Slightly reclining.
The nine-hundred-year-old assistant is describing summer fish camp near the village
where she grew up, how sweet blueberries tasted. The periodontist injects localized
numbing into my gums.
I have no insurance, so opted to stay awake during surgery. Am also grafting flesh from
the roof of my mouth instead of a cadaver. More painful, and longer recovery time, but
cheaper.
“We’ll wait for the numbing to kick in.”
A man who chose four additional years of education after dental school. Looking bored.
“Me and the wife did Denali. The bus thing. Saw four grizzlies at Wonder Lake.” His face
considers a birdie he missed this morning, instead of time with his family.
“Ughhhuhhh ess colll,” I say.
There’s only so much of your mouth they can remove at once. This is my second
surgery.
Slow my mind. Deepen breathing. If I focus, not on what’s happening, but on relaxing
anywhere tense on my body, I’ll absorb less trauma.
The periodontist slices my upper gum. The high-pitched whine of a dremel fills my skull.
“Looks like cracked black pepper glued to your roots.”
“Uggh,”
“You know somewhere else beautiful, northern-Idaho. My brother has a second home.
We’d get our motorcycles over a hundred on the dirt roads.”
“Ehhr eh?”
“Sure wish they’d let us take em on that Denali road.” His eyes wrinkle, considering
possibly I’m the bastard ruining his life. “Yeah, it’d be nice. Martha get the lubricant.”
“It’s time for the ultra-violence?” I imagine her saying.
She applies lube. He cracks knuckles, grabbing a bigger knife. Taking a wide stance, he
pushes my forehead back, pointing the blade down my throat. “Say, AHHHH.”
Instead of shrieking when the blade penetrates, I take larger and larger quantities of air
through my nose. Picture an egg filled with light and warmth. I’m inside it.
He drops half the roof of my mouth on the blue napkin. By the weight as it hits my chest,
it’s big as pickled ginger I’d be stoked for at a sushi place. He applies gauze and
pressure to the new vacancy. Tears blur my sight. He wipes sweat from his forehead
with the back of his rubber glove.
“Alright, Martha,” breathing like finishing a marathon, “the one suture.” She lifts
something you’d sew two hunks of metal with.
While he knots thread wide as an aux through the eye, she grabs the pickled ginger off
my chest. It flops like a minnow.
Aligning what will be my new gums, she squints. He says, “Lower,” pushing the needle
through.
I wince.
“Is that too painful?”
“Ugghh,” I say.
“Higher, Martha. Good.” The needle meets resistance. He leverages teeth, putting his
back into it, forcing it through. My vision goes white.
“Lower, Martha. Lower. No, higher.” Imagine myself small. Suspended in the egg’s
amniotic fluid.
“Concentrate. Just,” he sighs, “suction the blood and saliva.” Almost adding,
“Goddammit.”
She vacuums fluid from my mouth. Holding the instrument as if she were a flight
attendant and the captain asked if she’d take over while they took a nap.
I tear up.
Holding my gum with his thumb, he sticks his tongue from the side of his mouth. Like
lining up a game of pool. I breathe calm into my shoulders. Two vertebrae in my spine
pop. When it’s done, I picture his hand flying like he roped a steer.
“Alright, top’s finished. You need to use the bathroom or want a break or anything
before we start the bottom?”
“Ugh uh. Eww ew?”
“I’m good. Man, you’re strong. Martha,” he drops his head, “try to pay attention.”
“Yes doctor.”
**
Stumble in the bathroom.
Touch sacs below my eyes already turning black in the mirror. Vision whirlpools from
pain as I urinate.
Hand this desk-person that looks identical to the other desk-person my credit card. Feel
crushing depression when she says, “The total is twenty-six-hundred and fifteen
dollars.”
“Anng eww,” I say.
Disassociate. Float to my car.
Weeping, I dab blood and spit from my chin with toilet paper.
Start the car. Drive four-and-half hours back to Denali on barren streets.
Tyler Dempsey is the author of Newspaper Drumsticks, Time as a Sort of Enemy, and Consumption & Other Vices. He lives in Utah and hosts Another Fucking Writing Podcast.
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