FRIEDOM

"You drink your coffee like there's bourbon in it."

Friedom (Danish and pronounced "freedom"), his

voice hisses through my open window and me

thinking the horizontal blinds keeping out the world.


I smile back, "I never sipped my bourbon." He laughs.

It's fun to make this homeless man laugh. Had the

Homestead Act still been in place he would own the

garage behind my five unit one-story apartment building,

having squatted rent free for the past three years.

Sleeping on blankets his box of possessions at his side.

This week had produced a new friedom. In his homeless,

carless, moneyless world he somehow received a

Mastercard and promptly got a full set of new teeth. I had

grown used to his brown broken stubs he hid behind a

tight smile. "These temps are a bit yellow, the real fakes

are whiter." Yet I shaded my eyes against the glare. They

looked perfect. Out of place, almost horse-like compared

to the winter forest of before. He said they cost too much

and that the dentist worked on his teeth from 3:30 pm to

3:30 am. "Now I can have sex and die from aids like everyone

else." Yes, you can. Having met someone on a gay chat board

he was looking forward to a new life. I only somewhat

understood his predicament, having broken my own right front

tooth on a Skittle weakened by an old root canal. The crack ran

diagonally across and up to the point that the entire tooth had

to be extracted. At the time it seemed exciting, having a blank

spot in my smile. Sporting a "flipper" they called it, a retainer

with one fake tooth until the gum healed and a real fake one

could be implanted. That I would talk with a lisp and have

something removable in my mouth seemed pleasingly different.

Something new. Always intrigued by something new had gotten

me into a lot of trouble during my life but this seemed like a

reasonable thrill. It wasn't so much the intrigue of something

new getting me in trouble but my denial of that fact and

staunch refusal to do anything about it. However the thrill

of being called Elmer Fudd by my boss, and "once that tooth

is in we can take her out." was getting old

although I did like the attention. And the added burden of

brushing another tooth separately each night, of not biting into

my food like I used to, of never chewing gum again at least

for a while. This being California, I kept my Bubba tooth, yes we

named it, in a plastic round container by the front door

long with a banana and my shoes. The threat of earthquakes

keeps one prepared for the worst and what would be worse

than to escape a falling building only to survive and be

interviewed on TV without a front tooth?