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The off-white walls were absent of décor—no serene landscapes, no monkeys with pearly smiles—just a blank slate upon which to impose my own anxious images, like my future jack o’lantern grin. Wait a minute—shouldn’t there be a framed copy of the dentist’s diploma somewhere? Eyes closed, I heard approaching footsteps and caught a whiff of french fries.

“Good afternoon. I’m Dr. Blahdeblah, and I’ll be your dentist today. Now where are those teeth that are giving you trouble?”

My God, has he not seen my chart?

“They’re on this side.” I pointed with my right hand. “Upper level.” I was starting to dread this now, and my feet would not stay still. Dr. Blahdeblah looked sleazily familiar; what low-budget film had I seen him in?

Checking an x-ray of my mouth on a computer screen, the dentist squinted and brushed back his copper-colored hair. “So, it actually looks like four need to come out today,” he said, nodding his bullish head rather smugly and smiling faintly.

Panic: “Uhhhh, I was told two. At any rate, that’s what I’m mentally prepared for. Just two.”

He grimaced, giving a cockeyed tilt to his bandit-style moustache. “That’s up to you. If it were me, I would feel better getting it all done at once.”

He would feel better? This barbarian had obviously not read my chart. With my history of severe bone loss and periodontal disease, “getting it all done at once” meant multiple extractions. Dentures were in my future, but the timing had to be right. The Community Dental Clinic did not include providing dentures among their services, so the procedure had to be coordinated with another facility. Yet Dr. Blahdeblah would feel better if I left that chair today with a lot of wide-open spaces in my mouth and a new obsession with my blender. I guessed it was too late to change this appointment.

After enduring several deep punctures and Dr. Blahdeblah’s apologies, the numbing process started. As I relaxed—sort of—in the chair, lyrics from my morning Zumba class comforted me: “I’ll have one less problem without you, I’ll have one less, one less, one less…” The wrenching, crunching, and cracking as the two molars were wrestled from my gums was painless, but the sounds were scary, like colliding icebergs.

As soon as I could speak through the cotton in my mouth I mumbled, “I wanna keep those.” The squirrelly young dental assistant replied that he did not think that was possible.

What? Were my ears numb as well? Did he actually say that those teeth were the clinic’s property now?

Dr. Blahdeblah smiled like a gunslinger who’d just scored a bullseye as he delivered this news: “It’s against federal regulations; they are a biohazard.”

Biohazard? Let me tell you what a biohazard is, Mr. Ex-Porn Star. It’s me walking out of here through the reception area, spitting bloodstained cotton balls on these grimy floors for the masses to step on. Suddenly, my extracted teeth became very important to me—and they didn’t even have gold crowns! In fact, they were hideous and huge and could probably ward off vampires if worn around the neck in the moonlight. It occurred to me that Dr. Blahdeblah might be a voodoo practitioner or warlock.

What would happen if I simply grabbed my molars off the counter where they lay in a small red biohazard bag? Would they call the police? Would they put me in jail for taking my own teeth? I imagined the media recording my struggles and reporting my “crime” on national news. I could become an advocate for dental patients everywhere.

The sympathetic assistant handed me a plastic bag with instructions and extra gauze. “I am sorry. It really doesn’t seem right.”

Lucky for them I couldn’t engage in verbal warfare with that gauze in my wounded jaw. I paused at the reception desk on the way out; the female clerks hovered over the computer and didn’t notice me.

“Check this out,” the heavyset brunette whispered to her elderly colleague in turquoise scrubs. I could see they were shopping eBay.

They turned toward me suddenly, in harmony, like the Doublemint Twins in the vintage chewing gum commercial, “May I help you?” I shook my head and waved them off as I dizzily wandered through the hallway using the exit sign as a compass.

Outside, the bright day jarred against my dark mood. I called a friend whose father had been a dentist. He searched online and discovered that the Center for Disease Control does not object to patients keeping their own teeth. Extracted teeth are only considered biohazards when they are kept—stolen—at a dental office or other facility office; then they come under OSHA regulations and must be disposed of properly.

Later, I decided to check out eBay to see if there was any tooth harvesting going on. Sure enough, I found that four adult female molars had sold for $51. Four; Dr. Blahdeblah had wanted to pull four. There was also at least one Etsy shop dedicated to “Bonelust.” To quote the jewelry artist: “Just consider me the tooth fairy. I’m always tracking down legal and ethical human teeth daily.”

Then I really wished I had grabbed that bag off the counter. Some things in life are still worth a good fight.

Doug was cruising in his ’79 Cadillac on his way south to unload the bubble-wrapped jars in his trunk. Through his work at the Community Dental Clinic, he had accumulated approximately 10,000 teeth during his six-month internship. He was aware of their market value for the right buyer and giddy with anticipation.

There wasn’t much traffic on that spring afternoon. The radio was tuned to a classic rhythm and blues station, and he sang along to En Vogue’s version of “Giving Him Something He Can Feel.” Every once in a while, he would rebel yell into the wind, thinking about the $20,000 he would receive upon delivery of the goods.

That evening, he arrived at his destination: a forest green trailer, one of many in a cozy court in Jacksonville. The yard was paved in white stone, and a couple of aloe vera plants in vermilion ceramic pots flanked the front door, upon which he knocked softly.

“Come in,” a husky female voice answered. As he pushed open the door, two iguanas fled from the floor to the back of the purple crushed velvet couch.

“I’m Leila. How was your trip?”

“Oh, it was great,” Doug said uncertainly as he took in the goat statues on the table, the reversed pentagram on the wall, and the hazy smell of something burning.

Leila smiled, her dark eyes dancing from reflected candlelight. “Would you care for something to eat? Or drink?”

“No, ma’am. I really should not stick around here too long… Just let me get these unloaded before it gets too dark to see.”

Leila watched as he brought the boxes of jars inside, thinking about her niece in Charlottesville and their recent phone conversation. The young woman had had her wisdom teeth removed at the Community Dental Clinic, and the staff had refused to relinquish her teeth after the procedure.

After Doug was finished Leila hovered over the boxes of jars stacked on the floor. When she touched them, her palms tingled with distressing energy.  She had a bad feeling about this purchase; she knew that these teeth had been obtained without the blessing of some of their owners, and that would taint any ritual performed with them. Still, she’d made an agreement with Doug—who, at the moment didn’t look at all well.

“I don’t feel so good,” he said. “A glass of rum might help.”

Leila poured a double shot, handed it to him, then sat down at the kitchen table and shuffled a deck of Tarot cards. She laid three cards upright and gazed at them for a long time before rising from her chair to go into the back bedroom. She returned with a transistor radio.

“Hey, you know I think I may have heat stroke,” Doug said. “Can’t see too well and my head hurts.”

“Or it might just be greed. Actually, I think we can make a better deal here; maybe I don’t owe you as much as you think. Maybe you owe.”

Leila pulled a pair of pliers out of the silverware drawer and passed them three times over the flickering red candle. Then she turned the radio up to maximum volume: Ariana Grande’s song “Problem” was playing: “I’ll have one less problem without you, I’ll have one less, one less, one less.”

Jesus, thought Doug. I hate that song.

Countermelodies: A Memoir in Sonata Form

by Ernistine Whitman

    Countermelodies, winner of both the NYC Big Book Award and the Indie Reader Discovery Award for memoir, is a coming of age story about the powerful relationship between a protegee and her mentor, and the devastating effects when that mentor betrays her by withdrawing his support just when she needs it most. A young woman who yearns for her father’s approval is constantly overshadowed by a brilliant older sister. Her self-doubt vanishes when, at age thirteen, she discovers a passion for the flute and studies with a charismatic teacher who becomes her surrogate father. Years later, she wins an audition to work beside him in the Atlanta Symphony, where she is the youngest and one of few women in the orchestra. After her exhilarating first year, the mentor turns against her and threatens to destroy her professional and personal life. Her love for the flute and drive to be a musician sustain her through additional encounters with abusive men as she tries to succeed in the competitive field of classical music. “A disturbing and compelling tale of resilience, determination, and musical passion.” — Kirkus Reviews “Whitman explores power dynamics, patriarchal oppression, and music as personal salvation. … a story of persistence and survival in a world at the mercy of toxic misogyny.” — BlueInk Review https://ernestinewhitman.ag-sites.net/index.htm Available from Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore.

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