Conversations with My Dentist
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
CONVERSATIONS WITH MY DENTIST BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. -Job Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to...
...He does not get up...
...There are a lot of special things you have to do with your teeth and gums-massaging and brushing and things like that...
...I'm serious," he goes on...
...I'm going to try not to hurt you," says my periodontist...
...If the tooth falls into the water, the boy will be healthy...
...Why are you embarrassed...
...He stares at the impression I have made and shakes his head sadly...
...Rinse," he says...
...I keep making more visits to him, but they have never become a habit, and one of these times I may lack the courage to return...
...What...
...he persists...
...All words remain trapped behind my mobile teeth...
...Why are you here...
...Who doesn't these days...
...Job Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles...
...The next day Marty makes an appointment for me with a periodontist...
...You're right," he says, "and some of my colleagues charge even more...
...It appears freighted with unfathomable meanings...
...Periodontists allegedly know how to keep one's teeth in one's head...
...I sputter helplessly...
...I answer...
...Well I relent slightly...
...You know, that's something Hitler could have said as easily about himself...
...If the tooth magically turns into coins, all is well...
...And he proceeds to jam a sharp instrument into my gum...
...I am shouting...
...It'll cost you $800," he says, "but you won't have to pay it all at one time...
...On my next visit the periodontist puts something in my mouth and tells me to bite hard...
...For the rest of your life you'll have to become a teeth freak...
...Today, for instance, while probing cruelly beneath my upper gum, he asks, "What is your philosophy of life...
...if the tooth starts to rot and is exposed to ants, then the boy will be diseased...
...I'm not embarrassed and of course I do...
...Is my bite worse than my bark...
...What's the matter...
...It shows you how much the country needs national health insurance...
...There is magic in a tooth, especially when it no longer resides in the mouth...
...Marty steps back and frowns...
...He stands up...
...Actually, I'm just an old-fashioned humanist...
...The periodontist smiles and hands me a cup of water...
...Ouch...
...I am ushered into the periodontist's office and find him sitting gravely behind a shiny, kidney-shaped desk...
...Instantly I dream that all my teeth are falling out, forming a clicking cataract and spilling into my cupped hand...
...Marty says most periodontists are rich and peculiar, and that the one he has recommended to me is no exception...
...You say that, but you don't mean it," he informs me...
...I say, and grab a cup of water...
...I lie down, and the periodontist glances at my teeth...
...You can pay $50 every month.' "I'll be an old man before I'm through paying...
...As children we are likely to feel that our desires go unheeded...
...It's what I've been telling you all along," he says as he inserts two fingers in my mouth and waggles my mobile teeth...
...The periodontist smiles, "Who's going broke...
...Still in a stupor, I kept thinking: They know they know they know they know they know...
...Gum service," I correct him, and get the hell out of there...
...If you want the real truth, I gnash because I'm a child of the kingdom...
...I go home and take a nap, to avoid worry...
...What I do from time to time is gnash them...
...Especially a wordsmith like you...
...Then, musingly: "An old-fashioned humanist...
...You're wrong...
...Driving home, I brood about the psychology of teeth...
...The periodontist sighs...
...Like most dentists, Marty likes to blame the victim...
...As I came to, I was certain that I heard him saying to me, "The truth is out, the truth is out...
...Well...
...But while we're waiting for socialized dentistry," I ask, "need we go broke...
...If the tops are touching the bottoms," says my periodontist, "that's bad...
...That's a serious problem...
...Matthew...
...I press on...
...Everybody should be able to state his philosophy of life in a few sentences...
...This plant looks a little the worse for wear," he mutters...
...Marty sent me...
...Don Marquis Marty, my dentist, has discovered that my teeth suffer from "mobility.'' He seems pleased...
...I see he is wearing dark hip-huggers tucked into suede boots...
...It's just lip-service...
...so, quite literally, we put teeth in them...
...He beckons me to the dentist's chair, an S-shaped contraption made of white leather...
...You ought to ask yourself why you keep gnashing your teeth...
...In the long run, who's cheaper,' I ask, "a periodontist or a psychoanalyst...
...No answer...
...How true, how true," I manage to intone through his fingers...
...But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into utter darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth...
...They rely on a variety of polysyllabic techniques like "curettage," "gingival therapy," and "occlusal equilibration...
...The message depressed me terribly...
...If you don't take good care of your gums, they won't take good care of you...
...The tooth, thus mingles in the child's dreams, and in our dreams as well, with a welter of yearnings that help to shape the unconscious, the part of us managed by hobgoblins and tooth fairies...
...It's outrageous...
...We tell our children to put their dropped teeth under their pillows...
...Then we'll talk some more...
...We are all teeth freaks, but not in the sense my periodontist intended...
...Which reminds me of a time, many years ago, when a dentist "put me under" with gas in order to remove a wisdom tooth...
...They also signify a fear of loss of teeth...
...There is a long silence while he hacks away at my gums...
...The blood is flowing freely this day...
...He has a gray, pointed beard and melancholy blue eyes...
...I never grind myteeth...
...I spring to a sitting position...
...You grind your teeth," he explains...
...The game is tooth and consequences...
...It is not just the pedestrian pain of dentistry that puts me off-it's the conversation...
...What in your life makes you do that...
...He says I have too much mobility...
...It's out of the question," I say...
...Oh dear," I say to myself, "this could cause problems...
...he asks...
...I wake up edgy and resentful...
...I ask...
...I won't be able to help you unless you've made up your mind to help yourself," he says...
...Don't you have ideals...
...I shake the teeth like dice and cast them onto the ground, where they scatter in all directions...
...Freud says loss-of-teeth dreams signify a fear of impotence...
...Basically, periodontists clean teeth and cut away gums...
...He walks across the room to inspect a potted rhododendron...
...In parts of South Wales a boy's extracted tooth is placed under the bark of a tree near a river or lake...
Vol. 58 • September 1975 • No. 18
