Damian and the One-Tooth Monster

Benji lost his watch on a Thursday. Damian knew it was a Thursday because earlier, standing on tip toes, nose pressed against the window, he’d watched the old man who drug their full trash bins to the street. He did this every Thursday for everyone in the neighborhood.

Damian couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something strange about the guy. Like maybe he wasn’t a guy. Maybe he was a thing, an otherworldly creature that moved through their world but wasn’t truly a part of it.

Maybe he was a wizard who boiled the neighborhood garbage down in a giant cauldron, creating potions to make himself immortal. Damian marked these speculations off as childhood imagination; having an older brother gave you insight like that.

Damian had asked his mother about him when they’d first moved in.

“The realtor says he’s harmless,” she’d said. “Nothing to be afraid of, he just likes to make sure everyone’s trash goes out on time and is properly sorted. It’s nice, actually. Benji doesn’t have to worry about trash duty.”

She never called him Benjamin. That was their father’s name. And junior? No kid wanted to be called Junior.

"He’s gross,” Benji said. “He digs through everyone’s trash and takes stuff in his pockets. I don’t think he’s ever changed his socks. He’s probably homeless or something."

"He’s not,” their mother said. “He lives a few streets over, on Glenn, in a nice little house with a yard. Never judge a book by its cover.” She was fond of little clichés like that.

The one-tooth monster had a weathered, wrinkled face covered in random tufts of white fur. He shuffled around the neighborhood in rubber flip flops worn over dirty socks with holes in the heels so you could see his peeling feet. He always had a half-chewed cigar poking out of his mouth, held in by perpetually wet lips and one mangled tooth.

Damian never saw him without sunglasses. It was Florida, after all.

Damian was in his room when the watch was discovered missing. He was scouring the internet for photos of megalodon teeth. On his fourth birthday, his father had gifted him a large shark’s tooth. It was as big as his palm, dark, and heavy. He’d told him it was a tooth from the greatest ocean predator the world had ever seen, now extinct.

Damian had been obsessed with megalodons at the time. He barely remembered his dad, being only four and a half when he’d runoff with a woman he worked with. He was like a shadow, a distant dream. Sometimes in a gas station or supermarket, he’d catch a whiff of someone chewing Big Red gum and something in his brain would click into place. For a moment he could recall the feeling of beard stubble scraping his cheek, thick hands lifting him from under his armpits. And that was all.

Benji said their dad had lied about the megalodon tooth. He said it was just a regular shark tooth. Benji didn’t talk about their dad much, and when he did it was either with a sense or sadness or pure disdain. He missed him. He hated him. Damian didn’t know which was true.

The boys’ father had forgotten a gold watch in his top drawer when he left, nestled amongst socks and boxers their mother threw out later. Its face was covered in scratches, the hands had stopped their timely ticking long ago. The band was made of gold links, or maybe just metal dipped in gold paint. In either case, it was too big for Benji’s wrist, even at twelve.

Damian understood why Benji kept the watch. It was the same reason he kept the tooth.

Benji screamed from his bedroom across the hall that Thursday evening. “MOM! I can’t find my watch!"

“Did you look under your bed?” She was in the kitchen microwaving leftovers for her dinner.

“Yes! I’ve looked everywhere! Except…”

Damian heard his older brother hurry down the hallway and out the front door, slamming it behind him. Damian winced; he hated when Benji was in a bad mood, which happened more often lately. Their mother called it “puberty”.

He heard Benji’s footsteps outside the window, heard the trash cans open and then slam shut as Benji undoubtedly realized they were empty. It was trash day, after all. He cursed heavily, all the words at once, the way boys do before they learn to sprinkle them delicately into conversation like salt over mashed potatoes.

He came back through the front door in a flurry.

“Mom! I think I threw my watch out!” His voice was wavering, about to break. Damian had seen Benji cry twice in his eight years of life. Once when he broke his arm skateboarding and once when his mother told him his dad wasn’t coming home. His stomach tied itself in knots. He couldn’t focus on megalodon teeth anymore.

Their mother’s voice was cool and comforting. She rarely screamed at her children. “Are you sure? Did you look under your bed?"

“I’ve looked everywhere. Under my bed, in the closet, in the laundry. It must have slipped off this morning when I took the trash out.”

“Oh, hon.” Damian imagined her pressing Benji’s head to her chest. He was almost as tall as her now. “I’m so sorry. I know you loved that watch.”

“We have to get it back!”

“Get it back? Honey, it’s at the dump by now. You can’t get it back. I know it meant a lot to you. But listen, things get lost. Things disappear from our lives. And that’s okay. Life goes on.”

“It’s not okay! That was dad’s watch!” Benji was hysterical now. Damian curled up in his desk chair and pulled his knees to his chest. It hurt his heart to hear his older brother this way. Especially when he knew what really happened. The one-tooth monster had taken Benji’s watch. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind about that.

#

In the morning, Benji seemed to have forgotten all about the lost watch. He woke up early, took a shower and brushed his teeth without anyone asking him to. He bid their mother good morning as she served their breakfast and even kissed her on the cheek.

“You alright?” she asked, eyebrow slightly lifted in motherly concern.

“Yeah mom. Things disappear. It’s ok.”

“Okaaaaaay.” She gave Damian a shrug and he shrugged back. He knew something was up. Benji was usually a sourpuss in the morning.

“Well, have a good day, boys. I have to get to the office a bit early and there’s a trial hearing so I might be home a little late. There’s leftover meatloaf in the fridge-- actually, go ahead and order a pizza tonight.” She left two twenties on the counter and kissed her children before heading out the door.

As soon as the car turned from the driveway, Benji began stuffing his backpack with food from the cabinets.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Damian said.

“I’m going to get my watch back.”

“From the dump?”

“No stupid. From the one-tooth monster.”

“You think he’s just going to give it back?”

“I don’t know. But I have to try. That’s dad’s watch.”

Damian watched his brother rummage through the cabinets, tossing sticks of beef jerky and water bottles into the bag, curly wet hair slicked to his forehead. Though he had no desire to come within arm’s reach of the one-tooth monster, his insides were burning with the sense of brotherly duty felt through the ages, as long as there have been brothers and battles.

“I’m coming too.”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to school, where you belong.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Fine, I’ll just call mom and tell her what you’re up to.” Damian wasn’t proud of this tactic. Tattletales were the equivalent of sniveling sewer rats. Snitches get stitches, and all that.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would and you know it.”

Benji shrugged the backpack onto his shoulders and sighed the annoying sigh of a kid who learns he has to babysit instead of going to a monster truck rally.

“Fine! But listen, you don’t say a word to the one-tooth monster. You’re there to look sad and get pity points. That’s all. And not one word to mom.”

Damian mimed a zipper zipping his lips shut. He threw away the key, even though there were no keys on zippers.

#

The air outside was stifling. Florida was so different from Maine, where they’d moved from. So hot and sticky. Walking outside was like walking into someone’s hot breath, even in the morning. The palm trees stood rigid in the lack of breeze. Exhaust and still water combined into a scent that coated the inside of the nose and stuck there like mud.

The one-tooth monster lived a mere fifteen-minute walk from where the boys lived. The house was tucked away in a cul-de-sac, the driveway was long and wound up to the front door like a lazy snake. There were greenish-brown blotches growing on the sides of the house; in Florida, anything can grow anywhere because the air is mostly water.

Large, untrimmed bushes along the fence blocked much of the view from the road, but from the sidewalk the boys could see most of the yard; overgrown and strewn with pieces of machinery they didn’t recognize. There was a sturdy tree with white-gray branches stretching over the roof and dropping leaves onto it.

They knew for certain it was the one-tooth monster’s house, they could see the little red car he drove tucked under the shelter of a droopy carport, surrounded by bins of aluminum cans and other rubbish.

As the boys stood on the sidewalk and stared at the house, Damian had the urge to grab Benji’s hand and squeeze it. He didn’t because eight is too old for hand holding. Instead, he reached into his shorts pocket and rubbed the megalodon tooth as if it had magic powers. It rarely left his pocket.

“You ready?” Benji asked. A little sweat had formed on his upper lip, where the first tiny hairs of puberty had rooted and sprout.

“Let’s do this.” Damian wasn’t ready. But he wasn’t going to say that. “What if he doesn’t have it?”

“He has to. There’s no other place it could be.”

“What are we going to do, exactly?”

“We’re just going to knock on his door and ask him to give the watch back.”“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll say I’m going to call the police.”

“Do you think he’s scared of the police?”

“Everyone is scared of the police who’s done something wrong.”

That made sense. As they stepped through the gate, which was slightly open already, they heard the warning bark of a dog.

“Crap,” Benji said under his breath and placed one hand over his brother’s chest, as if that would be enough to protect him from the jowls of death. The dog wasn’t all that big, thankfully. It wasn’t a swift German shepherd or a thick black Rottweiler. Instead, it was a basset hound, tiny legs pumping and eyes drooping. It seemed to be wearing one of those collars that deliver a shock when the animal passes a certain point. It stopped right in front of the boys and barked sharply, teeth bared and foamy drool spilling from the sides of its mouth.

“It’s going to bite us,” Damian said. He tried not to sound scared. Secretly, he hoped the dog was enough to send Benji home without the watch. But he knew better.

“I thought he might have a dog to protect all his trash. I have something for it.” Benji took off his backpack and unzipped it. He pulled out a stick of beef jerky and ripped it open. The hound smelled it immediately, its grainy bark turned to a plead and its tail wagged a little.

Benji winked at Damian and threw the stick as far as he could to the left of the gate. The dog watched it fly through the air and took off after it, ears flowing like pigtails behind it.

“Let’s go!” Benji pulled Damian through the gate by the neck of his t-shirt, and they took off down the driveway towards the house. The sound of their tennis shoes hitting the pavement was almost louder than their heartbeats. Damian thought about making up an excuse to turn around and head home, but brothers didn’t desert each other. Not like dads.

They didn’t make it to the front door before the dog had devoured the diversion and turned his attention back to the human children bolting through his territory. His bray carried through the stale air and Damian turned to look.

“What the—”

The dog was no longer a dog. It was changing as it ran toward them, morphing into something larger and more terrifying. Its teeth were razor sharp, its skin was green and bumpy like a toy alligator. Its legs were no longer the twisted, awkward legs of a basset hound. They were muscular and veiny, with claws that looked like they could rip a person to shreds. Its spiny back was arched and lined with bristly black hair that stood on end. Knocking on the front door was no longer an option.

“Run!” Benji screamed. Damian followed his lead, heading away from the creature and trying not to look back lest he stumble on a piece of the debris littering the yard. Little sticky seed pods clung to his socks and shoelaces, desperate to be elsewhere.

Benji reached the tree first but didn’t climb it. He grabbed Damian’s arm and pushed him to the first branch. Only then did he scramble up behind him, narrowly dodging the gnashing teeth of whatever the dog had become.

“What is that thing!” Damian heaved, face pressed against the branch he was clinging to.

“I have no idea. It looks like a pickle on steroids.”

It was still there, claws digging into the flesh of the tree, peering up at the boys with crazy eyes that bulged out of its green head. “You think it can climb?”

“Doesn’t look like it. But who knows?” Benji studied his surroundings. The tree they were perched in stretched along the side of the house, the thinner branches reached over the roof.

Damian watched Benji’s mind work and his hand went unconsciously into his pocket to rub the tooth, running his fingers over the tiny divets and lines that had once been soiled with fish guts. Probably.

“We need to climb higher and get onto the roof,” Benji said.

Damian wasn’t sure if he could. His arms were so small compared to Benji’s, so weak. “What if we fall?”

The beast below them barked again, this time it sounded wet and choked. Damian imagined how it would feel, the razor-sharp chompers biting into the skin of his leg, the hot breath, the slimy saliva. He shivered in the heat of the day.

“We won’t fall. We’ve climbed dozens of trees,” Benji said. It was true, they had. Just never above a hell beast bent on tearing them to shreds.

Damian took a breath and inched upwards. The branches were thin, but not thin enough to break from the boys’ weight. The smell of the leaves was tangy and sweet, the bark was rough under their fingernails, the sound of growling a constant reminder of their fate should they slip and fall.

Benji reached the roof first. He had to grip the branch and then carefully swing down and drop. “Now you.”

Damian swallowed and followed his brother’s lead. His palms screamed as he hung from the branch, shoes a good two feet from the roof. The creature barked in suspense below. How did the one-tooth monster not hear him from inside?

Damian dropped, knees buckling as he hit the roof. He slid a little, scraping against the shingles. Some of them were missing. Some of them were carpeted with mossy growth.

“Now what are we supposed to do?” Damian asked.

“I don’t know.” Benji scanned their new surroundings and adjusted the straps of his backpack on his shoulders. He walked along the shingles, stepping over anything that looked slippery. Damian followed.

“Maybe we can jump up and down and get him to come out.”

“Maybe.” Benji wasn’t fully listening. He’d spotted something. It was a skylight, a piece of thick glass, slightly cloudy, placed between the shingles to give a view of the sky from below. He bent down and covered the sides of his eyes so he could look in without the sunlight blinding him. “I can see something.”

“What?”

“Lots of stuff. Shelves. Boxes. I think this is the attic.”

“So what?” Damian had started to sweat in the blistering heat. He could smell his own armpits. “This is just great. We came here to talk to the one-tooth monster, not climb on his roof! He’s going to be so pissed when he finds us up here. And for what? Dad’s stupid watch that doesn’t even fit you.”

Benji stood up and pursed his lips. His eyebrow furrowed. Their mother said he looked just like his father when he was upset.

“Dad’s stupid watch? What about the stupid tooth you carry in your pocket like a baby blankie? Huh? What if the one-tooth monster took that instead?”

“I wouldn’t care.” That was a lie.

“Yeah, sure you wouldn’t. Dad’s gonna come back one day, Dame. You know that? He’s gonna leave that lady and remember how great mom is. We’ll move back to Maine. We’ll go back to our old school.” Benji stared at his brother, his eyes were squinty from the sun. “And when he does come back, I’m going to give him his watch. And he’s going to be proud that I kept it all this time. That I didn’t lose it.” He went back to looking through the skylight.

Damian didn’t say anything back. He couldn’t find the words. He’d rather have a brother than a dad. He rubbed the tooth in his pocket and thought about tossing it to the green beast below. What would it mean to just chuck it, let it go? What would it feel like to let it slip out of his hand, watch it hit the ground?

The creature was sniffing the perimeter of the house, tongue hanging from the corner of its mouth, panting. It would surely gobble the tooth up, thinking it was another stick of jerky. It would swallow it whole and maybe poop it out later on the lawn, undigested.

Damian didn’t throw it. “I think if we can just pry the skylight open, we can drop inside.”

“What!”

“Yeah. I know he has the watch in there. I’ll tell him his dog almost killed us. He wouldn’t want us to call the police about that too.”

“This is the worst plan—”

Damian didn’t finish the sentence. The roof was weak around the skylight and certainly not meant to be stood on. The shingles had remained in place, but water had seeped under them and eroded the wood, rotting it away slowly over the years. Hidden decay.

The shingle buckled and there was a cracking sound as it gave way. The skylight fell through and with it, Benji. He didn’t even scream; the wind must have been forced out of him. A cloud of dust rose as he fell, the powdered remains of broken drywall.

Damian rushed over without a thought of falling himself. His sense of brotherly duty ramped to full urgency and logic was forgotten. The wood was rotted further into the roof than it seemed, and the loss of the skylight window had compromised it further.

He felt another section of the roof collapse under his feet, the megalodon tooth stabbing into his leg as he hit the floor.

#

There is no fear quite like falling. Sudden. Halting. One minute your body is stable and stationary and the next, free falling and heavily weighted. There is inevitably an immediate feeling of betrayal, for no one falls without something happening first; an evil child pulling out a chair, a banana peel carelessly discarded, something swiftly disappearing that was there only a moment before.

The boys were betrayed by that roof. By also the dog beast creature that drove them to it. And also by the one-tooth monster, who never cared to have his roof inspected or repaired.

“What the blishpens hell was that!” The voice inside the house was gritty and strange. The words sounded not quite right, as if he was struggling to wrap his tongue around them. It was the one-tooth monster, in all his glory.

He yanked open the door to the attic and shuffled up the narrow ladder, filthy socks pulled to his mid-shins, tiny nub of a cigar perched on his lip. One tooth.

The boys scrambled to their feet, ignoring any twinges of pain they felt. Young lads are made of rubber, they tend to bounce.

“So sorry!” Damian said, “I’m so so sorry about your roof.”

Benji reached his arm across Damian’s chest like he’d done with the dog. “Your thing outside tried to kill us.”

“What? Me dog?”

“That’s not a dog, mister. That’s a green monster. It almost ate my little brother.”

It was the first time they’d seen the one-tooth monster without his sunglasses. His eyes were too big for his face and bulged a little. They were also yellow with large brown pupils that were slits like a snake’s. He twisted his lips to the side at the mention of the beast and his eyes blinked the wrong way, horizontally, like curtains closing.

“What the hell are you?” Benji said, backing up slowly. “And what is that thing you have outside?”

Damian did grab Benji’s hand this time. He held it and squeezed, feeling four years old. His other hand went into his pocket, to the tooth.

“I’m an old man! And this is my house!” The one-tooth monster stomped his foot on the stairs to the attic. “Now, come on out of here! Get!”

The boys hesitated, then inched forward when they saw him disappear back down the narrow stairs into the house. Benji went first, his backpack was covered in dust along with his clothes. Damian followed, his lip quivering a little. He tried not to cry in front of Benji.

The house smelled like wet dog and something faintly metallic. There were no lights on, they could only see from the sunlight streaming in through gaps in the curtains. The carpet was a muddy color and heavily stained, probably the source of the smell. The walls were covered in shelves; floating shelves, bookshelves, pieces of two-by-fours made into shelves.

The shelves were lined with all manner of objects; glass bottles, bowling balls, stacks of blankets, figurines, boxes overflowing with random things. There was a large table in the center of the room, the only thing uncluttered. Dust floated in the air, reflected in a large gold-rimmed mirror that was somehow perfectly polished and sitting in the corner.

“Get out.” The one-tooth monster pointed one twisted finger towards the door.

“I’m not leaving until I get my watch,” Benji said.

“Yer what?”

“My dad’s gold watch. It slid off my wrist when I threw the trash out yesterday. We all know you dig through the cans. Give me my dad’s watch back, and we’ll leave.” He stood straight and stoic. “Please.”

“No watches here,” the one-tooth monster said in an accent no one had ever heard.

“It has to be. It’s gold with scratches on it, with a gold band. It doesn’t work.”

“No watches!” he shrieked. The boys jumped backward.

Damian started tearing up, he jerked on his brother’s hand, a sign he wanted to leave At that moment, the mirror in the corner began to glow. It turned blue, the surface rippling like waves in a shallow pool. There was a sound like rushing water, or traffic. It sounded like something coming toward you at incredible speed.

The one-tooth monster said something unintelligible and hobbled over to the mirror. The surface stopped moving and a figure strode through as if simply walking through a doorframe. It looked like a crocodile but stood on two legs and was dressed in some sort of silver jumpsuit. It had no tail, and its snout was short and topped with a small horn. It considered the boys for a moment.

“Kiki klantu?” It said.

The one-tooth monster began speaking to it, but the boys didn’t understand. They stood there, quaking but curious. Damian ran his eyes over the figure many times, trying to remember every detail of it. The scaly face, the crocodilian eyes. It was an alien. A hybrid. He never wanted to forget it.

The one-tooth monster finished talking to the thing and walked around the room, watching the boys intently as if daring them to move or ask questions. He seemed annoyed by their presence, not threatened.

He scanned a shelving unit using one crooked finger and grabbed a lamp that looked ceramic and had an oriental style dragon painted on it. It had no shade. He brought it to the reptilian and muttered something. The creature took it in his claws and turned it over, it seemed to be inquiring about the electrical cord dangling from the back.

The one-tooth monster grabbed some heavy-duty pliers from his pocket and swiftly chopped it off. The creature reached into his jumpsuit and then placed a pile of round metal pieces on the table. They clinked together like collected bottlecaps.

The creature, apparently pleased with his strange purchase, disappeared back into the mirror, which turned back into the ordinary object it’d been before.

The boys’ mouths were agape. Damian pinched his own arm having heard you could determine if you were dreaming by doing so. The old man sighed, a risky move to the almost eaten cigar butt in his mouth. “No one’ll believe yous.”

“We’ll call the police,” Benji said.

“Not smart,” said the one-tooth monster.

“I can see the watch,” Benji said. He sounded brave. “It’s over there, on top of that box of soda cans. Give it to me and I won’t tell anyone about your weird dog or your weird mirror. Its mine.”

The one-tooth monster did his weird shuffle over to one of the shelves and plucked the watch from atop the box. Damian hadn’t even noticed it there, he wondered how Benji had spotted it in the dimness of the room.

“This un?” The monster said, his eyelids did their horizontal blink. “This un is yers?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how much this un’s worth in Dimension X? On Tibule? Off planet?” He snorted. “Worth more than anything you's got in that backpack, kiddo. Don’t think I’ll let it go, no how.”

Damian looked around with fresh eyes. This wasn’t a hoarder’s house. This was a store. He’d been right, the one-tooth monster wasn’t a man at all.

“What are you going to do with it?” Damian said.

“Sell it. Trade it. You’s threw it ‘way, that means its mine. Fair, square.”

“That’s not fair!” Benji screamed. “That’s my dad’s, you can’t have it!” He moved forward, as if he was going to attack. This time it was Damian’s arm over his chest, blocking him, protecting him. Benji could have pushed through easily, but he didn’t.

“How bout a trade?” Damian said. The strength of his own voice surprised him.

“Trade? Fer what?”

“For this.” He pulled the megalodon tooth out of his pocket and held it in the sunlight leaking through the curtains. It didn’t shine or sparkle, but Damian held it as if it was a valuable diamond ready for inspection. “It’s a megalodon tooth. Do you know what that is?”

“Damian! Stop!” Benji pulled his arm down. “Don’t give him that.”

The one-tooth monster stepped closer, trying to see. Benji’s reaction had only interested him more.

“What is it?"

“It’s the tooth of a prehistoric earth shark. They’re extinct, there’s none left. That means it’s very rare.”

“It’s not,” Benji said. “It’s just a regular old shark tooth. It’s not worth anything.”

“It is a megalodon tooth!” Damian paid no attention to his brother. The watch was dangling in the one-tooth monster’s hand. All he had to do was get him to trade it and they could go home, eat pizza, and watch a movie. They could get back to real life.

“It’s real. And it’s rare. And I’ll give it to you for the watch. Fair, square, right?”

For a moment Damian thought it wouldn’t work. In one word, the one-tooth monster could crush his brother, force his hand. He didn’t know what Benji might do, but he could hear him holding his breath beside him. The smell of the house was overwhelming.

The one-tooth monster stepped forward and took the tooth from Damian’s hand. He held it up in front of his large yellow eyes and examined it. He chewed the cigar nub with his one remaining incisor.

“Okie.” He said. “I take it.”

Benji let out a sigh and grabbed the watch before he could change his mind.

“Now, git out.”

#

The green beast had turned back into a basset hound as the boys strolled confidently out of the one-tooth monster’s house. It wagged its tail and panted happily as they took the winding driveway to the gate and then turned onto the sidewalk toward home. They were no longer intruders.

They both wore the same grin of soldiers and Vikings and anyone that had ever won a battle alongside a brother.

“That was amazing!” Benji said. He jumped up and clicked his heels together, the watch firmly clamped in his right hand. Damian felt the residual high of adrenaline coursing through his body. He’d never felt so good.

“I knew the one-tooth monster wasn’t human. I just knew it!”

“You’re not sad? About the tooth?”

“It was just a regular old shark tooth,” Damian said. He couldn’t stop smiling. “At least now, if dad comes back, you’ll have his watch.”

Benji put his arm around his little brother’s shoulders as they walked. He seemed to be deep in thought. For a moment, Damian wondered if he regretted their adventure. He wanted to tell him it was okay, he barely remembered their dad anyway. He wanted this to be the day he’d proved himself a great brother, like Benji had always been.