THE TOOTH (Short-Story)

By: Leon Kwasi Kuntuo-Asare

I walked away with one of the man’s canine teeth in my right shirt pocket, of my favorite long-sleeved red and black plaid shirt. I kept the tooth as a reminder, not so much as a souvenir for myself, but as a reminder to the racist creep, who had the nerve to attempt to put his hands on my girlfriend.

“So, please have a seat, and tell me what happened, Mr.Gunner?” the police officer said to me”.

I replied “I left the Moonlight NightClub with my girlfriend at around 1:00 am. A thug, who was hanging outside the club seemed to get very angry when he saw my girlfriend Sara and I holding hands. The sight of an educated black man and his white girlfriend holding hands seemed to make him irate. His face soon turned a fiery red, he got so mad a vain in his neck started beating rapidly and strongly. As we walked down the street, he called me a n#gger and he called my girlfriend a n#gger lover”.

I kind of smirked at the officer and said:

“Being from the Midwest, I’ve been called a n#gger more than a few times, so I did not really get upset, it’s kind of expected, sometimes. But, his words made my girlfriend, become very upset and protective of me. She called him a white-trash, trailer park bigot. In response to her sweet words, he lifted his right hand in an aggressive manner, like he was going to hit her with all of his power. His hands came just a few inches away from her face, but unfortunately for him, my hands were a lot quicker than his, and I knocked him out”.

I omitted that I put his tooth in my pocket, I did not want to ruin the image of us being victims of a hate crime,(which we were) that I believe the police officer had of my girlfriend and me.

“No need to give this racist abuser of women any sympathy”, I quietly said to myself”.

The police officer walked me and my girlfriend over to the frontt of the large gray two-story former warehouse, that now held the Moonlight nightclub. Intoxicated clubgoers were still hanging outside with some of the very burly African-American and Samoan security crew, who were these scary-looking men dressed in all-black with staff written on the back of their shirts in white letters. Those guards secured the interior and perimeter of the club, and looked out for us, just in case the bigot had some friends in the club that we didn’t know about. The lead police officer pulled the Security manager to the side, and lucky for me, he completely backed-up my side of the story.

The police officer looked at me and my girlfriend and said:

You’re free to go.”

The officer then looked at the bigot, who was handcuffed, sitting on the curb, half-dazed with a missing tooth and told him:

“You’re going to jail”