Today I F****d Up by Thomas Mitchell

Author:Thomas Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Published: 2021-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Twenty-four hours earlier

‘Does this look normal to you?’

In the mirror, Dennis watched on as I wiggled my front tooth back and forth with my tongue. He shook his head.

‘Of course, it doesn’t,’ I continued. ‘Because you fucked it up!’

We were sitting in Dennis’s clinic, which was really just his living room with a dental chair in the corner. There were religious icons all over the joint which to me sent the wrong message. Time for your root canal, let’s pray it goes well!

‘Peter, I’m sorry, you know I’m still learning,’ said Dennis, leaning back against a picture of a disappointed Jesus. He seemed oblivious to the fact that, as a dentist, this isn’t something you should admit out loud.

‘Let me fix it,’ he offered, patting the chair and beckoning me over. ‘You know I love you like a brother!’

I didn’t love Dennis like a brother, I loved him like a second cousin – because that’s exactly what he was. And that was the only reason I let him anywhere near my mouth. That’s how it works with the Greeks. If your uncle’s a mechanic, he fixes your car. If your sister’s husband has a fruit shop, that’s where you go to buy oranges.

And unfortunately, if your second cousin is a clueless dentist whose makeshift clinic feels more like an Orthodox church, then he ‘fixes’ your teeth.

While Louise refused to let Dennis treat the kids, I had no choice. Every time I threatened to go to someone else, Dennis would tell his mother, who would phone my mother, who would then call me.

‘PETER! PETER!’ My mother was unable to start a sentence without yelling my name at least twice. ‘Dennis’s mother told me you want a new dentist? I grew up with her in the village!’

She added a little spice to the word ‘village’ just so I understood how long they’d known each other.

‘I know that, Mum,’ I replied. ‘But he’s no good!’

‘PETER! PETER! How your cousin get better if you don’t heeeeelp him? Eίναι αίμα, Eίναι οικογένεια! He is blood, he is family!’

‘But is he actually a dentist?’

And with that the conversation was over, the Greek guilt trip in full force. In the last couple of months, I’d developed an ache in my front tooth and begrudgingly gone to see Dennis about it.

‘That looks like –’ he paused and scanned through a book, flipping pages in a hurry ‘– an abscess!’

I’ll never know if he was right, but either way Dennis pulled the tooth out and whacked a false one in. Over the past few weeks the tooth had refused to stay in place, constantly feeling like it was going to drop out.

Now that I had the interview lined up, I couldn’t risk any fuck-ups, so here I was, back for another round of experimental treatment.

‘I can use a little dental cement to keep it in place, but you have to be careful,’ warned Dennis. ‘It needs time to settle, so avoid alcohol and hot drinks like coffee or tea because they will soften the cement.

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