How I Lost My Front Tooth In Manchester New Hampshire

An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth

My lawyer suggested I change the names in this. You can put two and two together. If you’re the law than consider this entire passage fiction. If you’re a fan than you already know what it is. If you dig this, consider picking up my debut poetry collection Last of the Hardcore Okay into the story

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For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be a gangster, the words passed in static between my ears, coked up and sinister in the kitchen holding Milo on one side while Jack wrangled him beside me holding him steady over the kitchen sink while we tried to wrestle dental floss around his front tooth to even the score. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and Milo, that desert jackal, that confused coyote had finally crossed the line — he knocked my tooth out of my mouth and for that us Jersey boys had to settle the score. Jack Giancola, the Hazlet kid with the Hollywood smile, one of the most gentle souls in all of North America — the man who stopped to pet every dog from Hereford Texas to Portland Maine suddenly became Nicky Santoro with our comrade hair in his hand in the half-lit kitchen.

“Listen Milo, I got your head in a fucking vice. I’ll squash your fuckin’ head like a grapefruit if you don’t give me a fucking name”

The entire scene passed as a possible consideration as we rummaged around the medicine cabinet for some floss. Jack had been trying to calm the whole thing down but after a certain hour of the night, Milo became a goblin completely uncontrollable and liable to fuck anything and everything up.

“Really you should be thanking me” Milo said swaying in the hallway. “Imagine what this is going to do to your legend. They’re going to eat this shit up on the internet dude I’m telling you. Every toxic poetry girl is going to be all over it man”

“Yeah, I can’t find the floss, you’re just going to have to kick his ass man” Jack said.

Okay I guess to tell this story I’m going to have to back up a bit. I popped out of the Secaucus Junction train station where Jack was waiting in his girlfriend’s car to bring us up to Manchester New Hampshire for two shows. We had been off the road for a few months and for us that felt like an eternity stuck back in the real world— when you get so used to bopping around chasing horizon from one city to another when you get back its like the whole world is standing still. Once the road gets its hook into you proper it ruins everything else by comparison, soon everything you do just becomes another step to get back to being on the road. Every poetry bro from coast to coast either channeled the ghost of Charles Bukowski or wanted to be Jack Kerouac but somewhere somehow over the last year the whole vibes had changed and now we were bringing Motley Crue energy to poetry. The bad boys of poetry we weren’t just coming to your city to read our poems and sell books — we were coming to party and everyone knew it.

The idea of what a poem is in the 21st century and what it meant anyway came up a lot and it occurred to us on one of those past tours that we were the poem. The poem wasn’t just what we wrote down on paper or printed in our chapbooks but instead we embodied the poem. And by extension anything we did was in fact poetry. That’s when everything got a little crazy. Milo had started his own Renaissance up in New England and I talked to him everyday on the phone. This was my third time up there in the last year but this time was special— we were featuring at his show and the next night we were spearheading the kick off of his own version of Punk & Poetry.

Milo and I had a long history of crossing paths and completely ruining each other’s lives and I figured this trip would be no different.

When we rolled into Manchester there was some Christian white nationalist march through Elm Street and Jack and I heckled at the wayward religious zealots as we circled the block looking for beer and parking. We located both and met Milo down at the Merrimack River pounding Budlights and gazing off at the rushing blue river which is you know, the only beautiful sight in all of Manchester. The boys slowed down but I had bought a twelve pack so I finished the beers, pounding them one by one and then followed them up the road past the store Bunni’s where we got the beer and its homeless macrame circle outside then found our way up that one long street that was in fact all of Manchester and found the venue.

The show was filling up and there was even a magician pulling tricks walking up and down the bar playing with the audience before it was to kick off. It kicked off late as all proper poetry shows do and then we were off to the races. The drinks kept flowing and soon other people were buying me drinks. There I saw Chris Reinhard, a poet from the city and he introduced me to his friend Kags, a stocky pit-bull of a man with a voice somewhere between gravel and a coffee grinder with a heart of literal fucking gold who sold coke and wrote poetry. “Welcome to Manchester, we’re going to have fun tonight” He said into my ear as we greeted one another. Some people’s guardian angels appear as sweet souls who guide them to make good decisions but I’m from Keansburg, New Jersey so mine are always coke dealers who like my drug poems. Then came Riley and Martin from Vermont, Riley a show host, a self admitted groupie from somewhere that wasn’t Burlington— the whole night was shaping up to be something.

The show went forward and all of the beers soon found themselves bubbling in my blood stream. There were a group of drunk hecklers at the end of the bar being real dick heads and during everyone’s sets I went into host mode to quiet their outbursts. Yeah they were out in public but Milo had the entire place slammed and they were the minority— imagine being the dudes who heckled at a poetry reading? That’s like picking on a disabled kid, it’s just plain not right. But when I was on stage no one came to my rescue and they heckled and I stumbled. I don’t like stumbling. What followed was what I recall three times but according to the video it was 30 minutes of me doing my poems and six separate threats of violence to the corner at the bar. It wasn’t all that egregious my recollection, some of it was even creative like when I shouted out one of the only heroes from Manchester, New Hampshire the infamous GG Allin when I said “call me GG Allin cause I’m bout to shit on y’all, beat your ass and leave in handcuffs”

But outside after the show the leader of this pack of Elm street weirdos confronted me with that community college arrogance “This is my city you should show respect”

“Fuck your city” I breathed through a cigarette and stood up. “What do you want to do?”

Anyone knows that isn’t a question. I’m letting this dude know that I’ll throw down. He bolstered forward and Milo hopped in between us telling us both to shut the fuck up. Jack tucked in his chain, the Jersey calling card for shit is about to go down. But right before anything got serious, Cags called us over to talk and the whole thing just wound down. The proudest men in Manchester New Hampshire (besides us) ventured off to being insufferable somewhere else.

“Here’s the deal dudes. The three of you can come back to my crib and it’s fucking scarface on me, welcome to Manchester” He tapped me with the back of his hand on the chest and flashed a smile, his eyes shifting beneath his backwards baseball cap. “But I don’t know what you’re going to do with them”

Cags pointed to the entourage that had formed outside of the bar that was looking to party with us. Riley, Martin, a few other girls, the random assortment of quiet dudes pursuing those girls and a rather huge man in a fur coat who kept telling us he was opening up for Katt Williams. We tried to tel them know that there was no afterparty but they weren’t going for it or buying our bullshit. Then we did what desperate men do in a situation— we fucking bolted. Jack and I running down the alley away with Cags laughing as we slipped down an alley leaving Milo holding court. It was like we were back on Middle Road in Hazlet, New Jersey running away from the cops after egging some rich dude’s house. Half way down the dim-lit alley we heard the cackled howl of Milo as he was now chasing us and BRINGING THE PEOPLE WITH HIM. What was this dude’s problem? He knew better. But the drink was already becoming a marathon by the time the show ended and we were all running to damnation anyhow. Jack and I hid behind a row of garbage cans hoping to lose em.

Milo caught up and saw me hiding behind the garbage cans did something that no other human in the entire world would ever think of doing— he flailed his entire body and threw himself onto me and garbage can kicking the entire heavy duty flip top industrial garbage can directly into my face. I heard the crunch before I felt it and there was blood in my mouth. I knew it. Half of my front tooth completely broken in half and I crumbled. One of my biggest fears was losing one of my front teeth— the world is a cruel place and missing one of those marble window panes in your mouth immediately draws the judgement and ire of the buttoned up world. When you’re a public fat guy losing a tooth isn’t just about vanity it’s existential. In that moment, I broke down, thinking in that single moment my entire everything was just over. Jack and I scowled the ground for my tooth and found one but it wasn’t mine. We found another and I pocketed it.

“Dude we found two pieces of tooth here. What the fuck has happened here? Don’t let them see you like this” Jack said and we hurried off to Cag’s.

There I sat in shock just looking down at my broken tooth but white lightning was cut and lined up and we were all talkative soon jittering and I chain smoked cigarettes with Chris out on the balcony looking down across the apartment complex, the moon hidden by cloud and the stars lost behind light pollution. I really thought it was all over. A deep root of insecurity swam through my taught veins and seized me. What were we to do? Milo was trying to be in my corner but I wasn’t having it. I didn’t want to show my face again.

When we got back to Milo’s spot, the group we had run away from at the beginning of this journey was back partying with his roommates waiting for us. It’s important to note that anyone who hangs around to see us at the end of the night deserves us as authentic as possible so we rambled on coked about about everything and nothing at all. We couldn’t find the floss. And I didn’t want to beat Milo’s ass. He was my brother and accidents happened but I destroyed. Pacing outside and trying to come up with a plan. I was going to go back to New Jersey, get a job, get health insurance and then reappear six months down the road. What else was there to do? I couldn’t be seen like this. I would be judged. I would be unattractive.

The next morning we arose burnt out and I bolstered up some post coffee courage and uploaded a picture to the internet to show the damage. We waited for Milo who was stomping around in his boxers trying to hold onto something to keep him grounded to this plane of existence— it was always like this no matter where we were after a long night he went back to factory settings just confused and meandering looking for nicotine in his underwear. But responses started to come in and with that DMs. The internet did in fact love this and unexpectedly a series of women told me for some reason they thought it was hot. What had happened to the women of America? I knew the men were already damned a cocktail of readily available porn, narcotics and dating apps had ruined an entire generation of men like us but really? Whatever did go awry for them I was thankful for in that moment. And soon I felt a bit better about the situation. How often did we dictate our confidence based on how others found us attractive? Maybe all the time?

I was still ready to quit the whole game but we had one more show tonight in the basement of the tattoo parlor and I didn’t to make up for my drunken charade the night before. We walked a case of beer through the streets of Manchester and found our way to the venue. The show started way late as anything involving punks often do and by the time it got going the entire place was mobbed up with people from all over New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Milo opened and fought with the unruly crowd but he handled it with charm— one of the bands— were fire but absolute wrecks constantly heckling the poets. Jack broke the room up proper and blew everyone’s minds when he joined one of the dudes on stage and covered Operation Ivy.

I took the mic and decided then that I was going to have to burn the entire place down to make up for the night before and if this was my last show for a long while than it would have to go down with a band. The heckling band was now even more drunk and right in the front but I swung. I held the microphone and walked right into the crowd singing my working class swan songs and I remember the singular moment when I grabbed them all by their balls, in Here’s Looking At You Kid I said

“We may never have Paris but we will have the basement”

Every punk in the room jumped at that and I saw there eyes lock on me. We all had the basement. An entire generation who fumbled through adolescence in friend’s basements and haunting the shopping mall with bangs in front of their face and finger nails painted black. By the time I hopped off stage the boys were all celebrating. We did it. We all hit it. The last band went up and everyone was dancing and clinking beers. Someone bought a book from Jack with two tabs of acid and he passed it to me. I ate a tab and pushed Milo into the bathroom.

“Open up”

He opened his mouth and I threw the tab in there  “Now you’re going to trip”

“Ah fuck I don’t want to trip!” He yelled pulling the tab out of his mouth but it was too late. We left the bathroom just as people started yelling and there was a real big tall bald man like Steve Wilkos himself was wading through the mosh pit and pushing people over kicking empty cases of cheap beer around the floor like Sauron making his way through the battlefield. I looked at the organizers face and immediately knew it was the owner. Whatever fate befell them or whatever rule was violated I may never know but all I do know is when trouble happens we get out of there.

We ran out of the show as they pulled the plug on the music and bounded down to the Irish bar The Shaskeen drinking our victory drinks and taking over half the bar with our crew. Then we were back at Milo’s, poets all over the couches and floors drinking beers and sniffing lines trading poems and philosophies. It’s in those moments at three in the morning, when the deed is done and the sins have already been sinned and there is nothing to do but haunt dawn and go deeper that everything feels just right.

The next morning we left Milo sleeping in his boxers in the bathroom (a common place for him after a long night) and headed back to the promised land of New Jersey. The road gives but it requires sacrifice too and my tooth was just another piece of me I sold to read poesy. Later, a poet from the Garden State would ask if I still had my tooth and if she could have it. She then wore it in a gold locket around her neck. At a show they passed around my tooth to rub it for good luck on their open mic sets. That made me feel as uncomfortable then as it does now.

Maybe Milo was right. But I’m not thanking him. And it’s still up for debate if we’re going to take his tooth to square off the whole thing.

I guess we’ll have to see