Vic Socotra

05 August 2008

Grills

I was in the dental chair late yesterday. Perfect place to be in the summer swelter, and a late appointment, so all the emergencies of the day were there waiting for some spare time to fill in.

Ann is a plump blonde dental tech- a woman of a certain age, if you will, which is to say mine, but quite striking. She has something about her- an air of grooming or something that shouts out over the scrubs she was wearing. She called me back after Carol came out from behind the glass wall to ask about whether I had passed the motorcycle test down in Richmond.

that brought it all back- the crisis that followed the disintegration of my left rear molar, the shards savaging the back part of my tongue. I must have felt like the old=2 0guy with the government security badge on a lanyard around his neck. He was sitting bolt upright with his eyes fixed at something across the room. He looked anxious.

I felt fine.

The temporary cap that my Persian dentist put in had worked remarkably well. I forgot entirely about the whole thing, and would have missed the appointment for the sleek golden crown if there had not been a reminder in the e-mail.

Carol rides with her husband, and she is one of the people who actually knows stuff, like real age, since she was born in the same year. She is a few months younger, and she was of haste in pointing that out.

Anyhow, Ann called me back and we were shooting the shit since the petite Persian Dentist was busy and running behind. She popped into the room with those remarkable flashing black eyes, whipped out the little heavy bit of gold modeled on what had been the porcelain of my own departed creation, stuck some pliers in my mouth, and with a practiced and thoroughly disconcerting tug, remove d the temporary cap.

She popped the new one on, demanded Ann take an x-ray to ensure that it fit properly and disappeared. I don't know how we got on the subject, since I didn't have a whole lot of active participation in the conversation, but it started with how air travel sucked these days.

It started when she was fitting a white paper bag aroud the headrest, which reminded me of what they used to do on airplane seats. Then I started to complain about being diverted to Pittsburgh on a non-stop from Chicago to Reagan National last week.

Ann got a sort of pensive look as she horsed the x-ray machine around to point at the back part of my jaw. She said she had flown for Braniff Airways back in the day, and I laid back there, stunned.

"Drinks on the ground, drinks in the air, full course meal up there in the sky," she said brightly.

"Everyone pert and trim. You still carry yourself that way," I said when the negative in its frame was pulled from my mouth. A thin strand of drool went along with it.

"Yes, they had standards," said Ann primly. "And the uniforms we wore! It was really fun to fly."

"Coffee, Tea or Me?" I said questioningly. She gave me a phony stern look and jammed one of those jaw trays into my mouth to prepare to take a mold. The Persian says I have to wear a tooth guard at night, or else I will shatter the rest of my teeth from the grinding.

I asked if there was an alternative, and she said I could reduce the stress in my life and that might work. Otherwise the teeth would go, one by one from the rear, and the front ones would have that straight flat-filed look of desperation.

I was instantly suspicious, since the office seems to have some business aspects in common with the guy you have to see at the car dealer after you have chosen the sleek new model, and he sells you the undercoating. Given the expense, inconvenience and pain associated with visiting the Dentist, though. I finally acquiesced. I asked how much it was, and Carol told me "six-fifty."

I knew I was too old when I assumed she meant six dollar and fifty cents, which is about what my tooth-guard from football days cost. Those were the ones that you boiled in a pot on the stove and then clenched your teeth into them when still almost molten. But of course you have to move the decimal point these days two places to the right, six hundred and fifty bucks for some plastic.

Fifteen hundred bucks for golden crown, less that half that for the night-guard. Easy decision, since maybe there would be no more new crowns.

That is why Ann was filling up the mold trays with some disgusting goop and nestling them down on my top and bottom teeth, one by one. She left the golden crown when she did the bottom mold, and I assumed the thing would pull out in the hardened material, and she said if it did, please don't swallow it.

While I was waiting with her hand in my mouth, I got a text that made me smile. I put the phone back in the holster I wear on my belt. Ann was in another place.

"The uniforms were the best. Mary Wells thought them up in 1965 ro so. The War was just getting started, and she worked for the ad company that put the pizzazz in flying. The uniforms were amazing psychedelic things. It was a regular circus. Sometimes we took Polaroid pictures of the passengers when they got on the plane, like it was an ocean-liner. We had to make the omelets from scratch, if you can imagine it. Now the food is like cardboard, if you even get any.

The goop concealed into something harder than Jello and Ann shook my head with the handle that protruded from my move to loosen it. The mold came out with the sucking sound of air breaking the seal around my teeth. The crown stayed put, which either meant it was a good fit, or it had become wedged onto something and it would take more grinding to make it fit. Little pink pieces of plastic stuck to my tongue and mustache. Ann mopped it up with a moist towelette like the kind they used to heat up in the microwave and pass around the airplane to help you freshen up.

"Continental had the Proud Bird with the Golden Tail," I said. "The flight crew all had golden uniforms. It was the first stock I ever bought. It tripled in value when I owned it."

"It was pretty clear what the message was," said Ann, peering at the inverse impression of my teeth. "We flew out of Love Field in Dallas, and the gate areas were decorated to look like the bachelor pad in Playboy. We were looking for the business market. When a tired businessman gets on an airplane, management thought he ought to see a pretty girl. We wore Pucci, and I think we were the most sophisticated ones on the concourse. Gucci shoes and an Hermes handbags, too."

She sighed. "The weirdest part was when they introduced the clear, plastic bubble helmet. They said it was supposed to protect our hairdos, but of course it was to make us look like Moon-Girls."

"It was an adventure to fly," I said wistfully.

Ann smiled. "It was that," she said. "I married one of my p assengers. He was a Navy pilot. He stayed in for thirty years."

'I only made twenty seven," I said. "I didn't have the imagination to stay for a career." Ann rolled her eyes as the Persian Doctor came in to glue the gold to me permanently. When she put on her safety glasses with the magnifying lenses her dark eyes became vast pools of obsidian.

I got a text message then, the phone vibrating on my hip. The instruction was to get the full bling, cap the front ones with solid gold, maybe with diamond high lights. I held the phone up for the Persian to see.

"Doc," so long as I am here, why don't we do the thing right. Grill me. Let's make it an adventure."

Ann laughed, and for a moment, I thought I was actually flying friendly skies, where absolutely anything was possible. Even a Golden grin.

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