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Twentieth-Century Dental Work by William Doreski Twentieth-century dental work gives way, exposing canyons and crevasses, opening decay-rimmed holes, exploiting gaps among hulking gray molars eroded by grim mastication. Alone with many others, I wait in the waiting room for repairs to fillings of dated amalgam, bridges to nowhere, crowns now restless on their mounts. The cries of tiny children racket down hallways padded with sea-grass mats. We old-timers smile to recall the pain that eviscerated our childhoods. Now we welcome it, the probe exploring a nerve, the rattle of the drill, the sting of hypodermic, wrenching of pliers. We welcome the dentist’s nasal laugh, his love of craft. I hibernate among the limp old magazines, resigned to wait an extra hour while emergency repairs erase a series of potholes triggered by frost and a guilty conscience. The room smells of burnt enamel and pulp. Those high-speed drills scorch like flame throwers. I’d guzzle a cup of tea to calm myself but don‘t want to snuff the dentist’s usual humor with tea-breath brown as an old cowhide jacket. The room darkens as the winter day recedes. By six this waiting room will cough us into a cold night just like the ones we remember, and our repaired teeth will chatter as if gnawing the leathery air. |
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