Bugsy
by Eric Miller
Sure, I know
that first impressions can be misleading, but
I’m an impulsive guy. If you’re
impulsive, you make quick decisions. So, when I
met Gus for the first time, I jumped to what I
thought was an obvious conclusion. I think you
would have done the same thing under the
circumstances.
Picture this.
A guy comes rumbling toward you on an imposing
motorcycle as a sonic boom reverberates through
the air. The cycle screeches to a skidding stop
right in front of you. The rider, wearing a
silver studded, black leather jacket dismounts
like an old cowboy, walks toward you bowlegged,
takes off his helmet, exposing long golden hair
brushed back into a cute duck’s derriere,
rips off his scarf and twirls it in the air like
a lasso, snakes it around your neck, sticks out
his hand to shake yours, and gives you a big,
wide, ear to ear smile.
It was
impossible not to jump to judgment and believe
that this cowboy was not only a wild, whacko
yahoo, but that he had wall to wall rotten teeth,
with crescent shaped black cavities on each side
of each tooth. And it was impossible to
avoid the butterfly net of revulsion that fell
over my head and carried me away to a private
place where I could expel the horror churning in
the depths of my gut.
“My name
is Gus Spiddor,” he said. “I do believe
your face is whiter than most men’s teeth.
Are you feeling poorly?”
“About as
poorly as your decayed teeth must be feeling to
you?," I gasped.
“My teeth
don’t feel poorly,” he replied.
“Well,
they sure look real bad,” I noted.
“Oh,
I’m sorry, I forgot to rinse the bugs out
before I dismounted.”
“The bugs?,”
I said, although my words were drowned out by
another rush of gastric horror in search of
escape.
“By golly,
now I know why you look so sick. My teeth must
look like they have a series of mass graves of
little black bugs stacked up one upon another.”
“So, what
brings you to the parking lot of the
university’s august school of dental
medicine?”
“Classes
start today.”
“You’ve
matriculated?”
“That I
have. And you?”
“That I
have?, I parroted”
“Well,
what do you say we matriculate together?”
“Depends
on what your definition of matriculate is.”
Well, he knew
the definition precisely. We shook hands and
walked into the school side by side. Four years
later, we walked out together, side by side, to
attend our graduation ceremonies. When we got
there, we were no longer side by side. Bugsy, as
I called him, was at the front of the line, the
valedictorian of the class.
It has always
bugged me how I jumped to judgment that day.
You’d think I would have learned my lesson,
but alas, I haven’t. I guess that’s why
I had so many dental patients who bugged me.
“The Big Molar in the Sky” was sticking
it to me.
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