The Soul of a Dentist

By Dublin


Who wants to put their hands all in a mouth and tear away at the teeth and cut away at the bone and scrape the gums and battle the tongue and all the other God awful practices that fill a dentist’s day? What mental or spiritual scar causes a man or woman to dedicate their lives to the mouth, the place where foods of all kinds, and substances, and liquids, and other people’s body parts are placed and washed around? They’re disgusting. Human mouths are disgusting. Dirtier than dog mouths they say.

It should be noted that while I write this my mouth is aching after a session with one of these sick bastards. One half of my mouth is aching and the other half is numb and the whole thing has the sour bitter taste of the stuff they use to numb you up before they stick the big needle in your gum and begin to tear away at you. All they did was give me a filling but Jesus, as I lay there with bright light blinding me and the rhythm of the drill rattling through my bones I couldn’t help but reflect back on all the interactions I’ve had through my life with these sadists.

I write sadists. Is it too harsh? I don’t believe so. Every time these people come into work they don’t perform acts of medicine: they are performing acts of medieval torture. My first memory of having someone’s gloved fingers in my mouth was in elementary school when I was sent off to a dentist in our town that had his wife serve as his assistant. They were Japanese and very nice and would always give me a toothbrush at the end which inspired me to think I might live up to the high standards of my older sister who never had a cavity until her twenties or something. But it was not to be. After only a few days I would lose interest in my new toothbrush and it sat neglected on the shelf above our sink and I would return to the office of the dentist and his wife and they would have to go about repairing the damage that my youthful neglect had inflicted on my poor mouth.

During one of these sessions the dentist explained to me that he and his wife were Seventh Day Adventists and that their church met on Saturdays and that I really should think about coming down sometime. Being eleven I thought going to church on a Saturday was about the stupidest thing I had ever heard but they wouldn’t let it go. “You really should. I think you would like the other kids there,” they said and I couldn’t agree or disagree because their hands and their instruments were crammed into my mouth and I couldn’t shake my head because my skull was crammed into the pocket of the dental chair so all I could do was nod slightly which only egged them on. “Oh good. Oh good. We sing a lot you know? And there are kids your age who have a great time. You must come. Your really must come.” I was so pissed at being solicited while at their mercy I could have screamed if I wasn’t being gagged and scraped and everything else.

That experience turned me off for the next ten years. I didn’t see another dentist until I was on my own in the East Bay and a piece of one of my teeth came off while I was eating Chinese food. I thought that was a fairly clear sign that it was time to see someone. I pulled up dentists in my area on the internet and just went with who ever was closest to where I worked. It turned out to be a lady doctor from Iran who had been taught dentistry in Tehran. This lady informed me that my corroding tooth was the result of not seeing anyone for ten years (really? What a surprise!) and that she would need to remove the tooth and put a bridge into my mouth. I said go ahead and next thing I knew she was shaving and burning that tooth away along with the two teeth next to it and making my life a living hell.

This woman had no trace of sensitivity or gentleness in her. She banged and ripped away at my mouth like she was sculpting some sort of ugly corporate art piece. Mechanics have a softer touch on a broken down jalopy. And it never ended. She made a mold of my mouth to get the bridge made and a week later I would show up for her to install it. She would force it into the gap, smashing it down onto my teeth, trying to make it fit until she gave up and said: “Oh shoot. This is not the right size. They must have got the measurements wrong.” Three times this happened, leading to the point where it was ridiculous and everyone just wanted it to be over including the doctor and her Iranian receptionist who’s smile got smaller and more tight lipped every time I showed up in the lobby.

By the last session we barely spoke or greeted each other. I just sat down and she began to wail away at me, coldly, angrily. We all knew I would never be back. She was the worst dentist Persia had ever spit out. I would have found someone new long before that but when you’re in the middle of that kind of procedure it really is hard to change horses mid stream. So I lay there in the chair and I took the abuse she dished out and I never raised my hand in pain even as tears stood ready at the edges of my eyes. As politically incorrect as it may be I couldn’t help but envision us in a cave somewhere and I was the captured infidel and she was the righteous holy warrior carrying out jihad on my mouth. All the current events and tensions between our cultures at that time (it was 2002) were being acted out on a tiny scale in that bright corner of her dental office.

Today I went to a new dentist and he turned out to be Croatian which was comforting because my Dad’s side of the family hails from there but it sadly made no difference. He still tore into me and treated my mouth like his playground where he played out his sick sadistic fantasies. The fact that we could be distant cousins didn’t change his attitude. He still had the sickness. He still had the soul of a dentist.