Chipped Tooth

Sat at the dinner table with my mum and my brother. We meet like this somewhat regularly, and, being family, we all silently agree that everything that could ever be said between us has been, and anything left unsaid is already known in that silent, strange familial way, anyway. As such, we munch away on a rather bougie pizza, from one of those joints that are ‘popping up’ in even the quaintest of towns and villages, with pizzas called: ‘The Cray Cray’, ‘The Chorizo Captain’, ‘Turbulent Pickle Fissure’, ‘The Salmon Blowout’, or ‘North Alaskan Tomato Holocaust’. I went with a basic veggie one. It was fine, however…

There wasn’t a crack, nor a crunch. No pain nor spasm. But, unbeknownst to me whilst I munch away on the final pizza crust, one of my molars had chipped. I sit, cleaning around my mouth with my tongue, poking out all the remaining debris. At first I assume the chip was just some food that had got lodged, then I assume it was some food that had got really lodged, and then, after tonguing it for a good two minutes, zoned-out staring into the dining room floor as my face got redder and redder, I finally accept that it was indeed a chip. It’s over. I’m done. I can’t believe this.

I don’t like the dentist. I mean, who does? But I really don’t like it, to the degree I would easily consider it a genuine phobia. It’s not really the pain (of which there actually is practically none), nor the intrusion, or the general awkwardness of the whole thing—it’s everything all at once. It is the unavoidable par excellence. Everything in your mouth is magnified by ten. You can’t get away from it. Do I close or open my eyes whilst they prod about in there? It’s just a bloody drawn-out, tense, dread-filled situation that, like so many of those things that just dampen life, you just have to go through.

The thing is, I’ve had a fair amount of dental work. Two extractions when I was 13 to neaten them all up, and maybe 6 or 7 fillings. I’ve been there and I’ve done it. I know, rationally speaking, that there isn’t any pain, and that even the injection is nothing more than a nip and yet… Upon feeling this chip—Oh, my chip!—the extent of my imagination rivaled that of Carl Jung during the writing process of the Red Books. I plumbed the depths.

For the next 10 days or so I mentally, that is, in my imagination, underwent: A filling, a root canal, an extraction, jaw surgery, medically induced coma, medically induced beheading, chronic infection that caused limb failure, pissing my pants in the dentist chair, driving my car into the dentist surgery, holding Dr Wiggle at gunpoint to demand full sedation, said sedation failing, being pinned down by four astoundingly cute nurses whilst they drilled my teeth and rolled their eyes at my sweaty back, sweating so much that I slid off the dental chair, pulling out my own tooth, suicide, driving my car into a tree at 70mph so I just don’t have to bloody deal with any of this anymore for goodness sake it’s not fair!

Some nights I’d go for walks and listen to Slowdive and The Magnetic Fields on repeat, really sinking into the mire of my own misery. How could this have happened? How could this have happened to me? What did I do to deserve this? But then, some nights, for a brief few seconds, when I looked at the cows or the clouds or the clods of earth, I’d feel fine, and know that ultimately, what will be will be, and this, too, will be another thing I just sit through and experience.

Alas, these moments lasted no more than a few seconds, if they existed at all. Eventually you have to deal with reality, and there’s nothing more real than having your tooth drilled whilst a nurse (that you really fancy) sucks the saliva away with that little medical hoover. God I hope she doesn’t notice me sweating or clutching the seat or shaking or making too much chatter or almost weeping or staring at her eyes or at the Dr’s eyes and, I certainly hope she didn’t see me in the car park almost unable to let go of the steering wheel before getting out. Please! Don’t make this any worse than it has to be.

But that’s the thing with life, it’s unavoidable. And, as it happens, I didn’t need to book an appointment because my bi-yearly checkup fell 10 days after the chip happened, and, as there was no pain, I felt it could wait. So the countdown started, a countdown to the moment you have to eat some shit. That’s life, isn’t it? A handful of joyful moments, a large helping of shit-eating and pain, and the rest is just bumbling around wondering what the hell to do until your next orgasm or kidney stone. Bloody hell. Oh for goodness sake, who can I even complain to?

By the 8th day I was just walking around aimlessly. It didn’t even matter where. My apartment, the local town, random shops. Hell, at one point I drove to the town where my dentist surgery is and just sort of sauntered about, looking at it close up and from afar, I’ll be in there soon, I’d think to myself, I’ll really bloody be in there getting the absolute pulp drilled out of my by some menace! I bought some crappy supermarket sandwich and ate it sat across from the surgery two days out. I tried to eat it with my gums and tongue, like some act of rebellion, like I didn’t need Dr Wiggle. It didn’t work and I just got more upset.

Eventually the day came, like all days do. There’s this thing written in your calendar and you don’t want to do it and it’s far enough off that it doesn’t really exist, not yet. But then, one day, it’s that day, and you have to do it, and that’s life in a nutshell, things happening when they were planned to happen, god I’m sick of it. I drove down there whilst listening to Alan Watts and trying to do some breathing routine in the car, neither worked, I just ended up having a vague panic attack to the sound of Watt’s somewhat maniacal laugh. I turned him off and disassociated in silence, hoping I’d just cease to exist. I didn’t.

I pulled up in the car park, like I always knew I would have to do, got out, like I knew I would have to do and walked in, like I knew I would have to do. Then, I tried to make a lighthearted joke for my own sake with the girl at reception, but before I could even say a sort of drawn-out, wispy Bleugh…she saw me come in and just said James? and gestured towards a chair. That’s it, is it? That’s all I get before the firing squad, before the end of all things? A hand-wave and my own name stated at me. They were late, too, which never happens. Probably preparing some sort of turbo-pain injection that makes everything worse, or the nurse is seeing how long she can push it before I just crack. Forget it. I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to do it, I’m going to drive home and drive straight into the sea. Mr Ellis.

Oh god, it’s actually happening. The thing, the scene, the event…this, this is it. And it’s just walking and now I’m sitting and now I’m telling him about the chip and now he’s getting a tool and he’s poking the chip and now he’s getting a camera and showing me a photo of the chip. Perfectly normal, he says. Nothing to worry about, he also says. So what will I have to get done? I ask him. Don’t fucking play with me Dr Wiggle, we all know you want to scalp my head like an onion, blitz my teeth into glue, this man wants to kill me, wants to ruin everything. Oh, nothing, these are normal, and everything else is fine. See you next time.

I make him reiterate that everything is fine four times. I joke that I’d like it in writing (i genuinely would, I think). The nurse rolls her eyes at me when I say this is the best day of my life.

I am a fool.