Who We Were (Who We Have Become)

Through His Eyes

Teeth managed to sell a fair many things at the market; at least half the luxuries from 8-Ball's room, and a million other trinkets scattered around the house. Chairs, tables, vases, and clothes; he sold it all, and made a whopping $1.5k in effect. Still, what did it matter with the expenses he used on rent, on food, on basic necessities? What did it matter, Teeth wondered, ripping the pale-pink calendar from his wall.

Just as he did, the phone rang, and just as he'd been doing the last week or so, played deaf. Hell, what was Cipher going to do? Kill him more? Yeah, right. Teeth waddled over to the cooler for another beer, his body nearly liquid by only eight in the morning. But, what did that matter either? What if Teeth sat in the tub and went down the drain, or flushed himself down the toilet? What then?

He was just drunk enough to feel giddy at the float in his head, teetering and tottering over the shoulders. His feet twiddled to music; some old record he'd found up in 8-Ball's room (Al Jolson before he'd been picked up for The Jazz Singer.) He was about as light on his feet as one might suspect, bumping and banging against the kitchen walls that, at some point, had held fancy little plates.

"That's how you know someone's getting old," was what 8-Ball used to say. "When they start decorating the place with dishes."

Teeth knocked the side of his mouth into the wall. "'Scue me," he slurred, sliding his hands over the crooked work of his button-up shirt, only to spill the drink in his hand down his chest. Yup; good and drunk.

Six months had been a damn-lot of time to make $15k, but that was still six months all alone. You didn't just do work all alone.

Managing the children had always been his job, but keeping customers in line had been 8-Ball's; he used to sit in the far corner of the basement with his fold-out chair, leg crossed over the knee, nursing himself on a silver flask. He'd get pretty damn teed off at a few; snapped his fingers with a pointed "Hey!" if anything went below the belt, close to killing and such. No one liked damaged goods, after all.

They did their jobs well over the years, and were all set until six months ago when Teeth had his little... accident. With 8-Ball gone and dead, it had been up to Teeth to play referee, but he was a wormly man. Who was he, Teeth thought, to get in the way of things? Where did his authority stand, when all he really did was collect the cash afterwards? He was practically a cashier.

"Eh, forget it," he'd thought, leaving those men to their own devices, practically letting hyenas loose in a museum. Sculptures smashed to bits, paintings torn from walls; it became a real mess after a while, and maybe someone like 8-Ball didn't need Teeth, but Teeth sure as hell needed 8-Ball, especially when business made a noticeable drop.

Doing the dirtying up was good and fine, but come the next customer who wanted to do the same exact thing to those boys, they saw yellowing bruises, angry bitemarks, and the illusion of purity fizzled out. One guy told another guy told another guy told the next, "Oh, don't go over there. That's for sloppy seconds."

A failing business was worse than a dead one; there was no respect for the guy who ran a well-established child ring into the ground. A lot of people walked out with the same weight to their wallets, but Teeth's mouth stayed stone-hard.

Would that have happened with 8-Ball around?

Teeth knocked back the last of his drink before leaning over for another beer. He fingernailed the flap open, half-dazed at the foam bubbling up.

Hell. What did it matter who'd gotten away with what under 8-Ball's watch? What did it matter in 8-Ball's old, barren kitchen, the last of his beer going down someone else's throat, his very name no more than horse shit on his old crock-skinned boots? He'd had a go at it, put his eggs in one basket, only to have a serpent gobble them up; 8-Ball's hand was visible from the downstair's bathroom window where it peaked out of the dirt, hollowed by mosquitos and maggots and little chiggers burrowing into the blood.