Leslie A. Fiedler
THE TEETH
Children, dogs unnerved
him.
And the sun, inimical (he
had forgotten his dark glasses, of course), found the narrow treeless
gap of the street, his pale watery eyes. It was the last anguish of the
sun, Warren knew, but the motionless corning of dark would be no
better; open windows and the noise of fans would not tease from
the brown, fading air-coolness; and faces all night, leaning from
windows, would breathe out, audibly and with effort, the pulse of
their sleeplessness.
Meanwhile, they were all outside: the shrill kids and runty
dogs (but their shrillness broke against the persistence of heat), the
shirtless fathers watching the brief rest of their hairy arms, the
flushed women in doorways, their supper dishes done, not daring
to think yet-sleep.
It was as if the airless houses had been turned inside out, and
Warren had the sense of trespassing before each stoop; a hundred
privacies gave sullenly before his invasion. Each time, the children
would stand fixed in the attitudes of their interrupted play, grudge
insolently his passage, forcing him to brush against their sweaty
shoulders- and then, behind him, the sound of the ball, the scuffling
breaths, the cries. And the warm parents would raise toward him
their eyes, indolent, curious; their faces would
t~m
toward his coming,
hold him in precise focus as he passed their doorway, follow his back
until his going released them to weariness or whatever dream survived
the atrocious summer.
He had the feeling that they mocked him in whispers: his
stooped shoulders, his finicky gait, the flickering gestures that he
could not suppress as he debated with himself his venture; and he
began to limp a little to confound their contempt, compel pity. It was
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