Not Beacons of Good Dental Maintenance

Wherein peace finally reigns

Fighters 2022 Camila Hamel

High-rise acoustics being what they were, we heard the glory and triumph coming way before we saw the faces brandishing gold, and the jeering mouths flashing silver—the street bling kind, you know, not like the beacons of good dental maintenance.

What we hadn't heard, though, was why, after beating the tar out of us and taking away all our shit, they'd come back. So when the booming, high-as-the-sky whooping and hollering started up again, we had to take a quick vote. All in favor, fight or flight, ask for a parley, shell out some parsley, or just get the fuck out.

We were bad at this. Not an executive brain among us, as in sparkling decision-makers we were not, either collectively or individually. How we got where we were now in the first place.

          "Hurry, they're coming."

          "Don't panic till you see the whites of their eyes."

          "The pink of their eyes you mean. They're all drunk and stoned. Maybe even—"

          "And yet they beat us to within an inch."

          "That was when their eyes were still white."

          "Why doesn't one of us go out there and ask them what they want?"

          "Not me, man. That's a whole lotta crazy out there."

          "Ugh, I'll go."

          "We don't like it one bit, but ok; we'll be here."

          “Best be here if the we's gonna last.”

There were a bunch of uh-huh’s and you-said-it’s. So, we waited, and to pass the time, we deliberated.

          "Heads we bail him out, tails we move back to Poukicksie right now."

          "Ah yeah, the coin way. Let fate decide for us.”

          "But what if it's tails and he makes it back here?"

          "Then we're big traitors."

          "Not we, you. We's staying." (Background chorus of yeahs)

          "He's been gone too long already. They either took him in or they did him in."
          
          "The result for us of course is the same. Come on, we need to stay a 'we'; don't be a goddamn 'I'."

          "How prophetic; I dreamed I had become one."

          "An ‘I’? Shit, what was that like?"

          "Cool, but still, it was a nightmare."

          "So do us the honors. Flip the damn coin already."

          "Never mind, here he comes."

We were all very relieved to see him alive and all in one piece. Except for the red where he got slapped, he was okay.

          "So why are they here? They took everything we had. What more do they want, foot baths?"

          "Nah, nothing like that. After they left, they had a catastrophic rumble of their own. The way they tell it, not everyone was down with the shellacking we took at their hands. They ran a bunch of them out of town. Those guys are all 'I's now. They couldn’t even get it together to make another 'We' of their own. 

          "This ‘We’ here says come over for a regroup. They wanna make a better ‘We’."

          "Oh yeah? Then why'd you get slapped?"

         "Ah, well, until the diplomacy chip kicked in, I might have said a few indecorous things."

        "You boob."

Another quick vote, no coin this time.

**

This is my fifty-second post, one per week minimum, so it’s balloon day for my Substack. :)