sLOUGH aND bREAD*

The man in the hat met a woman, a harridan, who had in turn met the shamble leg man, all three having met each other unbeknownst to the other. The man in the hat met the harridan, the woman, while out strolling, ambling up sidewalks and down alleyways, through tiny porticos and lanes no bigger then a wren’s neck. He noticed her out of the side of his eye, a washerwoman in her slough, crouching amidst the workaday hustle and bustle. He approached, his gamy leg weakened from ambling, and stood to one side of her, not wanting to upset her or cause a kafuffle. He knew from past experience that a street hag, a harridan, with stump-worn teeth and an alms basket was not someone to be trifled with, a person not to be pushed beyond reasonable limits, whatever those limits might be. ‘Might I have a minute with you?’ he inquired, the woman shifting her weight, palms wrenched into the asphalt for leverage. ‘Why not?’ she said, eyes trained on the man in the hat’s walking stick, waiting to see if he might not shift his own weight from one foot to the other. 'This might sound odd and insincere,' he said. ‘Yes, if you feel the need to, yes, go ahead, yes’ the woman said, the palms of her hands hidden beneath the barrows of her skirt. ‘Could I buy you some teeth, dentures, perhaps, new ones?’ The man in the hat, fearing a reprisal, or worse, a sound beating, swung his walking stick across the front of his chest and shifted his weight from his bad leg to his good one. The woman, the washerwoman, pulling at the hem of her skirt, a thread having come loose and unraveling into her lap, smiled, a black hole where whiteness should be, and said, ‘why the hell not, these ones aren’t worth a crock. Can’t even chew a heel of bread, alignments all off.’ She pulled her hands from beneath her skirt and stuck them out, palms up, fingers twisted like briar root, and added, ‘and what’s left of them ain’t much good neither.’

The man in the hat reached into his greatcoat pocket and retrieved his billfold, out of which he took a white card with the name, address and phone number of a dentist, not his, but someone else’s, someone he once knew, was acquainted with, but knew no longer, had become unacquainted with. ‘I’ll make an appointment for you,’ he said, holding the card out for her to see. ‘I don’t need a checkup,’ she said, her hands receding under her skirt. ‘No,’ the man in the hat said, ‘I’ll make an appointment for you to get new teeth, dentures, perhaps.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘new teeth, dentures, I see, yes, go ahead, yes.’ The man in the hat replaced the card in his billfold, gingerly closed it, and slid it back into the pocket of his greatcoat. ‘I’ll come by, say next week, same time, and give you the money for the teeth, dentures, whichever the dentist thinks is right for you.’ The woman smiled, a Black Cat chewing gum smile, and curtly waved him off, as the office building across the street was emptying for the day, and the woman, the very same one who had once met the shamble leg man, didn’t want to miss the opportunity to fill her alms basket to overflowing with coppers and cheap silver coins.