go on smiling. But if you do not have the means, you may have to go toothless for a while. It’s not as bad as popular opinion makes it out to be, but you notice that people greet your mouth with a certain amount of disappointment.
Alica got the shit knocked out of her at least three times a day. Her bastard husband, Frank, was a truly worthless individual. When he wasn’t scamming the elderly out of their life savings at the nursing home he worked at, he was usually at home looking for some excuse to beat up on Alicia. Her only escape was her work at Pops Waffle Stop. But she dreaded the end of the day, when she would have to go home for her evening cleansing. The beatings were never too severe that she couldn’t cover them up somehow the next day. But her face told the truth about her unhappy home life.
Frank took his role too far the day he decided that he would try to improve his situation by robbing the nursing home residents and get the hell out of town. He was always trying to sell some of the residents his bogus life insurance plan. Only one or two fell for it and he was able to get a few hundred dollars. But he decided that it would be much faster to hit up the cash drawer in the front office and leave town. He was surprised to find that there were several thousand dollars kept up there. Frank never understood why, but he didn’t have to. He was done with his crappy job, and he was going to run with the money. His supervisor, Charlie, walked in on him and saw him next to his bag of money and picked up the phone to call the police. Frank yelled for him to put the phone down, but his supervisor just stared at Frank in disbelief.
Frank hit Charlie with the only thing he could find within his reach, the stapler. Unfortunately for both of them, he threw the stapler so hard that when it hit Charlie in the head it killed him instantly. Then all was quiet in the little office and Frank calmly closed his bag of money and left the building.
When he got back home, he turned on the television to see if the news had picked up on his robbery. Nothing but commercials as he flipped from channel to channel which made him upset. He became even more afraid when he thought he heard sirens in the distance. Alicia was in the bathroom when he came in, so she was unaware of his heightened frustration. When she came out of the bathroom and walked in on him looking out the window he turned on her.
“Did you call the fucking cops on me?” he accused her.
“What?” she said, suddenly frightened at the prospect of another beating.
“I’m trying to help us and you go and turn me in.” he said.
“Frank, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got home from work.”
He turned toward her and dropped his bag of money.
“Please don’t baby, I didn’t call anyone.” she pleaded with him.
Frank opened his hand and slapped her across the mouth. She turned to get out of the way, but his hand caught her anyway. He began using his fists when the sirens sounded from the driveway. The police burst through the front door just as two of Alicia’s teeth were knocked out from her jaw.
They pulled him off of her and called for an ambulance. Frank was going away for good this time. He killed Charlie, robbed the nursing home and brutally assaulted his wife. No chance in hell Frank was going to see daylight as a free man again.
When the paramedics arrived they quickly treated Alicia for her physical pain, but her emotional pain was excruciating. Not only was she still in shock at just having two of her teeth knocked out after being beaten up by her supposed life-partner, but she was on the verge of complete psychological breakdown at the realization that things were not going as she had envisioned them when she tied the knot with Frank. She couldn’t believe all that had changed in Frank in the last few years and all that had changed in her in the last few minutes.
Frank was arrested and taken away by the police. She told the paramedics to go away after they treated her and then tried to take her to the hospital. She sat on floor and felt the silence of the room and the dull throbbing pain in her jaw. Alicia felt she had to get away. There was nothing in this place for her now. She would go to a friend’s house for the night, but she would never return to this room again.