Ointment for the Rash

Mt. Langley over Cottonwood Basin

Like a shark, I was born with extra teeth. Indeed! Rootless, undeveloped cute little baby teeth rattled around in the boney spaces of my face and sinuses like barley grains. I was a walking maraca. In the dental community this condition is known as supernumerary teeth. It is a flossing nightmare. Also, it is often associated with other maladies, including loss of hair (a condition known as baldness), fear of clowns and fabric store knees (a sudden weakening of the legs upon entering fabric stores). Luckily, I suffer from only two of these related conditions, thanks be to God.

Alas, then, when I was 7 and a tender sprig, my parents brought me to an oral surgeon. His name was Dr. Gordon Rash. Honest as the day is long! I stray not from the truth. That was his name. Without surgeries, Dr. Rash told my fretting parents, the excess teeth would grow roots and mature and protrude from my nose and cheeks like burls on a tree. This would not get me dates, I realized. I would have a face only my mother could love. Without surgery I would spend my life in a dark closet. Or, I might join the circus. But then I would be around clowns all day. These were not good alternatives.

I would meet with Dr. Rash regularly over the next 10 years. Now allow me to speak candidly. Dr. Rash never exhibited the warm fuzzies. He must have missed that lecture during oral surgery school. He was as charismatic and emotionally engaging as a plate full of polenta. He seldom spoke, and he never laughed - not once, not when I joked, not when I asked if it would be ok if I spit before I swished. His baritone voice lacked all inflection; it echoed hollowly around the sterile, clangy exam room like a forlorn bassoon. He was like a milquetoast Darth Vader.

"You will require many procedures," he said. "Yes, many procedures." (He seldom used verbs or other words implying action).

That's what he called my surgeries. They were procedures: the administration of the medication which made me floaty and nauseated and disassociated, the meticulous digging with the galvanized tools as if my mouth were an archaelogical site, the taste of blood and novocaine, the gauze wrapped mummy style around my tongue, the whirring and stuttering of drills, the crunching, the bite block mercilessly propping open my jaw, the gritty vapor rising from mouth which smelled like electricity and burnt chicken, the masked face with the sunken grey eyes staring passively into my mouth, the distant voice behind the mask asking for more suction and commanding me to keep my hands still...

At one post-procedure visit I sat face to face with Dr. Rash. His cheeks were smooth and plethoric, like uncooked roast, and his jowels hung jello-like over his tight-fitting collar. He smelled like old coffee. He seemed spent, exhausted. Maybe he had disimpacted too many wisdom teeth. Maybe Mrs. Rash was angry with him and threw a plate at his head. Maybe he needed a vacation. I'm sure that was it. I told him I was going on vacation.

"Where are you going?" he asked, very much disinterested as he held my latest panoram xray and examined it in the light. I could see the extra teeth in the xray; they looked like glowing peas.

"Where am I going?" I answered. "I'm going backpacking. In the Sierras,"

He set down the xray. He stared into my eyes. I stifled a shiver. "What kind of gun will you be taking?" he asked.

"Gun?" I said, mustering an ounce of courage, "My family never takes a gun when we go backpacking."

"Well, you should," he answered.

"What for?" I asked.

He paused. "For protection. You should take a gun for protection." He placed his hand on my forearm and squeezed tightly. His hand, I noted, was white and hairless and glacially cold.

I whimpered internally and wondered if my mom could extricate herself from that article she was reading in Redbook Magazine out in the waiting room. I tried to communicate with her telepathically:

"Uh, Mom, a little help in here! Dr. Iceberg is coming unglued!"

Eons later I met my mom in the waiting room. She quietly tore a few pages from Redbook Magazine and placed them in her purse and whispered "I'll want to finish this article later. Good casserole recipes!" She then carefully placed the magazine on the shelf between a copy of The National Review and The Plain Truth. While driving home I asked my mom why we needed to take a gun backpacking.

"Oh for God's sake! Did Dr. Rash tell you that?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well," my mom explained. "He's just very conservative."

What made someone conservative? I had no idea. I suspected it had something to do with turning off lights to save energy and storing lots of canned foods in the pantry. I wondered, then, why people who were conservative would take guns while backpacking. I wondered if all oral surgeons were conservative. I wondered if oral surgeons went backpacking.

"Mom," I asked, "Will there be any oral surgeons in the Sierras where we're going backpacking?"

"No," she answered. "Heavens no!"

"Phew!" I said. "That's a relief!"

A few years later, while recuperating after one of Dr. Rash's procedures, I propped myself on my bed at home. My cheeks were swollen and stuffed full of bloody gauze. Although I was pickled in percocet, I managed to focus on the coffee table book propped on my lap. It was a Sierran photo book. One photo showed the view from Mt. Sill, the Queen of the Palisades. "Mt. Sill Top" the caption simply stated. (Mt. Sill boasts the best summit view of any Sierran peak). I stared at the photo for minutes and hours and days while I nursed my wounds and sipped Miso soup.

Mt. Sill and the Sierra Nevadas leapt out of those photos and infused me with their beauty. It was healing like a salve, like God's breath.

I return there often lest I forget.