“You really need that tooth looked at by a specialist, Mr. Surhoff,” Jamie suggested.
“Fuck it. It’s already dead so it can’t die again. Do I have any real cavities, doc?”
“No. And your gums are fine. But I’m concerned about the infection. You really need to have it treated before it completely destroys the bone and root.”
“When it begins to hurt, I’ll have it looked at, okay? I’m not having another root canal done if the tooth ain’t bothering me. They hurt like a motherfucker.”
“By then, sir, the infection can spread. It has been shown that infections of the gums can spread to the heart. And…” Jamie quickly scanned the man’s medical history. “… and it says here you’ve had a heart attack before. So you are at increased risk.”
“But it’s not an infection of the gums, right? You said it’s in tooth, right.”
Jamie nodded. “And the bone.”
“I’ll be back when it hurts. It’s not bothering me now. Can we get on to the cleaning now?”
Jamie sighed and began reclining the chair.
Another initial exam after Mr. Surhoff, except this wasn’t a new patient, but one who had disappeared from the system three years ago. Jamie had read Bridgette Chelsey’s chart carefully after seeing the size of the document, scrutinizing each and every illegible entry. Large charts usually meant a complex history. And oftentimes a crazy patient. Jamie wasn’t disappointed. A bridge on her lower right had come out and she wanted to know what he could do for her.
“You were told three years ago, Ms. Chelsey, that another bridge couldn’t be made because the back tooth isn’t strong enough to support it,” Jamie told her after examining her and taking some new x-rays. “And I can’t get the old bridge back on because half of the back tooth is inside of it and what’s left of the tooth inside your mouth is soft.”
“But I had a bridge on it before, Doctor Whitman.”
“I know. And you didn’t take care of it, and the back tooth rotted below the bone and has split into two pieces. Not only can we not make you a new bridge, but that back tooth should be removed as soon as possible. The gums are swollen and the tooth is infected.”
Bridgette Chelsey began to cry, her heavy blue eyeliner running down her cheeks in messy smears. “But I need teeth, doctor. How can I go on a job interview without teeth?”
“You really only have one choice if you want to replace those teeth, and that’s a partial denture.”
“I don’t want a denture. They’re for old people. I’m not old. I’m only fifty-five. What about implants, doctor? My friend said she had some implants placed and they were able to put caps on them.”
“Implants are a possibility, but you’re on Medicaid, and Medicaid won’t pay for implants.”
“Then I’ll pay for them. I have some money saved up.”
Of course you do. Everyone on Medicaid has money saved up. And Rolexes. And Beamers and Benzes. You buy what you want with your own money and let the government pay for everything you need.
“We can’t accept money from people on Medicaid. It’s part of the contract we sign with the state. So you can’t get implants. Only a partial denture.”
“Can’t you just redo the bridge, then, Doctor Whitman? Please? I know you can.”
Jamie slumped back in his chair and sighed.
“I still can’t eat right, Jamie,” Merril Johnson whined as she popped her newly fabricated dentures from her mouth. Older patients tended to refer to him by his first name, as if he were their grandchild instead of their doctor. He didn’t mind. He accepted the slimy prostheses with gloved hands and dropped them on his tray. “I don’t think you made them right. And they still hurt.”
But off course they were made right. Not only right, but perfect, as he had completed the case with Dr. Portis, the clinic’s prosthodontist.
“Of course they still hurt, Merril. I extracted six teeth the day I gave you the dentures. The bone and gums are healing. It’s going to be sore. It’s only been a week and a half.” To placate the elderly woman, Jamie leaned her back and made a cursory exam of the gums. He saw healing sockets, but no ulcers or infections. Growing pains.
“Fine,” Mrs. Johnson said after Jamie returned her to a sitting position. “But they’re too loose. They don’t stay in when I eat. And I get food caught underneath all the time.”
“There’s two reasons for that, Mrs. Johnson, and I explained them both to you before we started the case. First, we extracted the teeth the day we inserted the denture instead of taking the teeth out beforehand and letting the sockets heal. So the lab had to do a lot of guessing when they made the dentures. Plus, as the sockets heal, the bone changes, so the denture isn’t sitting a hundred percent correctly on the gums. And it won’t for another two months when we reline the inside.”
Merril snorted. Jamie chose to ignore it.
“And…” Jamie eyed the cane by the door. “You’ve had a hip replaced, haven’t you?”
“You know I did. It’s in the chart. One year ago. That’s why I premedicate.”
“How long did it take you to walk normally again?”
She eyed him nastily, as if he were mocking her. “You know I use a cane, doctor. I’m not a hundred percent yet, but I’m getting there.”
“Well, Mrs. Johnson, a denture is like your artificial hip. It’s a prosthesis. You’ll probably never eat again like you did when you had natural teeth. Just like you’ll never walk a hundred percent like you did with your god-given hip. It will get better but it will take time. Keep the food soft for now and chop up anything big into smaller pieces.”
“Maybe I should just throw everything in a blender.”
“You know that’s not necessary, Mrs. Johnson.” Jamie sighed and reviewed his post-insertion instructions with the patient again.
He did a lot of sighing these days.
Jamie’s last scheduled patient of the afternoon was Danielle Morgan. Her mouth was filled with rot, and it stank worse than a fresh corpse just pulled from the river. She had brought her four kids with her, ages four to nine, and they huddled in the corner with looks of horror on their faces as Jamie examined their mother’s dentition.
“So, I got to get ‘em all out, don’t I?”
“Yes, I’d say it’s time for full dentures, Mrs. Morgan.”
She simply nodded, as if she had accepted this fact long ago. “My momma got her plates when she was twenty-five.”
This would have stunned Jamie three years ago, when he had just started treating patients in school. Very little surprised him anymore when it came to people’s varied perceptions about their teeth. Some people simply accepted dentures as a part of getting older, though he would never classify Danielle Morgan, at twenty seven years old, as older.
“You know why my teeth is so bad, doctor?”
Because you’ve never picked up a toothbrush or piece of floss in your life?
“No, Mrs. Morgan, why?”
“Because my babies stole the calcium from my teeth when I was pregnant. Four kids just sucked the calcium right out, so they was weak and they gone bad.”
Jamie sighed. “Of course they did, Ms. Morgan. That’s exactly what happened.”
Jamie sat in the faculty lounge at four-thirty, catching up on football news on the computer in the corner, waiting for five to roll around so he could head out. At this late hour, even if a patient did arrive at the clinic with an emergency, he was not required to see them. In fact, the front desk was supposed to turn away anyone who came. His continued presence was a formality; he was paid to work from eight to five so he stayed until five. He was quite surprised when, at four-forty, he was paged to the front desk.
“What’s up, Cheryl?” Jamie asked the receptionist as he walked up.
The heavyset black woman looked up from her computer screen. She wore a lavender bow in her hair, as she did every Friday. A different color for every day of the week. “We had a walk-up,” she said with a hint of a Southern accent
mostly, but not completely, lost to time. The older woman was New Orleans born and bred, and while she hadn’t lived there in decades, some of the accent lingered. “One of Dr. Marlowe’s patients has a horrible toothache. Being its Friday afternoon, I figured you could at least look at her, maybe give her some medicine to get her through the weekend if nothing else.”
Jamie nodded. “Of course. Who’s the lucky patient?”
Cheryl looked to her left and right to make sure that no one else was near and leaned over the desk slightly so that only Jamie would hear her. In a low, conspiratorial whisper she said, “It’s the gypsy. Elena Ionesco. I didn’t tell her you’re the only one here.”
Jamie groaned and sagged just a bit, his whole body appearing to deflate. Definitely not a good way to end the week. “She won’t let me treat her,” he said. “You know that.”
Cheryl nodded. “I know. I know she doesn’t care for you for some reason, but she is a fellow human, even if she’s a little bizarre, and she deserves to be looked at and treated before the weekend so she’s not in pain if she wants it. Just write her a couple of scripts and send her home.”
“I don’t know if she’ll even let me touch her, Cheryl. And I won’t write her scripts unless I take a look.”
The matronly woman smiled. “It’s your call, Dr. Whitman.”
What the hell did he have to lose? No one would ever be able to accuse him of not trying. “Page Ellen and have her set Elena up in room five. I’ll take a look.”
Five minutes later, at a quarter of five, Jamie entered his operatory and found Elena Ionesco sitting in his chair.
The clinic serviced hundreds of people and Jamie would have been lying if he said he recognized the majority of them. He knew his own patients, of course, but he rarely interacted with the other residents’ patients unless it was an emergency situation. But he knew Elena. Every time she spied him in the hallway, which was often considering how often she visited the clinic, she would cross herself, whisper into the crucifix that hung around her neck, then hurry away from him as if he were the devil. The entire clinic was aware of the woman’s aversion to Jamie, and his colleagues would often joke about his ability to scare women away. Though he was curious about her strange behavior, he had never attempted to talk to her. She wasn’t his patient and he didn’t have the time to bother.
Elena wore the clothes and shared the features of the stereotypical older gypsy woman from the movies. Her gray, shapeless frock adorned with dozens of shiny and iridescent strips of cloth began at her head with a hood that covered her graying hair and ended at her ankles. A dozen necklaces of different lengths and fabricated from different materials and covered with different precious stones hung about her neck, some hidden underneath the gown, others hanging in front. Large gaudy rings adorned most of her long, withered, arthritic fingers. Her face was a maze of wrinkles, and she had a long, slightly hooked nose which was home to a large wart that sprouted a dozen tiny hairs. Her eyes were brown and limp, her lips thin and bloodless. She reminded Jamie of the old gypsy woman from Stephen King’s Thinner, and sometimes he wondered if she would curse him if he dared to get too close to her.
Jamie walked around the chair so Elena could see him. When those lazy, watery eyes fell on him, the old gypsy woman seemed to shrink back into the chair as she crossed herself. She let out a low hiss, fear and anger in equal parts blossoming in her those awful, ancient eyes.
“How can I help you, Ms. Ionesco?” Jamie asked, striving to be professional and ignoring the woman’s behavior.
“I will be seeing another doctor,” Elena Ionesco said in a thick Eastern European accent.
“There’s no one else here today. Everyone else is on vacation.”
“Then I will be going.” She began to stand.
“Have I offended you, Ms. Ionesco?” Jamie asked suddenly. He took a seat on his chair. “We’ve never met before, never spoken before, but I see how you look at me in the hallways when you see me. If you tell me what I did to make you angry or offend you, then maybe I can fix things.”
Elena was half in and half out of the chair when she stopped moving. She looked at Jamie quickly then turned away, as if viewing him was as dangerous as looking directing into the sun for too long. “You have done nothing to offend me, doctor. I simply find your very existence offensive.”
“Excuse me?” Jamie wondered if he had heard wrong.
“You are a monstru.” The gypsy practically spat the word. “Monstru.”
“A monster? I- I don’t understand, Mrs. Ionesco.”
Elena gathered her courage and finally locked eyes with Jamie. A newfound strength burned within her eyes. “Not a monster, doctor. Nothing so simple as that. An abomination. An anathema to the purity and sanctity of life.”
Jamie sat there, his jaw hanging open slightly as he listened to the old woman speak. He was speechless. He could think of half a dozen valid reasons why this strange woman wouldn’t like him, but this wasn’t one of them. He had no idea how to respond to such an absurd statement. He had been called many things in his life, but never such hateful epithets. He didn’t understand.
Elena continued. “Even men with the darkest souls and most evil thoughts have human shaped auras, though black they burn,” she said. “But when I look at you, doctor, I see chaos. A human spirit, but twisted and in turmoil. Only abominations, only those who oppose the true nature of the universe, have auras that are so twisted and perverse. You are not part of the natural order, doctor. You should not exist. And I will not have your filthy hands on me.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Ionesco, I do exist.” Jamie said, not knowing what else to say.
Elena offered a sad, almost pitiful smile. “Just because you do exist does not mean you should exist. There is something unholy about you. Something profane. And we are done.” She stood suddenly, the chains around her neck jangling as she rose. “I will return Monday.”
“At least let me take a look and write you some prescriptions,” Jamie said, standing.
“You will not touch me,” Elena Ionesco replied. “Not if my life depended on it. I will not see my own soul lost to your wicked touch.” And with that, she disappeared from the room, leaving a stunned Jamie Whitman behind.
Chapter 4
A dozen conflicting emotions warred within Jamie’s head as he drove home that evening. Anger and outrage. Confusion and uncertainty. Guilt and indignation. He replayed that final confrontation with the old gypsy woman several times during the first fifteen minutes of his ride but failed to make any sense of the conversation. He had done many bad things in his life, most before the age of fifteen, but those were youthful indiscretions and could hardly define him as evil.
In the end, after much soul-searching, Jamie dismissed Elena Ionesco’s words as the simple ramblings of an old woman who was probably coming down with a serious case of dementia. Growing up in Eastern Europe during the second World War, as Jamie assumed she had judging by her age and thick accent, she had probably seen her share of horrors during her childhood, and now, seventy years later, her dying synapses were triggering delusions. She was simply suffering from a rapid neurological and psychological breakdown that was common in people in their seventies and eighties and, for some reason, his face elicited horrible memories from her past. It was a shame, and Jamie found that he actually felt sorry for the woman. Because of her delusions, she would suffer through the weekend without the antibiotics and pain medications, or actual treatment, that could have calmed or erased her toothache.
Jamie finally pushed the gypsy’s face from his mind, telling himself that he was done thinking about her. It was over. One and done. He would never be in the same room with her again.
He inserted his new Godsmack CD into the in-dash CD player and cranked the volume up. He began to sing along, the words flowing flawlessly from between his lips. He concentrated on the music as he weaved through the traffic around him. He thought about the upcoming weekend, his trip to Philly to see his girl,
Samantha Hendricks.
But despite his every attempt to keep his mind on the present and the future and on purely positive thoughts, a part of his mind continually drifted back to the gypsy, and he found he couldn’t quite push aside the image of her haunting eyes and the hatred that burned within them. Couldn’t forget the venom he had heard in her voice when she had named him monstru. Abomination
They shouldn’t have bothered him, the accusatory looks and the irrational words of a crazy woman. But they did. And that brief, bizarre encounter gnawed at his mind, an insidious little worm burrowing through his brain.
Jamie turned his three-year-old Volkswagen Jetta onto Eagle Court and guided the car to his parent’s home at the end of the cul-de-sac. The house was a two story brownstone with a two car garage, prototypical of the homes which populated Nutley, Montclair, Belleville and all of the other tiny towns that surrounded the sewer that was Newark, New Jersey.
His mother’s Acura was parked in the driveway but Steve’s BMW was nowhere to be seen, which meant that his stepfather hadn’t returned from the office yet. Like most middle class American homes, his parents’ garage housed years of accumulated junk and crap instead of actual cars, and if Steve’s car was not in the driveway, he wasn’t home. Jamie parked his car on the street in front of the house in its customary location, leaving the empty driveway spot for the Beamer.
He stepped out of his car, slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, and made his way up the driveway toward the front door. As he walked, he allowed his gaze to wander over the simple house, still amazed that after all these years it still felt like home. He had moved back to his childhood house for his year-long residency because the program did not pay a lot in monetary compensation. Instead, the residency rewarded him with the experience he would need to be a successful dentist going forward. He had decided to save the money he would have had to spend on a tiny apartment for the year for a down payment on a house or condo next year. So after being away for eight years, four spent in Boston at Tufts and four at Temple University Dental School in Philadelphia, he had moved back in with his mother and his stepfather.
Abomination Page 3
