‘Representational Humans’

Michelle Kohari

Representational Humans

The dentist enters the examination room with a tablet in her hand. I don’t notice her right away because I’m lying on the hydraulic dental chair and playing with the controls. I quickly remove my hands like a kid not wanting to get caught playing with a grown-up gizmo. But something gets stuck and the bottom and upper portions of the chair continue to rise toward each other. She reaches over and touches another button that stops the movement of the chair before I can be folded in half like a pen knife.

“Good morning, Mr. Dolan, Dr. Holzer here, nice to see you again,” she says, clasping her tablet in front of her and rocking back and forth.

“Good morning,” answers a voice from the examination room next door. Dr. Holzer laughs nervously as she frantically fingers her tablet. She lowers her voice as she speaks to me.

“You’re not Mr. Dolan, are you?”

“No. I’m Joe Reo,” I say. “I’m here for a crown.”

“I’m here for a crown, too,” says the man next door. “Should I come over there, Doc?”

“No, no, stay right there, Mr. Dolan,” she says, her voice crackling like a lit sparkler. “I’ll come to you.” She starts slowly backing to the exit, holding her tablet in front of her like a shield. “Sorry for the confusion, Mr. Reo. I’ll be back.”

“No problem,” I say. “Guess Mr. Dolan and I look alike.”

She hurries out of the room without responding.

I look for ways to occupy my time. I squint at my reflection in the small, stainless-steel sink next to the chair. Instead of the younger face that used to stare back at me in a mirror, I see the wrinkled face of an older guy, complete with thinning gray hair and jowls that hang from my face like an old rooster. I look away and substitute this unacceptable image with the default one in my high school yearbook. I sit back in the chair and let my eyes wander.

I’m about to close them and take a snooze when I notice a painting hanging on the wall to the left of the window. It contrasts with a series of colorful posters hanging around it, showing the many services available to patients. One shows implants complete with silver metal posts drilled through gum and bone minus the blood and gore, another, whiter teeth featuring a couple whose mouths are frozen in an artificially, open-mouthed grin.

But it’s the painting that grabs my attention. It portrays two figures shaped like humans, one slightly taller than the other. That’s where the similarity to anything human ends. They are faceless, hairless and without limbs. I see it as a kind of representation of human beings, like the artist didn’t know what a human really looks like.

I wonder what a painting like this is doing in a dentist’s office, but the sound of a whirring drill accompanied by a throaty moan puts my artistic curiosity on hold.

The crown didn’t cause me much discomfort, so I decide to run a couple of errands. As I open the door to my car, I cringe at my reflection in the side mirror. My daughter, Kaylee, moved in with me when my wife passed away. She gave most of my wardrobe to a homeless shelter (I thought I saw a man wearing my pajamas in the grocery store parking lot, but I couldn’t be sure), remarking that if I wear what I wore when her mom was around, I would think too much about death and that was unacceptable.
Today, I am wearing what she chose for me before I left the house this morning: a red plaid shirt that reminded me of the seat covers in a 1962 Chevy Nova I owned as a kid and a pair of tan, twill pants with an elastic waist band. Kaylee said I wouldn’t need a belt with these pants and that they would always fit even when I got sick and lost weight.

I drive into Ollie’s Oil outlet on Main Street for an oil change, trying not to be too self- conscious about wearing a shirt that looks like seat covers, and beltless trousers that resemble the kind they give to mental patients so they won’t get any ideas.

I pull up to the bay door and am greeted by three of Ollie’s finest descending on my car. They poke tablets with their fingers as they ask me a series of questions: “How many miles? What’s the make and model of your vehicle? Have you been here before? What can we do for you today?”

They take my keys as they stick a paper mat on the floor of the driver’s side. One of them ushers me into the “Ollie Lounge,” where the odor of musty oil mingles with the smell of freshly popped popcorn, leaving a curiously industrial taste in my mouth. He proudly points to the popcorn maker, adding with an exaggerated smile, “Help yourself, it’s on us.” I shrug as I head for the machine and take two cups of popcorn back to my seat.

A homeless man enters from the rear, his shopping cart parked outside the door. He heads for the machine and quickly fills a cup with popcorn. He stands there staring into space as he eats the popcorn. One of the Ollie guys is checking out a customer at the nearby counter, but he pays the man no mind. I remove my cell phone from my pocket and pretend to check it. I want to avoid eye contact, which might cause the homeless man to yell and make a scene, forcing us to acknowledge him. But to my relief he gets a second cup of popcorn and heads out the door, guiding his cart down the street and out of sight.

Next stop, the library to return books. As I drive down Main Street, I notice signs in the windows of several businesses proclaiming “Columbus Day Sales.” One in particular catches my eye in the local appliance store: “Old Style Phonograph Now 20 percent off.” I have several boxes of 45 records in my basement I haven’t told Kaylee about (I’m afraid she’ll sell them to some guy named Craig she mentioned a while ago). But I need a record player since mine disappeared when my wife and I moved into our current house years ago. I make a mental note.

The library is next to the town park at the end of Main. I deposit my books in the drop box on the side of the building and turn to go back to my car when I notice a crowd in the park. I walk closer and see a group of people carrying signs and marching in front of a statue of Christopher Columbus in the center of the park.

As I get closer, I hear a voice on a bullhorn engaging the crowd.

“Hands off Columbus, Keep him among us.” The man screaming into the horn stands on the steps of the monument, holding the bullhorn to his mouth with one hand and pumping his fist in the air with the other. A line of people snake in front of him like a bicycle chain in motion as they repeat his words.

“Chris is our Hero, the Council’s full of Zeroes.” They scream the words as they pump their signs up and down. Several messages are emblazoned in bright red letters on them like,

“We love you, Chris,” “Say No to Columbus Haters,” and “Columbus was not in the Mafia.”

A young woman with dark frame glasses and a wide grin frozen on her face thrusts a flyer at me. “Come to our march today at city hall protesting the town council’s decision to remove the Christopher Columbus statue from the park.” Before I could respond, she threads her way through the crowd of onlookers handing out flyers as she does so.

I look down at the flyer and wonder if I should attend. In grammar school I wrote a poem about Columbus and got an A. Besides, he discovered America. Why would anybody want to tear down his statue?

As I walk around the monument, I encounter a smaller group of protesters directly behind it. There are several native people dressed in traditional garb. One wears a buffalo robe and soft moccasins. Another is dressed in full regalia, like for a ceremony or something. I am impressed by the large war bonnet with its feathers of many different colors.

A young man approaches me and hands me a flyer. He wears a black tee shirt with a bust of Columbus in yellow on the front and a red ‘no symbol’ over it. His hair is tied back in a pony tail.

“Welcome. Please join our counter protest today as we defend the council’s decision to remove the Christopher Columbus statue from here.”

I shrug. “But why do you want to do that? He discovered America, didn’t he? He’s a hero.” An older woman approaches, wearing the same nix Columbus tee shirt along with jeans and a pair of beaded moccasins. Her eyes are narrow slits and I can’t tell if they’re actually open when she starts speaking to me. “That’s not all he did,” she says. “When he got to the Caribbean, he took native people on his ships and sold them as slaves when he returned to Spain.”

The young man folds his hands in front of him as though he is about to deliver a presentation at school “He insisted the natives bring him gold and when they didn’t, he cut off their hands.”

“Your hero.” sighs the woman, her eyes wide open now as she steps closer to me. “He tortured and killed many native people.” She points to the flyer in my hand. “If you care about the truth, then join us later as we make sure the council sticks by its decision to remove that devil from our park.” Her eyes return to their original slits as she hurries to greet a couple pushing a baby stroller. I look down at the flyer.

“So will you join us?” asks the young man.

I look up. “I don’t know if protests really do anything,” I say. “Though I was quite the protester in the 1960’s.”

“Really? Then come and join us. It will be like old times.”

“There was this one protest,” I say smiling at the memory. “When I was in college, the girls basketball team couldn’t use the gym for practice as much as the guy’s team. They wanted equal time.

“So, I’m watching the girls getting ready to march in front of the gym. They got signs and all and they’re wearing their uniforms, shorts, tee shirts. That’s when I notice one of the girls. Tall, lanky, gorgeous, with the biggest blue eyes you ever saw.”

The young man folds his arms. “What did you do?”

“I introduced myself to her. Her name was Gina. And I told her I agreed with their cause
and that I wanted to protest with them.”

“Good for you. You got involved.”

I savor the memory for a moment. “Sure did. I followed Gina in line all day, shouting slogans and screaming at the guys as they entered the gym for practice until I was hoarse.”

“So, what happened? Did they give the girls more practice time?”

I shook my head. “Don’t know. But I got Gina to sleep with me that night. What a night. Did all kinds of things to her. Yup. That’s a protest I’ll never forget.”

As I walk back to my car, I look at both flyers wondering which one I should attend. But then I remember the phonograph on sale at the appliance store. I fold both papers and place them in the recycling bin at the end of the park.

The folks at the appliance store play Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” on the phonograph for me to demonstrate the machine’s high sound quality. I close my eyes and see the King shaking his legs and swiveling his hips, damming all those swooning girls to hell according to the religious norms of the time. I buy it and have them place it in a plain brown shopping bag to prevent Kaylee from seeing it. I don’t want her getting any ideas about my record collection.

I drive past the park and notice the demonstrators have all gone. I pull into a parking space next to it, not quite sure why I am stopping. A gravel path that winds around the park catches my eye. I get out and walk on it, the crunching sound of the stones under my feet welcome and familiar.

It winds through bare maple trees, having given up their leaves with the onset of Fall. But I close my eyes and see them bursting with leaves, like when I was a kid and went to the park to play baseball in the summer. Afterwards, hot and sweaty, my friends and I would lounge under trees exactly like these to cool us with their shade. I close my eyes. I see us lying on the soft grass, hands behind our heads as we talk and joke with one another, or on our sides as we pull at the grass and toss handfuls at each other.

I think of the painting at the dentist’s office. It troubles me that there isn’t anything to identify the human shapes. I imagine the faces of my friends along with their youthful bodies on those shapes. That would make it a real painting, something familiar and definite, not something that leaves you wondering.

I think about the protests. Maybe I should go to city hall and talk to some more of the protestors. Or, go back to the dentist’s office and take a cell phone picture of that painting and have Kalee print it out in color so I can hang it on my bedroom wall and stare at it each night.

But then I think about the phonograph.

I hurry to my car as I remember that the “B” side to “Hound Dog” is “Don’t Be Cruel,” and I can’t wait to hear it.

Joe Cappello lives and writes in the picturesque desert country of Galisteo, New Mexico, USA. His short story about the battle for the heart and soul of language, “The Codex of Lady Lucy Bugg,” appeared in the October 2024 issue of “The Write Launch.” Another story, “Running Errands” was a finalist in the 2024 Earnest Hemingway Short Story Competition and published in the 2024 issue of “Hemingway Shorts.” His short story, “They Only Showed Elvis from the Waist Up,” took first place, Short Story, General Category, in the Southwest Writers 2023 writing contest. He is thrilled to be part of the thriving Santa Fe artistic and creative community.