Showing Teeth

I woke up to the sound of her voice. She had brought someone home. I could tell by the heavy slur to her voice and the crashing in the other room she had been out drinking. But no matter how wasted Carrie was she never talked to herself. Instead of rolling over like I should have and going straight back to sleep, I strained my ears.
His voice was low and deep. It was not laced with the swears or vulgarities of the bar crowd we usually hung out with. It took me a long time to place it and still I wanted to doubted myself.
"No see lokk. Glaww. A hol er and er and er."
If I hadn't heard this routine before I wouldn't have known what my little girlfriend was trying to say.
"That is a lot of holes you have", came the mans voice in response.
"Wana see em", Carrie asked and over the man's soft protests I heard the sound of her footsteps coming down the hall past my bed room. I heard the sound of of her ninety pound body trip against my door, hitting the metal knob a foot from my pillow before she retrieved the pill vial from the medicine cabinet in our bathroom. I also heard the sound of the toilet flush repeatedly before she finally walked back to into the living room.
I sat up in bed to listen better to their muffled conversation, ready to jump up even before her "clumsy" cue was given. I cracked my door, standing barefooted on my grimy splinter filled work jeans and stood at the ready. When I couldn't take the silence any longer I jumped into the dark basement hall screaming...
"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU ASSHOLES THINK YOU ARE DOING DAMN IT WAKING ME UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT? I GOTTA BE TO WORK IN TWO HOurs..."
I stopped when I reached the living room and seen Carrie sitting on the couch alone calmly smoking a menthol.
She smiled crookedly around her cigarette as she took a deep pull and held out her free arm to me. I sat along side my little friend on the worn sofa and slung my arm around her bony shoulders, breathing in her smell of whiskey and hair gel ready to listen to her nights escapades. We pulled the afghan she had knitted me for Valentines over our laps.
"So your sleepy ears didn't hear him run out of here I take it", Carrie said in a much less liquid voice and giggled. I reached for for her can of Diet Coke she held out and took a sip.
In two hours at five a.m. my alarm would ring and I would make the hour drive in my big old piece of shit Osmobile to the window factory as I dodged deer on the dark pre dawn icy roads. Carrie would be just about reaching r.e.m. in her grandma's feather bed in the next room. Some times, when the evening went bad for us, we would both curl together in that safe comfy bed for the rest of the night.
My best friend in that little northern town liked to drink. And she liked sex. Coming from a devote Catholic family all she ever wanted was a husband and a dozen kids. She just didn't know how to get them.
Somehow after she got her beauticians licence and started doing hair and men on main instead of getting her diploma and getting the hell out, the local boys found out her slide from being popular to being used was an easy game. In the time she was my roommate she had slept her way through every eligible bachelor. And the marginal ones that would do in a pinch. She was scrapping the bottom of the masculine barrel. Plus Carrie didn't own a car. Her money went to happy hour and pretty clothes.
I know sometimes she wasn't as drunk as she made out, she just wanted an excuse to feel warmth for a little while.
So on the nights that I had to get up early for my assembly line job, I left her at the local watering hole. It was always a crap shoot who would bring her home. Sometimes she was too drunk to walk the four blocks in dress heels the cold or just too lonely to spend it by herself.
And I know sometimes she probley wasn't in as much danger as she made it sound to me.
"Who you show your teeth too tonight?" I asked her.
Carrie wouldn't answer.
"Was that Mark Hull from Stan's?"
Mark Hull was the forty five year old looser who sold guns from the local hardware store.
Carrie would not look at me.
I sighed, my heart going out to her and hugged her tighter.
"Did you say thank you daddy when he bought your Windsor Cokes?" I asked trying to lighten the mood.
I would wake from the dead if it kept her from sleeping with such a man.
"Shut your face bitch", she said and hugged me back tight.
I ignored the tears trying to slip from the corner of her big eyes and pulled the chipped black coffee table closer with my feet so her short legs would reach. The vial of teeth lay open with the molars spilled out across it's scared surface. Showing her brothers rotten wisdom teeth sometimes put off the amorous degenerates she partied with before they expected payment in physical form if she could not shake them at the door. For back up she let them think she was puking her guts out. More and more often did I need bare my teeth and scare them out.
I loved my friend and would protect and enable her always.
And she would never threaten me with the straight edge razor from her salon she replaced me with once I grew up and moved on.