Dentist

The dentist's office and how I felt (which wasn't an office at all, but more like a cubicle with movable walls that could be found in business offices):

I was simultaneously thrilled and terrified over this blank t.v. screen which was 4 feet in front of my face, on the wall directly in front of me. I was lounging on the dentist chair. A chair that allows the body to recline but is still uncomfortable and gives one the sensation that something awful is about to happen. This chair could only be used for dentistry or torture. I was praying that this t.v. would stay off. There was no one around, I was convinced I was safe.

Suddenly, the screen made a short pizzicato hissing sound and turned on. There must have been a control from outside of the cubicle...

Words formed: "A Decade of Celine Dion- The Music in Videos."

Shit. What a lousy turn for the absolute worst. Then I thought, the turning started as soon as I was buzzed into the building from off the street. The waiting room was dim and had that lighting that showed all of the skin's little imperfections. The secretaries were a couple run-down Polish hags. These were the faces the patients see before their mouths are violated? This was their idea of a comforting front line? I rubbed my jaw and slowly filled out the forms. "Have you ever had any bleeding problems?....Yes/No." I've bled before. Every single time it has been a problem. I had an urge to use the bathroom. The coffee table hasn't been Windex-ed for some time. Smudges and left over food pastes were smeared in bacteria rainbows. I kept signing my name and circling my medical histories.

"Romano!"

With that I was taken down a short corridor and brought into the x-ray room. The machine was carelessly wrapped with blue tape. Is that what's holding this whole contraption together? Rays are going to leak out somehow and poison my eyes, or I don't know I was scared because I've never seen such recklessness. These machines are usually so clean and new and safe-looking! I gagged on the cardboard tabs as the dentist's nurse photographed my entire face. I laughed at the way she would set the cardboard in my mouth then run out of the room to flick the photo switch. She then would mosey back in and set another piece, which I had to hold with my own finger. She washed her hands and was wearing gloves but what about my own germ infested fingers! I couldn't remember the last time my hands touched soap.

"I'm your lady, and you are my man." In the 90's, America fell in love with over-produced, pseudo emotional, over-thought ballads. Whitneys and Boltons. Studio piano's and echoed drum hits.

Doctor Igor Iliav. Salt and Pepper hair and complexion. Another product of little Poland. Family dentist, and I pity the families who came here more than once. I needed a deep cleaning, and that meant a metal pick ripping through my gums. Tartar. Tartar! I spend my evenings in a strict meditative ritual of flossing, picking, brushing, scraping, and gargling, just so I can see a dentist and have them finally say "Ah! You've done it! The golden child! I see you have been flossing. Leave here at once. We have found our messiah!"

Igor was not clean. He was not gentle. There was no nurse with a loose blouse holding the sucking mechanism. Instead, streams of spit dripped down my tilted-back head like a spewing volcano. Gobs of bloody tissue piled on the tool table. Celine Dion.

In a thick Polish accent, "I could do the bottom jaw and leave the top for tomorrow."

In a gagged mumble, "Uh, uh. Today, Today"

"Are you sure, some people can handle the pain and some can't."

"Today, Today."

"You have a high threshold for pain."

Yes, I felt good about his compliment and reassuring my manhood. And yes, the cleaning was decent, but I've had better. Igor had me sign two forms, stating I was there on two separate occasions. My insurance will gladly pick up the tab. Ah! Insurance fraud!