on>
INDENTATION AND OTHER STORIES
ELMER HOLMES BOBST AWARD FOR EMERGING WRITERS
Established in 1983, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Awards in Arts and Letters are presented each year to individuals who have brought true distinction to the American literary scene. Recipients of the Awards include writers as varied as Toni Morrison, John Updike, Russell Baker, Flora Lewis, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, and James Merrill. The Awards have now been expanded to include a category devoted to emerging writers of poetry and fiction, and in 1990 the jurors, E. L. Doctorow, Denis Donoghue, Galway Kinnell, and Richard Sennett, selected the first two winners in this category, Bruce Murphy, for his collection of poetry Sing, Sing, Sing and Joe Schall, for his Indentation and Other Stories. These two works are both published by New York University Press.
INDENTATION AND OTHER STORIES
JOE SCHALL
Copyright © 1991 by New York University
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schall, Joe, 1959-
Indentation and other stories / Joe Schall.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8147-7917-4 ISBN 0-8147-7918-2 (pbk.)
I. Title.
PS3569.C47327I5 1990
813′.54–dc20 90-47338
CIP
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
For Rob Funk
CONTENTS
Figurative Language: Bridging the Scientific-Rhetorical-Rat Gap
Good for Running to the Ends Of
INDENTATION AND OTHER STORIES
INDENTATION
Donald David Sandborn read that twelve million Americans feared him so completely that they never came to visit. So he decided to beautify his apartment to attract tourists, to show the world he was a regular guy. Impression trays, he knew, should be the basic décor. Since everyone had a mouth, he reasoned, everyone would respond to impression trays with open grins. He had been taught that you had to appeal to all five of the senses if you hoped to create something aesthetic and alive. If handled properly, impression trays simultaneously activated all five of the senses, and they were set in a perpetual smile.
First, Dr. Sandborn bought forty-six sheets of four-by-eight pegboard at Claster’s and ninety-seven packs of curtain hooks at K-Mart. He secured the sheets of pegboard to the walls in his apartment with six-penny nails. Then he gathered up his collection of impression trays, both disposable and nondisposable, and hung them from the curtain hooks in the pegboard. He arranged the attractive Temrex Rite Bite trays and Caulk Rim-Lock non-perforated water-cooled trays on the bathroom walls, because he knew that discriminating tourists judged the quality of a home by its bathroom. Naturally he hung the standard Super-Dent impression trays with retention rims in the living room, because they were the most pleasing to look at while you sat leisurely on the couch. He realized, though, that tourists were just as likely to be sitting while in the bathroom, so he had an aesthetic decision to make. Finally, he decided on the entire sani-tray assortment of Getz plastic disposables and the newest line of D-P Traten perforated plastic trays, and arranged them strategically across from the toilet at eye level, since they were both pleasing to the eye and had a more sanitary look than aluminum. From varying lengths of unwaxed floss, he tied a seemingly random assortment of F.G.P., Lactona, and Crown and Bridge trays, and attached these to hooks screwed into the ceiling tiles. They served as wind chimes when he opened all the windows or turned on all the fans. He realized that few of his tourists would be into impression trays on such an esoteric level as he, but he aspired to educate them gradually in a sublime manner.
Nine years earlier, Dr. Riddle had taught Sandborn not to take impressions lightly.
“Look at this, Sandborn,” Dr. Riddle said, throwing down the May issue of JADA at his feet. The journal was open to a two-page ad: “Good Impressions: Making Them and Taking Them.”
“This,” said Dr. Riddle, “is your future battle. Taking and making good impressions. Come.” Sandborn followed Dr. Riddle into his office and Dr. Riddle instructed him to sit back in the Belmont chair with the double-padded headrest.
“Open your mouth and pull your upper lip away from your teeth,” Dr. Riddle ordered.
Dr. Riddle opened a jar of Jeltrate, scooped some powder into a wooden bowl, measured and mixed in 1/4 cup of boiling water, spooned the solution into a Baker’s Edge-Lok impression tray, and jammed the tray into Sandborn’s mouth, pushing up hard with his palm.
“Ehhsts stooo haoott,” Sandborn said.
“Don’t squirm, just watch,” Dr. Riddle said, handing him a mirror.
Sandborn held the mirror in his right hand and kept the impression tray in place with his left hand. The mirror fogged up from the mist coming out of his mouth.
“What’s wrong, Sandborn?” Dr. Riddle asked.
“Ah cunhh seah woth happena tumme, Dokka Real,” he said.
“Then close your eyes and picture it. It’s beautiful. You are taking your own impression. For the first time in your life you are taking charge of your own mouth. No instruments needed but your own two hands. No one else’s fingers probing your privacy, no plastic gloves, no uv lights, no cotton swabs, no salivation, just your own, pure, steaming impression being taken by you.”
“Wehn cun aha shhtop?” Sandborn asked.
“Look Sandborn,” Dr. Riddle said, shoving another mirror in front of him. “This is your future. This is the staple of dentistry.”
In the mirror, Sandborn’s gums bled so badly that he could not see his impression.
“Now, let’s do your lowers,” Dr. Riddle said, reaching into Sandborn’s mouth.
Knowing that mouth mirrors were a dentist’s most basic visual aid, Dr. Sandborn reasoned that he could teach his future tourists to enjoy the sight of mouth mirrors if they got used to seeing them in a homey environment. So he purchased two gross of Autoclavable Reusable Glass Mouth Mirrors with rhodium coated lenses, removed the fiberglass handles with a soldering iron, then cemented the tiny, round reflectors in rows over all the former mirrors in his apartment. The