Teeth(20)

Before I leave, I’ve really got to introduce him to Teeth for real.

Or . . . f*ck. Maybe I can’t leave.

Just . . . just f*ck, okay?

I put the papers down on my lap.

“You seem disappointed,” Diana says. But she’s not looking at me.

“Just thinking.”

“Nothing about your fishboy in there, huh?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Yeah, all that is in my mom’s diaries.” She turns a page in her book. “His exciting conception.”

I’d kind of figured, but I wasn’t expecting confirmation to be that way. “Half-brother fish?”

“See why I prefer books?”

“Where are the diaries?”

She chuckles a little, her eyes still locked on her book. “Not in here, I’ll tell you that.”

She’s not going to tell me. Goddamn it. I groan and flop backward in the chair. She’s still grinning.

“Have you read A Farewell to Arms?” she says. “It’s good.”

“No.”

“I’ll lend you a copy.”

“Thanks.” But I can’t pretend this is what I want. Half an hour ago, books were all I wanted. Now I want a f*cking boat. Someone to offer to ship fish to the states. An actual cure.



“He is getting well, though.” I’m sitting on the dock, throwing pieces of seaweed into the water.

“That’s kind of why you’re here.” Teeth scoops his lips over the surface of the water and gobbles up the seaweed I threw. I toss the next piece into his mouth.

“I guess I didn’t believe it would really happen. You know I could bring you some real food, right? Candy, even.”

“I hate human food.” He’s eyeing the seaweed in my hand. “Give me the rest of that.”

“There’s more everywhere. Go get your own.”

He whines, long and loud, like a scream. “That’s a really good piece. You got lucky.”

“Or maybe I picked it out on purpose. Best seaweed in the sea.”

“Stop f*cking around. It’s not like you need it. You can’t even eat seaweed.” He stumbles around the word a little.

“Of course I can.” I eat a bite to screw with him. It just tastes like salt. “How often do the fishermen catch you?” I say. I’ve been trying to get him to talk about them all morning. He has this bruise around his neck in the shape of a hand. And his eyes are really red today.

“Most nights. They’re crafty.”

“I don’t get why you don’t swim away.”

“I just bite them. So you guys are going to stop eating the fish now, right? Now that he’s well.”

“We don’t eat them, really. Only him.”

“Is he going to stop?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want him to go back to how he was. And it’s not like he’s totally well.”

“I think it’s time to stop, Rudy. I mean, what if . . . what if he becomes whatever from the fish from eating too much?”

“Uh, allergic?”

“No.”

“Immune.”

“Jesus Christ, if I knew the word I’d f*cking say the word, Rudy.”

“All right, kiddo, calm down. It’s not like we’re eating you.”

He sighs, really big, in this way that reminds me how much of him is human. I can hear all the air leaving his lungs.

“Stop being mean and give me that,” he says, pointing his chin at the seaweed. “All I ever do is skim the shit off the surface. Dead and slimy. The good stuff’s too hard to pick.”

“You’re really not adapted to your environment.”

I mean that as a joke, just more banter, but he kind of looks away and splashes a little with his tail.

I say, “Hey, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not exactly . . . whatever. A thing that was made for what I do.” He’s doing the whatever thing the more we talk, because I guess we’re venturing past the subjects he’s used to hearing about. He learned English from listening to the islanders, I assume, and if they don’t say the word evolutionary, he’s not going to know it. It’s not like there’s anything for him to read out here in the ocean. Really, he’s the opposite of Diana in every single way, ever.

“I’m a mistake,” he says. “Let’s be honest.”

I want to ask now about his mom. If he knows she’s still up there in the mansion. And how long he was with her. And if he remembers when she must have read him Runaway Bunny. And about how the hell one goes about having sex with a fish.

He pushes himself out of the water to try to get to my seaweed. He snaps at the air. His teeth are long and thin as needles. I pull my hand away before he can bite my fingers off, and he says, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know, *.”

“Plus they’re sharp, not strong. I probably wouldn’t even break skin.” He bites his hand to test and examines it critically.

“Stop that. Like you’re not beat up already.”

“Didn’t break skin.”

“So your bullshit about biting the fishermen is actual bullshit, then. Do they just let you go?”