LITMIR.BIZ

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metal tool. “Does that hurt?”

      No.

      He squirts ice water, then hot water, onto it. Everything is fine. He takes a highly magnified photo of the crown and shows it to Levy.

      “See. There is a tiny hole on top of the crown. There may be some seepage entering the tooth. That’s probably it. I recommend you get a new crown.” McPherson gets up from his stool.

      As they begin talking, McPherson leaves Levy nearly horizontal in the chair. He stands off to his right, making Levy crane his neck to look up and over at him. McPherson notices and sits down in front of Levy, without however, raising the back of the chair. He’s still parallel to the ground. McPherson’s bedside manner seems to have suffered, Levy thinks.

      “There is a really awesome new ceramic out there,” McPherson begins. “It’s called zirconia.”

      Levy raises his eyebrows as much as he can from his prone position, indicating interest.

      The dentist says, “It’s incredibly hard, never wears down, and nearly impossible to break. And we can match the color to your surrounding teeth.”

      Levy says, “The color isn’t too important. How about the cost?”

      “It’s a little less than gold.”

      “Now my tooth hurts,” Levy grimaces. It’s reacting to all this attention. The harsh January desert sun floods the room, and he feels a headache coming on.

      He says, “I’ve always had gold, and never had a problem with it. It’s pretty, too.”

      “Zirconia should last longer. Besides the color advantage.”

      Levy wonders if that’s the company’s selling point. He doesn’t care about the color.

      “How long’s it been around?” he asks.

      “A few years.”

      “That’s not so long,” he says skeptically.

      McPherson says, “People are raving about it. There’s even equipment for your office where you can make a zirconia crown the same day. No more temporary crowns.” He wants to sell Levy this product.

      Money is tight as always. Or as it always seems. But it’s never really. Nevertheless, this smells faddish, a smell mixing with the more usual dental office odors. The word “harebrained” pops into Levy’s mind, and he remembers something McPherson suggested many years ago. Levy had consulted with his dentist about a night guard to help reduce the effects of his teeth grinding.

      McPherson said, “Try going to sleep with your tongue pressing against the back of your top teeth.” It was something he had learned at a recent conference. Levy didn’t really try and got the night guard.

      Why am I thinking harebrained now? Levy wonders.

      When he tunes back in, McPherson is wrapping up. “Why don’t you try it?”

      McPherson and that tooth went back a long way. He’d saved it from Levy’s previous errant dentist. Levy trusted him, but he’s not sure about this.

      He decides too quickly, and hopes for the best, “Okay. If you’re so impressed.” He could’ve said, “Let me think about it,” and then done some research. Say, Google “gold versus zirconia crowns.”

      Levy returns the next Friday. Bladder full, back hurting, and the grime of the city already clinging to him. He enters the suite full of dental sounds and smells. He stretches out on the dental chair, and Dr. McPherson comes in.

      Examining the tooth again, he nods, reiterates, “Yep. There’s that little pin-hole on top of the old crown. That must be what is causing seepage and irritating the tooth.”

      Levy doesn’t like the word “seepage.” It sounds like a fistula—things are connected which ought not be. Like an anal fistula where feces seeps out of a crack along the side of the anus rather than directly out the end. Or a toxic, maybe radioactive, sludge seeping through a failing barrier, contaminating the underlying groundwater. There’s lots of that around where Levy lives. Hundreds of poorly-managed and then abandoned uranium mines that metastasized throughout the county during the Cold War.

      Shaking off the uranium and anal analogies, Levy chooses to say nothing. His priority is the tooth. But “seepage”? He can’t ignore it: insensitive, oblivious to his and his tooth’s feelings. Maybe he made a mistake not going with gold if McPherson is so out of touch.

      The dentist injects what feels like an inordinately large volume of anesthesia around the tooth. In a few minutes, the entire left half of his face is numb and rubbery. McPherson returns, sits down, and takes up position. “Okaaay. Here we go.”

      He tries lifting the old crown off with a probe. It doesn’t budge. He approaches it from a different angle. No luck. Putting that probe down on the nearby tray of instruments, he picks up a more substantial tool resembling a tiny crowbar. He and it lean into Levy’s mouth. The pressure is surprising and pulls his lower jaw upward. McPherson’s lost none of his strength, that’s for sure. His stocky arms, beefy fingers. There’s no sign of tremor; he’s rock-solid. He exhales with the success of his effort, then pauses as he looks at what he’s pulled out of Levy’s mouth. The crown and half the tooth with it.

      “Man, that crown was really cemented on there. That happens sometimes. Well, it must have been a fracture line that the tooth separated along. No more fracture in that molar!”

      He examines carefully the tiny gold and off-white object. “There aren’t any fragments and the tooth looks healthy otherwise. We’ll just fill in that space with the crown.”

      Levy’s rattled, shaky, but tries to be lighthearted. “Give me that tooth, would you? Part of the oral history. Ha ha.”

      McPherson and his assistant—Leanna?—look doubtful but hand the fragment to him. He slips it into his shirt pocket.

      They take the impression and the assistant begins fitting a temporary crown. Levy’s mouth is still thoroughly numb, and she finishes quickly. McPherson doesn’t return. Levy schedules his return appointment for two weeks. As he’s leaving, the assistant says, “Now don’t eat any hard candies, nuts, pretzels. Those kinds of things.”

      Levy’s mouth begins waking up on the drive home. The temporary crown feels awkward, oversized. It fits poorly and gives off a bitter sour taste. This must be the flavor of battery acid, he thinks. Pulling up to his house, he searches futilely for the tooth in his pocket. Damn, it must have dropped out. But where?

      Sunday morning, chewing half-done toast on the opposite side of his mouth, sipping his first espresso, the temporary crown falls off. The tooth is tender, painful, feels ratty. He calls McPherson’s office the next morning and gets an appointment for that afternoon.

      He takes his seat in a treatment room, and McPherson briefly appears and lightly anesthetizes the tooth. Levy’s left with the assistant, whose name he cannot remember. He’s not sure now if she ever told him, and somehow he is not especially interested in finding out.

      I’m unsettled, Levy notes. Am I wrong being unsettled?

      It’s medically and personally unsettling. Why does McPherson delegate? Doesn’t their two decade-history count? Levy feels not-special and that quickly turns into “neglected” and “unsafe.” He wonders again about his decision to pass on the gold. Maybe I’m being oversensitive, he thinks. I wonder who benefits from the zirconia? Does McPherson get a kickback?

      “Were you eating something hard that you weren’t supposed to?” she accuses. Jokingly. Funny.

      Defensively, “Some soggy toast.” It’s only a slight misrepresentation. It’s your fault, he wants to say. It was a lousy temporary. It fit terrible.

      She mock-rolls her eyes.

      Levy can’t tell what she’s doing in his mouth. At first, it’s as if she’s applying grout, reshaping the sawed-off top of the tooth with

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