A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [27]
All right.
Can I get you anything while you wait?
A Babar book.
Excuse me?
I would like a Babar the Elephant book. You have them in the Waiting Room.
I’ll be right back.
Thank you.
She leaves and I’m alone and as I settle into the chair and look around the Room, I start to panic. The last of the Librium is nearly gone and the food in my stomach has been broken down to the point that it no longer holds and everything speeds up. My heart, my blood pressure, the thoughts in my head. My hands are shaking, but it is not the heavy shaking of withdrawal. It is a quick and fragile form of shaking, a form of shaking that comes from fear. Fear of this Room, fear of the chair, fear of what the cabinets hold, fear of what the instruments do, fear of what’s going to happen to me here, fear of a pain so great that I need to squeeze tennis balls to make it go away.
The Nurse returns with the Babar book and she gives it to me and she leaves. I set the tennis balls in my lap and I open the book and I try to read it. As I turn the pages, I can see the words and I can see the pictures but I can’t read the words and I can’t understand the pictures. Everything is speeding up. My heart, my blood pressure, the thoughts in my head. I can’t concentrate on anything. Not even Babar.
I close the book and I clutch it against my chest and wait. Everything is shaking. My hands, my feet, the muscles in my legs, my chest, my jaw, my remaining teeth. I pick up the balls and I squeeze them and I try to force the strength of the shaking into the balls and the balls start shaking. Everything is shaking.
The door opens and the Lumberjack Dentist Doctor Stevens walks in and he is followed by another Dentist and two female Nurses. Doctor Stevens pulls up a stainless steel stool and he sits down on the stool near the bottom of the chair. The other Dentist and the Nurses begin collecting bins and instruments and opening cabinet doors and closing cabinet doors. The noises they are making are sharp and I don’t know what exactly they are doing but I know the sum of it will be going into my mouth.
Hi, James.
Hi.
Sorry for the wait. We were reviewing the procedures we’re going to do today.
No problem.
The other Dentist leans down and whispers something in Doctor Stevens’s ear. Doctor Stevens nods. The sum of it will be going into my mouth.
The first thing we want to do is cap the outside two teeth. We looked at the X rays again and the roots seem to be intact, the bases stable. Once they’re capped, they should be fine.
Okay.
After we do that, we need to do root-canal surgery on the middle two. The roots are unstable and if we don’t do the surgery, your teeth will turn black and die. After they die, they will fall out. I’m assuming you don’t want that to happen.
No, I don’t.
I’m sorry to be so blunt.
I appreciate your bluntness.
I want you to know exactly what we’re doing and why.
I don’t want to know any more.
There is one thing.
What?
This is going to be incredibly painful. Because you’re currently a Patient at a Drug Treatment Center, we can’t use any anesthesia, local or general, and when we’re done, we can’t give you any painkillers.
I hold up the balls, give them a light squeeze.
I know.
And you think you can deal with that?
I’ve been through worse.
What?
I’ve been through worse.
Doctor Stevens stares at me as if what I have said is incomprehensible to him. I know what I’m about to experience is going to be horrible and I don’t know if I’ve been through anything worse, but in order to do this, I have to believe that I have. I stare back.
Let’s go, Doc. Bring it.
He stands and begins talking in hushed tones to the other Dentist and to the Nurses and he helps them prepare the bins and instruments for their use in my mouth. I sit and wait and my body slows down and my mind slows down and I stop shaking and I stop squeezing the balls and I am calm. I have accepted that this is going to happen and that I need it to happen and that it’s going to hurt. A calm descends, a calm the Condemned must experience just before Execution.