The Time Tooth Tooth Tasted Swine: Part 1

This article is part of the The Legend of Tooth Tooth series.

Jeremy Birdcastle: Whitest Boy in TownSo Tooth called up Birdcastle, and Tooth was like, "Yo, Birdcastle, I shall grace your residence with my righteous teachings, but I warn thee of this: I am an honorable and incorruptible adherent of Supreme Mathematics, and as such I shall brook not a morsel of swine." And Birdcastle like, "I'm OK with that, but you can't bring your eagle, because I want to keep my eyeballs."

And Tooth knew that this bargain was fair; though Birdcastle had agreed to present no pigflesh during their convention, Tooth could not be certain that his eagle would not detect the merest residual hint of bacon on the breath of Birdcastle-- it could be only one part-per-billion, for such is the sensitivity of the bird's brave nostril-- and judge him wicked.

Now, I was not there for the meeting, god, but I heard this straight out Tooth Tooth's unimpeachable mouth, so any inaccuracy here is only in my imperfect telling. On the night previously arranged, Tooth rolled over to Birdcastle's pad in the East Village, and the eve was going pretty uneventful to begin with-- Birdcastle had Tooth watch some Stargate SG-1 and Tooth ain't with that shit, of course, but he ain't gonna impugn the man culture in he own house. Then Birdcastle built with Tooth about bicycles for a while, if you can call that shit building, and Tooth gamely endured the discussion without comment, even though he got a Rolls Royce Phantom parked outside and the bicycle is the trifling conveyance of a child.

Then Birdcastle served a supper of fish and potatoes, and Tooth Tooth enjoyed that quite well, although he got the feeling like fish is a more appropriate thing for his eagle to be eating. So Tooth, all in all, had thusfar suffered Jeremy Birdcastle's whiteness without protest, and he even began to feel like maybe he understood the strange culture of Yacub's progeny more fully than before. He still ain't calling Birdcastle his friend, mind, because he detected a faint aroma of swine-- his nose ain't as sensitive as the eagle's, no doubt, but he still got a preternatural detective sense for hog matter. But he just chalked this up to the lingering hog particles that orbit all corrupt blanched devils, and, charitably, he ain't think too much of it.

And finally, after Birdcastle talked some more childish nonsense about bicycles, he brought out dessert, which was some kind of cream puff; Tooth, in a saltier mood, might take that shit as some manner of affront to his masculinity, but like I said before, he was trying to accept this alabaster barbarian's hospitality in good humor. However, he took one swallow of that cream puff and it's like he just put a thousand burning suns in his mouth. Immediately he began to wretch and cough like a child hitting its first blunt, and suddenly he knew what had happened to him-- Birdcastle, the white devil, had poisoned him with swine meat. And he look up, and Birdcastle, eyes flashing like the demon he is, he just laughing at Tooth.

"That is right, Tooth Tooth. I have fed you swine, and in the name of Yacub you are corrupted, cast out, cursed, anathema to your people-- even your own eagle will now regard you with the disgust it heretofore has reserved for my white devil brothers!"

I knew it, god! I knew Birdcastle was too white to be human!

True enough, god. And non-violent or not, if Tooth Tooth had his strength he would have beat the chalk out of Birdcastle's bloodless white carapace, but the swine venom be acting fast and it's all Tooth can do to utter a single word: "Alas!" He tried to call out to his eagle to rescue him, but no-- he has now tasted the garbage meat of the hog, and his psychic link to the eagle has been severed. And so, defeated, he crawled out of Birdcastle's pad, rolled down the stairs, and sprawled hisself out on the sidewalk to find a cab-- and funny enough he get one right away, too, because now the cab drivers can smell the swine on him and no longer regard his purity as a threat.

And when he got home to his manse, cousin, he could barely even crawl up the marble staircase to his eagle chambers. But he got up there, god, he got up there by sheer force of whatever righteousness still in his breast untouched by the swine venom, and he pushed that door open and he saw his majestic eagle perched there, and the eagle give him a look more of pity than odium-- and though he don't have the mind connection to the eagle no more, he can still make out the one word being transmitted by the eagle's black eyes: "Alas."

And with that, the eagle flew out the closed window, glass be shattering out everywhere and shit. And Tooth sank into a toxic swine reverie and began to see visions, god. Terrible visions...

To Be Continued!

– Dr. David Thorpe (@Arr)