Sharp Teeth Read online

  Sharp Teeth

  Toby Barlow

  Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

  ROBERT FROST

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Book One

  Book Two

  Book Three

  Book Four

  Book Five

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  book one

  There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

  WALTER BENJAMIN

  His hair was perfect.

  WARREN ZEVON

  I

  Let’s sing about the man there

  at the breakfast table

  brown skin, thin features, white T,

  his olive hand making endless circles

  in the classifieds

  “wanted” “wanted” “wanted”

  small jobs little money

  but you have to start somewhere.

  Here.

  LA

  East LA

  a quarter mile from where they pick up the mariachis

  on warm summer nights

  two miles from La Serenata de Garibaldi’s

  where the panther black cars pause on their haunches

  while their blonde women eat inside

  wiping the blood red

  mole from their quiet lips

  “wanted” “wanted” “wanted”

  he circles the paper

  then reaches for the phone

  breathes deep, begins.

  “nope, sorry”

  “job was taken already, good luck”

  “you got experience?”

  “leave a message”

  “forgettaboutit”

  “you sound Mexican, ola, you Mexican?”

  “call back Monday”

  “mmmn, I don’t know nothing about that”

  “no”

  “no”

  “no”

  Then his barbed hook catches. A thin gold vein

  is struck. Buds of hope crack through the dry white earth:

  “oh sure, come on by, what’s your name?”

  Dogcatcher.

  His father was not a man but a sleepy bull

  with sledgehammer hands and a soft heart.

  He once brought a dog home from the pound

  for Anthony.

  Sipping coffee by the phone now

  that little yapping note of hope still rings in his ears.

  Anthony smiles, remembering the way

  the puppy sat between his father’s strong legs

  as they stood looking down like gods

  at the cowering little creature.

  They laughed. The pup relaxed,

  wagged its fat tail.

  His father was kind to the dog, to the kids, to his wife

  until a week later when he went through the windshield

  on Sepulveda. Hit so hard

  it didn’t matter where he landed.

  And after that nothing was kind

  it was every man for himself

  and there were no men

  just a widow, some kids

  and a dog who went back to the pound,

  taking his chances with no chance at all.

  C’est la guerre.

  Pondering his path,

  Anthony wonders now,

  if maybe that dog

  wasn’t just some real bad luck.

  “Packs of thirty or forty at a time

  wander loose

  like gauchos in their own damn ghost town.

  They come from the hills, up from the arroyos.

  We don’t know how many, estimates vary,

  but each time they come in

  a few house dogs go back with them.

  Anytime you got toy poodles breeding with coyotes

  it’s gonna get interesting.”

  Calley is so white, he’s red

  with blanched features pickled and burned.

  He shows Anthony how to wrangle, how to pull hoops, slip a wire.

  They sit at the firing range. “You’ll be shooting tranqs,

  but might as well practice with live rounds.” Calley shows

  bite marks on his hands, legs and arms.

  His breath bites too: coffee, cigarettes, and just plain old rancid.

  “I’ll ride partner with you for a bit, but with all the cutbacks

  they’re making us all ride solo now.”

  “What happens if I hit a pack?”

  “Hit a pack, hit the radio.” Calley pauses, draws on a smoke

  the red in his eyes almost matches the

  blood vessels spidering across his face

  It’s a foggy, milky, bloodshot stare,

  but it still holds a mean light.

  He rasps, “You like dogs?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Mmmn,” he nods. “You won’t.”

  The “animal control” logo makes Anthony wonder.

  Animals have no control, they run, they fuck, they eat,

  they kill to fuck, they kill to eat

  and they sleep in the noonday sun.

  Anthony’s not afraid of the dogs,

  he’s not afraid of the work,

  he just hates the other guys.

  He sits apart, trying to stay clean.

  Perhaps over time he will become like them

  with their permanent stains and bitter dispositions.

  But Christ almighty, he thinks,

  I hope not.

  II

  There’s blood everywhere,

  but it’s the creatures at the edge,

  licking the corner of the ruby pool,

  that hold your curiosity.

  So get this straight

  it’s not the full moon.

  That’s as ancient and ignorant as any myth.

  The blood just quickens with a thought

  a discipline develops

  so that one can self-ignite

  reshaping form, becoming something rather more canine

  still conscious, a little hungrier.

  It’s a raw muscular power,

  a rich sexual energy

  and the food tastes a whole lot better.

  Imagine,

  sleeping with the pack

  the safety, the loyalty,

  the protection.

  Imagine

  the elemental comfort.

  Bone, love, meat, gristle, heat, anger, exhaustion, drive, hunger, blood, fat, marrow.

  Fifteen men lying in one house.

  Listen to the night as

  they softly growl

  someone chases something in his dreams

  desperate for satisfaction

  then silent.

  There’s one woman here.

  There’s one leader here.

  The pack does what he says,

  she comes and goes

  as she pleases.

  Lark was challenged

  that night there was no moon.

  The pack had seen and felt it

  coming and building.

  Lark was a man when it started,

  wolf when it ended.

  Con tried to cut him with a knife

  coming in through the front door

  but with perfect liquid grace,

  Lark slipped past the weapon’s edge

  grabbed Con’s hand and bent it back.

  The blade flew through the Ruscha.

  Teeth gleamed bare and sharp

  muscles tore through jackets

  Ted Baker shirts were shredded

  blood striped the walls

  sweat soaked through.

 
A Tag Heuer watch flew off

  what was once a wrist.

  Con was a man when it started,

  he wasn’t much by the time it was done.

  Some of us have problems.

  They still talk about Bone and what the grease does to him.

  He can’t go into fried chicken places

  the smell, the scent, turns his blood right away.

  They say he took out a Popeye’s once.

  It made the news, unsolved.

  It took him an hour.

  He walked in, just to pick up a bucket.

  The smell hit, the change happened,

  and the whole place had to go.

  Chicken, customers, biscuits, and gravy.

  Lark says control is everything.

  There’s no percentage in hating

  your nature, it’s just in the blood.

  That was about three years ago,

  there was some buzz,

  press says gangs,

  people wail on television

  then, not surprisingly

  life just keeps moving on.

  Between money, work,

  and the day to day

  Lark never loses track of

  the long range.

  The pack never questions

  his intentions,

  if they did, they sense

  there would be no answers.

  So they follow his lead

  and they stay quiet,

  they drive their 7 Series the speed limit

  and Bone gets his chicken from the drive-through.

  They do their best to stay clean.

  They still talk about the last one who tried something.

  Baron, down at a party in Irvine,

  thought a couple of lines might be fun.

  Press says gangs,

  people wail on television

  but it was just Baron.

  There are some problems

  but, mostly, life just goes on.

  Lark has a woman.

  He says every pack must have one.

  The pack has needs

  but Lark says its not about that.

  He says control is the path.

  As she lies there among them,

  her curves lines of delicate torture,

  the tension can snap so tight,

  that each one of the pack

  feels like a piano wire pulled taut.

  Lark says the desire pulls the pack together

  calls it the Ukan path.

  The pack follows it because here

  inside the circle

  they taste the fresh, wet meat of success

  while outside the circle

  lies nothing but coyote darkness.

  Blood, fat, marrow, grease, sinew, muscle, guts, hide, fur, sleep.

  They may twitch in their dreams when they sleep

  but they sleep deep.

  III

  She rides alone,

  a route that brings her

  down by the beach

  which takes her back,

  her memory flickering

  as it does

  to what had been.

  She’s supposed to be going straight to the bar,

  to see if he’s there.

  Lark sent her, it’s a simple plan,

  a slow-working plan, to what end, who knows,

  Lark protects her from the dogs, keeps her safe.

  He says it’s a three-week job, easy.

  She trusts him.

  But she still has time to swing past the beach.

  Back then, back before,

  she hated the punks, goth shit was geek drama

  she was clean then

  she loved strong boys

  she felt pure with the athletes

  and she wanted nothing but another green day

  with no need for anything deeper or more profound than the phrase

  junior college.

  There on the sandy beaches and

  the lush green sod of the quad she had only three loves:

  Chad, so kind, a surfer, easy smile and a pirate’s tooth

  his hands roamed her body, then his body up and roamed.

  Easy heartbreak, must not have been so deep.

  Enter Mike, sweet Mike, his body arched

  over volleyballs nets, he was tall, tall, tall,

  but when he stopped coming by,

  and she felt that heartache

  cut deeper into her ribs,

  she could still walk it off,

  she knew something better was coming.

  Then Pete. Oh, Pete,

  basketball, lacrosse, blue eyes that seemed swimmable.

  She smiled so brightly at him, her teeth practically chimed.

  He could kiss her anywhere, touch her anywhere,

  anything for Pete, everything ached and opened for him.

  When he touched her thigh,

  she was anchored to the world.

  She drew pictures of him while he slept,

  she hummed along when he sang.

  Nice.

  But then something

  was sprung, she doesn’t remember

  how the dark sparked but

  one idle daiquiri day

  she slipped out some small thoughtless words,

  stupid jealousy, nothing really, but

  the day paused and

  everything vibrated wrong.

  And then Pete answered back

  with something much worse.

  The moment seemed

  slow but Pete

  had her flying

  arcing across the room

  her head knocking hard against a wall

  just like that.

  Pete was looking down at her

  and she was so weak and small

  it didn’t take much

  to throw her across the room again

  and then again.

  No bruises to speak of,

  only

  her sense of tomorrow

  all smashed and jumbled

  like a pool of paint lying on the floor

  after all the bright colors bleed together

  into a simple

  shit brown.

  That was long, long ago right?

  only yesterday, right?

  She sleeps now with Lark

  surrounded by a dozen or so men

  who could do terrible things

  to anyone who ever tried to touch her

  but she doesn’t need the men

  she could do plenty of damage

  all by herself.

  She has the blood for it.

  Driving forward, looking back,

  she finds there is only the loosest bond

  between time and pain

  some things don’t pass,

  the injuries don’t heal

  they merely find a place in our guts

  and in our bones

  where they fitfully rest,

  tossing and turning between our knuckles and ribs

  waiting to wake

  as the shadows grow long.

  Pete lives with a wife

  down near the beach.

  Lark says he can’t be touched. Not yet.

  She listens, but she knows

  what a girl like her could do

  to a fellow like Pete now.

  IV

  The only reason to get up is the dogs

  Anthony feels cold to the job itself.

  The men are all pricks

  they smell like cleanser

  they want him to be one of the gang

  Calley, Mason, Malone.

  Watching them

  as they beat the dogs down

  Anthony stands at the edge, smoking, thinking

  that hatred and love emanate equal distances

  inside and outside the flesh,

  which is why kind folk

  are said to have good hearts

  while bastards like these

  ju
st smell bad.

  Some carne asada tacos,

  six bucks he can’t spare

  split three ways in a kennel

  on three dogs who seem to know

  they’re about to be put under.

  None of them warm to Anthony’s small gesture

  they just wolf it all down.

  Anthony pets the brindled one

  who won’t look up. Anthony glances over

  hearing a yelp as

  Calley kicks a dog.

  “Life’s a bitch, and then you die,” says Calley.

  I hate this fucking job, thinks Anthony.

  Anthony sips his beer at the bar,

  wishing the subject would change.

  But his new occupation is a social trip wire

  because everyone and without exception everyone

  has a dog story to tell.

  Most seem to focus on the cruel and sudden demise:

  the bus, the pickup truck, the drunk teenage driver,

  the electric fence, the unfortunate incident on the tracks,

  the rat poison, the sudden debilitating illness, the heart attack,

  the slow flatulent decline.

  The bartender tonight is saying something

  about a big Afghan something dog,

  one she had back in the seventies,

  “before the dog food they sold was any good,” she says.

  Boy, thinks Anthony, how does she know that?

  But in all these tales the dog is the innocent shooting star

  we all wish upon

  until it burns up, aging fast and disappearing

  behind our jagged horizons.

  Each dog marks a section of our lives, and

  in the end, we feed them to the dark,

  burying them there while we carry on.

  Which somehow reminds Anthony that maybe

  it would’ve been nice

  if that car had hit the dog

  instead of his dad.

  Nother round. Nother round. Nother round.

  Or, hey, it’s tricks,

  “why he could run with an egg in his mouth, play Chopin,

  root for vermin and felons, dance a hula, predict the weather,

  smell a liar, sort the mail, lead the blind, cry real tears.”

  But nobody seems to recall

  the sublime form of a dog as she lies

  curled up like a comma

  in the cool forgiving summer shade

  there beneath the bed.