with anywhere from twelve to twenty dollars a head, depending on the desperation of the client. His customers did not ever know exactly when they would be leaving for Sumter since Mr. Janks refused to travel without a full load of seventeen—fifteen in the truckbed and two in the cab along with Mr. Janks himself. So Aunt Willa stayed on standby for several weeks, Momma said, while Mr. Janks drummed up business throughout the county, all of which was his territory. Momma said he had attained to a kind of slick and accomplished salesmanship which was part sheer deception, part threat, all of it helped along by means of a pair of uppers and lowers that Mr. Janks carried in his coatpocket and produced from time to time for effect. As for himself, Momma said, Mr. Janks had retained all of his original teeth.
Aunt Willa finally made the trip to Sumter sometime along about the first week of December, 1962. All of Mr. Janks’ customers collected in the middle of the night at the icehouse where Mr. Janks picked them up, timing himself so as to arrive at the clinic with the morning. As Aunt Willa told it, the patients were as much as herded into a common room equipped with four dentist’s chairs, one hygienist, and two dentists—Dr. Hathcock and Dr. Ursone—who Daddy said had probably never quite evolved into respectable human beings. Aunt Willa said they started in on the first four right off, yanking teeth and dropping them into metal pails between the chairs, and she told how each of them took two patients and alternated from mouth to mouth working so feverishly as to keep the incisors and molars and bicuspids ringing against the sides of the buckets like hailstones. The hygienist took molds for the plates before the gums had time to swell, or anyway before they had time to swell much, and the remainder of her duties consisted of providing the patients with cubes of ice to suck on which she distributed directly out of freezer trays. According to Aunt Willa, Mr. Janks stopped at the state line on the return trip for what he said was the standard complimentary dinner, but since nobody was willing to chew just then he had to eat alone.
The trouble with Aunt Willa’s teeth was that they never did fit properly, not even after she’d fought off two infections and her gums had shrunk down to their regular size. The uppers would not stay up and the lowers would not stay down, which turned out to be the general complaint among Mr. Janks’ customers who would collect on occasion at a negro dance hall and trade plates in hopes of finding a snugger fit. But Aunt Willa did not come up on any dentures that rattled around in her mouth any less than her own, so she just experimented with what she had and discovered that if she wore her uppers where her lowers should be and her lowers where her uppers should be she could chew passably well and without much worry of either plate dropping onto the table. Of course Aunt Willa’s dentures were not especially attractive upsidedown. Daddy said they made her look like some sort of flesh-tearing creature and he imagined Aunt Willa and her dentures could make a home for themselves in any jungle of the world.
According to Mrs. Phillip J. King, who told Momma she had studied the matter from every conceivable angle, Aunt Willa and Miss Pettigrew probably decided to apply themselves in prayer directed towards the gums instead of the teeth because Miss Pettigrew had concluded that while the size of the teeth was pretty much set, the gums might be somehow divinely manipulated. Momma told Mrs. King yes, she supposed so, but actually Momma did not at all hold with the view that Aunt Willa’s dental troubles could draw Miss Pettigrew out of her daddy’s house after ten years of unbroken solitude. Momma said Aunt Willa’s gums were not good enough reason to send Miss Pettigrew to church but served as a fair excuse for getting her there, and Momma had her own theory as to why Miss Pettigrew might trade
Aunt Willa finally made the trip to Sumter sometime along about the first week of December, 1962. All of Mr. Janks’ customers collected in the middle of the night at the icehouse where Mr. Janks picked them up, timing himself so as to arrive at the clinic with the morning. As Aunt Willa told it, the patients were as much as herded into a common room equipped with four dentist’s chairs, one hygienist, and two dentists—Dr. Hathcock and Dr. Ursone—who Daddy said had probably never quite evolved into respectable human beings. Aunt Willa said they started in on the first four right off, yanking teeth and dropping them into metal pails between the chairs, and she told how each of them took two patients and alternated from mouth to mouth working so feverishly as to keep the incisors and molars and bicuspids ringing against the sides of the buckets like hailstones. The hygienist took molds for the plates before the gums had time to swell, or anyway before they had time to swell much, and the remainder of her duties consisted of providing the patients with cubes of ice to suck on which she distributed directly out of freezer trays. According to Aunt Willa, Mr. Janks stopped at the state line on the return trip for what he said was the standard complimentary dinner, but since nobody was willing to chew just then he had to eat alone.
The trouble with Aunt Willa’s teeth was that they never did fit properly, not even after she’d fought off two infections and her gums had shrunk down to their regular size. The uppers would not stay up and the lowers would not stay down, which turned out to be the general complaint among Mr. Janks’ customers who would collect on occasion at a negro dance hall and trade plates in hopes of finding a snugger fit. But Aunt Willa did not come up on any dentures that rattled around in her mouth any less than her own, so she just experimented with what she had and discovered that if she wore her uppers where her lowers should be and her lowers where her uppers should be she could chew passably well and without much worry of either plate dropping onto the table. Of course Aunt Willa’s dentures were not especially attractive upsidedown. Daddy said they made her look like some sort of flesh-tearing creature and he imagined Aunt Willa and her dentures could make a home for themselves in any jungle of the world.
According to Mrs. Phillip J. King, who told Momma she had studied the matter from every conceivable angle, Aunt Willa and Miss Pettigrew probably decided to apply themselves in prayer directed towards the gums instead of the teeth because Miss Pettigrew had concluded that while the size of the teeth was pretty much set, the gums might be somehow divinely manipulated. Momma told Mrs. King yes, she supposed so, but actually Momma did not at all hold with the view that Aunt Willa’s dental troubles could draw Miss Pettigrew out of her daddy’s house after ten years of unbroken solitude. Momma said Aunt Willa’s gums were not good enough reason to send Miss Pettigrew to church but served as a fair excuse for getting her there, and Momma had her own theory as to why Miss Pettigrew might trade
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