Night Dentist

Once again, Jack was on the road to Albuquerque. These highways once would take him home—and he used to feel anticipation to return to his Gracie.

Well...not his Gracie.

Now, Albuquerque was just another stop. Home was only in his mind now; everything else was just a countdown until the next stop, the next break, the next service station.

Jack’s radio cracked with a stranger’s voice: Anyone know what is going on at two-eighty-three?

Another voice replied: Got a four-wheeler spun out in the left lane. About half a mile past--the radio broke before another voice faded in behind the static:

She isn’t even your kid, Jack...

Jack sipped the last watery inch of Sprite from the flattened straw in his McDonalds cup. He winced, his tooth radiating pain into the left side of his jaw.

The dark stretch of highway widened in front of him as sets of taillights closed in like rows of glowing, red eyes. His passenger window was open so he could smell the exhaust fumes of the trucks in front of him. Breaks squealed as they merged in a line toward the exit. In the distance, he could already see the lot was crowded with other trucks stopping for the night.

Jack picked up his radio. “Anyone know if there is space at the next exit?”

The radio cracked in reply: Winslow’s pretty full since nine.

Jack disliked crowds, so he kept driving without merging toward the exit. He did not typically mind driving another forty minutes off the highway to find an empty stop. But tonight, his tooth was making him second guess his choice as he left the haze of the travel station and all its trucks in the rearview mirror. But he continued driving into the lonely, dark highway through the Hopi Reservation.

After years on this route, driving became his meditation. He was wide awake and yet, the world felt less real in the dark. Everything was yellow lines and white dashes, glowing red lights and flashes of white on green signboards.

And there was the static of the radio. He left it on – voices of other drivers fading in and out, traffic reports, an occasional signal caught from a local station playing Tejano or talk radio.

Jack groaned. His tooth was becoming difficult to ignore. He had been putting off going to the dentist for months. Something finally broke loose; his tooth had been sending shocks of pain through his mouth since that morning. He was considering pulling it himself...

This made Jack think of the gap in little Gracie’s smile. When she finally lost her first tooth, he had slipped a golden arcade token under her pillow while she was asleep. He had meant to give her a real silver dollar, but all he had on him was the token he had found at one of the stops in his route.

She was so excited to find the token the next morning. She even put that “tooth fairy” coin into her bank.

Jack inhaled deeply. Just another twenty minutes and he would stop. He would not feel the tooth pain while asleep.

Jack turned his focus to the skyline over the desert. This sky was so familiar.

He shook his head, laughing at himself for a moment. Of course, he had been looking up at these stars at the same time every year. It was the same sky, just another season...and there it was: Hopi. Exit two-ninety-two.

As Jack pulled in, the lot was eerily empty. There were just two trucks and a single van parked at the station.

Once again it pays to wait...thought Jack.

The rig shook as he pulled into the lot. Jack blinked his eyes quickly open and shut for a moment, shaking off the daze.

With the lot so open, within minutes he was jumping down from his truck and squinting in the harsh lights of the service station. Waiting at the counter, he still felt the forward momentum of driving for hours while body slowed down to the stillness of the station. His feet felt like balloons ready to pop with the ground pressing up under his shoes. But exhaustion and soreness went nearly unnoticed because the pain in his jaw blared over every other nerve signal like a tripped alarm system without an off-switch.

He slid a honeybun, two small bottles of Seagram’s 7 and a bottle of Sprite over the grimy counter.

“The can is overflowing.” Jack said quietly, glancing toward the men’s room behind him. He had just hopped around the filthy water flooding the bathroom floor to find a dry corner urinal to take a leak.

The cashier shuffled to the counter. "Ray!” He yelled, without even looking up from the honeybun he keyed into the register.

Jack looked over at the yellow mop bucked on wheels parked in front of the bathroom entrance. It was abandoned, as if its driver had been unnerved by the sight of the mess in the men’s bathroom.

“$4.12.” The cashier said, his chin tucked down, eyes peering up. He was skinny and dark, with a swath of dark, greasy hair tucked into a low ponytail.

Jack flipped his wallet open with his thumb as he noticed the man had a green, amateurly drawn tattoo of a syringe aimed down his sinewy forearm.

Jack winced at the sight of it, his jaw pulsing pain in time with his heartbeat.

“I don’t make the prices,” the cashier commented, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

“No, it’s fine.” Jack said as he looked up from his wallet. “My tooth is killing me--and I got tonight and... five more hours on the road to Albuquerque.” Jack winced again, now at himself. Why did I need to tell him that? He thought, sliding cash over the counter.

“That’s bad luck.” The cashier replied before slumping into a chair behind the counter.

Jack nodded his head as he turned toward the door.

“Why don’t you go to the dentist?” The cashier called after him.

“Yeah. But right now, it is a bit late.” replied Jack without turning around.

“There is a dentist open all night.”

“I’m sure there is somewhere.” Jack mumbled back as he reached for the door.

“No. We have a dentist here--he could take care of you,” said the cashier.

That would be convenient, Jack thought, pausing as he loosened his grip on the plastic bag hanging off his hand.

“Okay…where?” Jack asked, turning around. He could only recall seeing a few unmarked buildings in the lot behind the lonely service station. There was nothing else for miles, and he was not about to get back on the road before morning.

“You can take the shortcut just out this door through the gate,” the cashier said, spinning slightly in his chair. “It’ll say ‘no trespassing’ but go right through it—it is unlocked.”

Without replying, Jack flashed a doubtful look at the cashier before he turned to leave.

“There is a lit-up sign—you won’t miss it,” the cashier assured Jack as he closed the door behind him.

As he stepped outside, the high overhead streetlamps cast a long shadow behind him. The desert night was swallowed by darkness outside the glow of the station's perimeter. Jack turned to the left and his eyes adjusted to the alleyway between the corner of the service station and an unmarked building. A chain-link fence blocked the alley between them. There was a gate and a tilted sign that said No Trespassing in scuffed red letters.

Jack looked over at his rig parked in the distance and looked back at the sign. His tooth radiated pain.

He slung the bag over his arm and fumbled with one of the tiny bottles before throwing it back in one gulp.

He was wide awake. He imagined himself in his bunk, one hand under his jaw, waiting all night in pain before returning to the highway in the morning.

He felt his body already drifting towards the gate. He slid the latch up and it released automatically with a squeal, revealing a dark pathway to the back of the service station.

It is unlocked, so that much was true. Jack thought, pausing at the gate. Maybe it’s his pot dealer. Or he’ll take my kidneys...What the hell –would it be so weird for there to be a dentist back here all night…?

Jack’s footsteps crunched over the gravel as he rounded the corner of the alley.

The building had large, plate glass windows. With the lights on inside, he could see into an empty waiting room.

He looked up, squinting at glowing, red letters in the window:

Jack’s Dentist

“It’s a sign...” Jack muttered.

It’s my sign to get this fixed, Jack thought. He reached for the door.

From outside it looked like a dental office, but being there alone in the dark, something still felt...not right. Jack had already begun to turn the door handle when he could see someone was inside and assumed they had spotted him at the door already.

Feeling like there was no other choice now, he stepped inside the waiting room.

The room was cool and smelled like bleach. A man sat behind the counter beside a computer. He was looking at Jack expectedly as he approached.

Jack heard himself clear his throat.

“Dental emergency?” The man asked, matter-of-factly as if there could be any other reason Jack had walked into that room at that late hour.

Jack looked at the empty desk. The computer monitor was off; the man’s hands were folded in front of him.

Jack nodded, holding his jaw again as the pain pulsated down to his collarbone, activated by his attention. Now it felt like he could not endure another night with his tooth.

“Follow me,” said the man.

He glanced at the dark hallway behind the counter with a dread of going inside, but it overrode his urge to return to his cab to try to sleep it off.

He followed the man down the hallway the lights clicked on automatically. They buzzed overhead, casting a yellow glow over the gleaming tiles. The bleach smell was stronger in the hall. He followed the man into a room with a dentist chair at the center. There was a large, uncovered window, a rolling table with gleaming, silver dental instruments, and a small corner sink.

Jack sat in the chair as the man shuffled out of the room.

From the chair, the hallway was to his left where the lights had already shut off. The window was directly in front of him. He could see his own reflection, and enough through the window to know it faced the dark lot behind the service station. Beyond the filtered glow of the streetlamps, he could see as far as the edge of the lot meeting the dark desert.

With the light on him, he might as well have been on a tv display for anyone who would happen to be watching through the window outside.

He waited; his ears perked up to the dark hall.

From the far end of the hallway, he briefly heard the low rumble of a small, wheeling cart and a sloshing sound. Then he heard the man’s shuffling footsteps approach.

The Dentist was already standing in the doorway. He wore gray scrubs that stopped a few inches over his ankles--short enough for Jack to notice his dark leg hair and that he was not wearing socks. His face was obscured by a surgical mask. He wore long, yellow latex gloves up to his elbows.

The Dentist wheeled a small stool next to the chair and without a word, pointed a silver flashlight into his face.

Hesitant, Jack opened his mouth. The Dentist’s gloved finger hooked his cheek, and he peered inside with the flashlight.

“So, you’re a truck driver?” The Dentist asked.

Jack nodded uncomfortably, wincing as The Dentist began to apply light pressure to the painful side of his mouth.

“So how did you end up doing that for a living?” The Dentist asked, a finger still in Jack’s mouth.

Jack gulped back pooling, latex-flavored saliva, shrugging his shoulders as The Dentist withdrew his fingers.

Jack tried to joke, “I don’t know...why are you a dentist?”

Without answering, The Dentist wiped his gloved hand delicately on his scrubs.

“Good news: today is your last day with that rotted tooth.”

Jack exhaled. While he expected to have the tooth pulled, The Dentist’s bedside manner only put him ill at ease. But Jack replied casually, trying to hide his discomfort: “Go ahead and take it. It has been real bad all day and I plan to get some sleep tonight.”

The Dentist wheeled the cart of gleaming instruments closer. He picked up a pair of pliers from the small table.

“Do you numb me up first…?” Jack asked, intimidated by the pliers enough to stop caring if his discomfort showed.

“The tooth is causing the pain. When I take care of the tooth...” began The Dentist, gesturing his gloved hands outward. The pliers fell open like lifeless, metal jaws. “No more pain.”

Jack tensed his arms, lifting his head to get up from the chair to leave.

The Dentist put his hand lightly down on Jack’s sternum, causing him to sink back into the chair.

“Relax.”

Jack laid there, arms still stiffening at his sides, feeling more helpless as he glanced toward the dark hallway behind The Dentist.

The Dentist picked up a small rubber gas mask connected to a hose. He examined the inside momentarily before holding it several inches from Jack’s face.

“Do you drink or do drugs? Because there could be effects—”

“No,” Jack lied instinctively before the mask closed over his mouth and nose.

The mask hissed, and within seconds he became hyperaware of his own fingertips resting lightly at his sides and at the end of his heavy arms. Avoiding eye contact with The Dentist, Jack turned his gaze over his head to the buzzing, fluorescent tubes above.

The Dentist pulled the mask away and gently prodded inside Jack’s mouth with one of his sharp, shining metal utensils. Jack’s eyes began to water as first he heard...then felt a dull scrape against the painful left side of his mouth.

Wincing, he blinked away the tears welling in his eyes, and the light had begun to bloom into a bright, expanding orb over heads before splitting into a colorful prism of red, orange, yellow...black.

His CB radio cracked from deep within the dark hallway.

Maybe she lied to you. You did not even question it. It was a way for you to justify already walking out the door—what difference did it even make to you if she was your kid or not? Said a small voice behind the static of the radio.

Jack’s mouth felt full; he fought the urge to gag as The Dentist’s fingers were now like toy rubber snakes probing the inside of his cheek. He felt the place where his bad tooth was, and now it was bowing inward, his gums extending, now pulling at the bone like bubblegum stretching between a shoe and the hot asphalt.

Now she is out there without her dad—maybe she knows why you left. What would be worse, that her dad chose to leave---or that you never were her dad, you never even mattered, and she could just forget you were even there raising her during those years? Said the voice, growing louder as if someone was turning up the volume of a radio in the hall.

 You were too chicken to go back there to find out what is true…the voice said, fading.

Humming filled the room. Jack felt The Dentist’s presence more than he could see him. The lights dimmed and narrowed round him into the small, fluorescent dot overhead. He felt the urge to cough, but his cheeks had expanded and filled with thick, cotton wads. The Dentist’s arm was heavy on his chest, pushing him down into the chair, into the floor.

Jack opened his eyes. He had no idea how much time had passed...was it just minutes? The tooth pain had faded into a dull, padded ache. The Dentist guided Jack up from the chair. He felt the blood in his legs rushing upward, flooding his skull. Jack groaned all the way into the cool, night air of the parking lot before hoisting himself into his cab and falling face down into his bunk.

The static of the CB radio cracked.

Jack opened his eyes. The air in the cab was warm and heavy. Golden light broke through the curtains.

He held his jaw as he pulled the curtain of the cab window open to see the sun was at the highest point of the sky over the Hop reservation. The lot outside was empty.

His mouth was still sore...but the deep ache had gone. He wiped a string of drool and blood from his chin. His head felt lighter, but his cheeks were...swollen? No, they were filled with wads of saliva-soaked cotton. He gagged, pulling them out as they fell to the floor, each with a splat.

At the sight of the bloodied cotton, his stomach lurched before he hurled sour, metallic bile onto the floor. He heard a soft, plink...plink...plink before realizing two of his bloodied teeth were among the pieces of cotton and vomit at his feet.

He looked down. There, on the floor with his teeth was also a small, golden token. Lucky it read on the front.

Jack picked up the coin from the floor, turning it over his fingers before flipping it to read the other side of the arcade token:

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