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| Illustration by Steve Cartwright |
‘It’s not novocaine,’ the hunchback dentist says. Thinking he must escape now, Jack Russell gripped the dental chair as his bones turned to jello; his nails into writhing boa constrictors.
'Next you are gunna say you felt naked and vulnerable, ' said the hunchback as his vixen assistant picked up her crossbow and a tube of tangerine lip gloss.... The novocaine must be getting to me. I'm in a country where they shoot you for taking illegal drugs. ‘Marujana is an organic substance, Duterte won’t kill you for smoking that,’ says the Dark Angel. Not so in Indonesia, where it was legal up till the late 70s. Now possession of it, or even dealing in it, can get you a bullet at the end of the firing squad. I'm not feeling well.
The Butcher of Manila Bay is to thank for that.
When he put his arm around mine and broke bones and cartilage, I knew this could either cure me or aggravate the problem.
But that was neither here nor there as I hit the ATM to withdraw my last dental payment.
Dr. John arrived late.
‘I was at the lab supervising your crowns, eighty percent complete.’
I didn’t ask him if he was killing a few drug dealers on his night shift.
I had the money and counted it out in his office.
For some reason, I felt I was short.
I cursed and said the bank ripped me off or I forgot to take the cash from the machine.
‘You have paid up,’ he said. I was running around circles. I don’t know what they put in the Nescafe three in one, but I was bouncing off the walls and fuming.
I was losing my mind.
Dr. John put a hand on my shoulder and said I had paid him up.
I said hand over 2000 pesos, and now. I had overpaid him.
It must be all the injections I’ve received over the last week I tell him.
I’m just not my normal self.
The last injection had me speeding faster than light.
‘It's supposed to calm you down,’ he says.
Well the injections I got in Malaysia and Indonesia never got me this racy.
‘It’s not novocaine,’ he says.
I know, it’s something much much stronger.
I’m just hoping the Dark Angels aren’t monitoring me. I’m taking on those scattery paranoia qualities associated with shabu.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Dr. John, ‘I won’t inform the police that you have been sending up our president and my affiliated club, the Dark Angels.’
But, but, but.... I was only quoting you.
I said patient and doctor confidentiality counts for something.
‘I won’t inform on you,’ he says, ‘now ease up on the coffee and see you tomorrow.’
Ok, I said.
You have a lovely smile to look forward to.’
I sometimes feel I’m living in a parallel universe. Manila breaks me out in hives.
‘It’s just withdrawals,’ he says. ‘It must be the ephedrine I mixed with the anesthetics.’
It’s all making sense now.
‘I’ve never had a patient who hasn’t enjoyed a session in my dental chair.’
Transparency first, then closure.
‘You mean crowned.’
Dr. John says to take the cup he gave me. It says after eight hours, caffeine has left the blood system.
‘You’ll need it more than me.’
And what about the ephedrine?
‘It’s our little secret, but I’d say it’s still coursing through your veins from the last session two days ago.’
