It was a blistering cold winter night in Colorado. Spookytooth was sent outside by his mother to gather firewood for the wood-burning stove. It was just the two of them now. His father was suffering with scoptophobia, a rare phobia causing him to fear being looked at, and had locked himself in his room for more than two months. She was trying to make ends meet by working at a local fish-food plant that served many trout hatcheries in the area.
Life was hard on the two-acre plot. Leased to Spookytooth’s father 13 years ago by a timber company, the business had abandoned the site in 1993 upon the discovery of the state-endangered boreal toad on the land. Now, it was hard for the family to sleep at night during the summer with the constant burping of the over-abundant amphibians. Before    Spookytooth’s father became ill, he swore he would kill “every damn one of those frogs†before it drove him mad.
The shanty three-room cabin kept the cold out, but not much else. Spookytooth’s father built it with his bare hands from untreated lumber, and it was infested with termites. The family was annoyed by the constant scraping and chewing, often waking up with saw-dust on their faces and pillows. Adding to the family’s discomfort, Spookytooth’s mother was always watchful of a peeping-tom who had been seen peering though the small kitchen window on occasions. She always told Spookytooth to watch for someone lurking outside as he did his chores.Â
Spookytooth was a wiry young man in his mid-twenties. His short brown hair was already beginning to thin a little on top. His mother had always cut his hair, but he didn’t like it much. She sat him down about once a month, draped an old Red-Lobster bib around his neck, plopped a cereal-bowl on his head and snipped her way around his head with a pair of curtain shears.
Perhaps Spookytooth’s most distinguishing feature, however, was his left front tooth. It jolted out of his mouth and downward like the tail-hook on a navy fighter-jet. It had caused him the most embarrassment of any feature. He had even dropped out of school because of it. “You could eat a corn cob through a barbed-wire fenceâ€, they’d say. He’d heard them all. The girls at school thought Spookytooth was “sweet†and often jabbed the boys in the arm for making fun of him. But years of relentless teasing had taken its toll and he called it quits.
What Spookytooth lacked in facial features he made up for with his musical ability. He brought a smile to his mother’s face when he would whistle outside while doing his chores. The tunes from his lips seemed to be amplified and well projected. Perhaps, she thought, it was because of his wayward tooth. When Spookytooth was 12, his uncle Gus died from accidentally drinking anti-freeze from a moonshine jar. In the will, Gus left him a violin and Spookytooth took to the instrument immediately. He became so good that he was pressured by his mother to play at the county fair one summer. He amazed the crowd at the fair with his ability. But when he started singing and spit some of the words, they laughed him off the stage. Now, he only played in the confines of the small cabin after dinner.
As Spookytooth dusted the snow off of the frozen woodpile with his gloved right hand, something caught the corner of his eye. He swirled around and noticed two men peering through the cabin’s kitchen window. Spookytooth took in a giant gulp of air, pursed his lips around his awkward tooth and began to blow. The air from his lungs streamed across the enamel and made an ear-piercing noise. The sound seemingly bounced off of the nearby mountains. The two peeping-toms covered their ears and bowed to their knees in obedience and pain.
When Spookytooth was satisfied the two were overcome with fear, he ceased his onslaught. He grabbed an axe lying near the woodpile and started towards the two men. He noticed one man had a skinny build, made obvious by his tight fitting stone-washed jeans and oversized orange ski-vest. The man had a dark scruffy goatee that helped fill his gaunt face. The other man was heavier set, with a large red plaid overcoat and long curly dreadlocks. “Git outa here, git on outa hereâ€, Spookytooth slurred as he raised the axe-blade over his head. Spookytooth’s mother hid in the kitchen after hearing the deafening whistle. For the first time in two months his father came out of his room and burst through the cabin door leading to the small front porch. “What the hell’s going on here?†he mumbled. “Don’t look at me, don’t none of ya look at me!†he said as all three outside turned their heads in his direction. “Go on back insshide pa and lie downâ€, Spookytooth said nervously. His father grimaced and quickly walked back inside.
“Now listenâ€, the man in the orange vest said softly to Spookytooth. The spy quickly raised his hands – as if in a hold-up. “We don’t mean nothin’ manâ€, he explained as his frosty breath escaped into the night air. “Yeah dude, we’re sorryâ€, the man in the plaid coat said. Spookytooth lowered the axe and thought for a moment. “You guysh got my mom shcared sshhittlessâ€, he blurted. The two men looked at each other as if they couldn’t understand him for a second. When Spookytooth’s words finally processed, the two men began to explain everything to him.
Dwayne and Brisco Wolichek were brothers, and did almost everything together. They too lived in a small cabin, about four miles down the dirt road from Spookytooth. Both were high-school dropouts and made a modest living during the summer catching boreal toads and illegally selling them to an Asian contact. It wasn’t widely known that the amphibians were a delicacy in Taiwan, but thanks to Dwayne’s internet research the brothers managed to ship about two-hundred a week during July at a whopping $20 per toad. Each evening during the summer they cooked their day’s harvest in a smoker, dipped the toads in chocolate and packaged them as home-made candies called “Critter Crunchiesâ€. Only the two brothers and the Taiwanese knew the recipe.
The brothers told Spookytooth that one night a few months ago, while they were toad-hunting, they happened to hear him playing his violin. They told him how they loved the sounds emanating from the cabin and decided to go for a closer look. As they got closer, they were noticed by Spookytooth’s father who was wandering in the woods near the cabin. Spookytooth’s father, upon seeing the men, covered his face and ran straight into a tree and knocked himself unconscious.
The brothers were confused by this, but felt obligated to help. They explained how they had been shot at for trespassing more than once, and decided not to alert anyone in the cabin. Instead, they dragged Spookytooth’s father to his front porch, knocked on the door and ran. They explained how terrible they felt, not knowing the condition of his father, and dropped by often to check on him through the cabin window. They told Spookytooth how they weren’t even sure if his father was still alive, because they hadn’t seen him since the incident. After hearing all of this, Spookytooth began to cry.Â