The Fill-In Dentist

fill-in dentist

“You’re such a nice boy,” said the dentist,

“I can’t believe you used to be a doper.”

He says things like that, to calm me down,

when I start jumping out of the chair.

He’s in his late fifties and still thinks

‘doper’ is correct street lingo for a

drug addict.

He’s not my real dentist. My real

dentist is in the hospital battling

his cancer. I know

it sucks for him but

it sucks for me too. I don’t

like this fill-in dentist too much.

Before I went to rehab, going to

the dentist wasn’t bad. I’d just

swallow five Hydrocodone beforehand

and never feel a thing. But now, every

visit is mentally tormenting. I loathe

this nerdy, fifty-something man staring

at me through thick glasses, with his

needles and drills and funny-smelling

body odor.

He hits a nerve and I come out of the

chair once again.

“Oh, stop it.” He says jokingly, “I’m

almost done. Boy, you’ve got big arms,

you must workout!”

I know he’s just doing his job, like a

nazi, like the guy at the pound who puts

the unwanted puppies to death on Tuesday

morning. But my first sober reaction is to

grab that drill and shove it up his ass.

“There we go!” he says at last, “We’re all

done! That wasn’t so bad was it?”

I agree with him using garbled words

slurred by cotton wads and Novocain,

just for the sake of leaving sooner.

If someone would have told me about

this, maybe I would’ve brushed a little

more during the ten years I spent staying

intoxicated. I doubt it, but it doesn’t change

the fact that this dentist is truly a sadist.

And maybe I do have cavities,

but I didn’t get sober for this.