“Penance”
By Luke Cole
The dentist told me I had three cavities on Monday. I’ll have more in two weeks if I don’t change.
It’s probably because I picked up smoking last semester. I hope she couldn’t tell. My brushing habits might also be to blame. I don’t brush. I hope she couldn’t tell. God, teeth are embarrassing bones, but they aren’t nearly as embarrassing as wrists– limp ones, that is. I hope she couldn’t tell.
My life is consumed by teeth and wrists now. I wake up; I brush my teeth. If I do it right it can take up to ten minutes. Mouthwash. Rinse. Repeat. Brush, Floss. Mouthwash. Rinse. I only repeat the last two steps before I go to bed. More than that would be excessive. The x-rays made the holes look so small, impenetrable little chasms. How oxymoronic! They’ve diluted me into believing I can fix them. This is my penance.
Cleaning teeth is, for me, an exercise of auto-scrutiny. You can’t do it without looking in the mirror, really, and do it well. You’ve diluted yourself if you believe otherwise. Looking in the mirror, emotionally taxing as it is, is good for one thing: remembering— remembering that I’ve tried to do better, to be better, and the memory of penance is almost as good as penance’s product: purity. But, in the act, the sight of the brush enveloped by my pursed lips, suspended between them and my limp wrist is nauseating, vulgar. Is my reflection green? That sick invert! He makes me brush harder, so I can run my tongue across my pearly whites, white like heavenly linen and say, “I’m exorcized, I’ve rid myself of this age old decaying specter: plaque! How smooth and perfect and pearly they are.”
The whole process is akin to an exorcism. The mouthwash burns like hellfire.
“It’s good for you– the burning,” the dentist said. I wonder if she saw how the smoke’s decayed my gums. I hope she couldn’t tell. I think back to my past self, stroking a cigarette with two fingers, my palm up to heaven, wrists contorted, and realize cavities aren’t the only evidence of my transgressions. They’re in my gums too.
Enter: the demon of gingivitis.
“A pervasive demon,” the pastor said. I grip his arm hard as he prays it away, dousing me in the white, holy froth of toothpaste, bitter as ejaculate when it follows the Listerine. He can tell I don’t brush my gumline. It bleeds now. I would have done it to myself if he hadn’t, I think, while I watch us dancing in the mirror over my sin.
“Are my gums pink yet?” I ask. I know they aren’t. How ridiculous that gums must be pink and not white and teeth white but not pink. Those dental televangelists and their lies! We’re only eight minutes in, but it feels like forty-five and I’m still gripping him, limp.
“Sometimes multiple sessions are required,” He replies. I know this already.
“Yes, three a day.” He nods. My eyes are watering. I can’t watch the holy war anymore, and I think he’s getting tired too. His breathing’s heavy, and I wager his fits of angel’s tongue have left him breathless. I just want to be clean.
I straighten my wrist and shake his hand; he stands there precariously. I lost my toothbrush charger on a trip to chicago. I’m surprised it still talks.
The dentist prescribed me poison. If I’m not too careful, it’ll enter me, not unlike that pesky specter– mouthwash– deep in my stomach now– I swallowed it– eating at the lining, or something like that. I didn’t ask what would happen if I swallowed the toothpaste. I didn’t want to know then, and I still don’t. I thank my previous self for that, but I rebuke him for finishing the last pack of cigarettes. To hold it like I did the pastor’s arm in rectifying reverie would fix me. I’ll brush harder next time. I won’t.
If, two weeks later, the demon hasn’t left, I have to be filled. Fillings are more serious than your run of the mill tri-daily exorcism. They hurt. Bad. What’s more, the procedure, if it can be called that (the church sure would like you to believe it’s medical), is all the more invasive. It lasts not minutes but hours, and though the holy water may trickle down from my bones to the back of my throat, it doesn’t enter me, really, no more than food does. The fillings get in you, forever, and don’t leave. My body will forever be marred by my sin, my insolence. My future self will be drowning in a lake, not of fire, but silver, zinc and mercury. Those all burn at some temperature anyway.
I had my first cigarette in the backseat of a car in Love Circle park. It was raining, but the tips embers never wavered. The smell didn’t either. It never left those cloth seats. It wasn’t my car, so I enjoyed the privilege of forgetting, for a time. It’s hard to forget once you’ve done it, and you want to do it again. I was taught before them to restrain, that those urges were natural but ultimately a God-given test to be managed, not acted on. I acted on them, and they can all tell.
I don’t regret smoking. It makes me feel like I belong, wrapped in smoke with people, transfixed in the allure of doing wrong. It’s fetishistic, smoking. I’m a smoker. My existence is fettish. The resin crystal abomination hides my indulgence, for now. The second time I smoked was in my college dorm, the second day of classes. My roommates would’ve preferred I do it out of the room or without them there I’m sure, but it’s part of the freshman experience to bear witness to your roommates’ sin, or at least to hear its heavy, panting breaths from the other room.
I’ve only smoked in my dorm or others’ since then. I prefer those spaces to cars, but I also prefer that they aren’t mine. The smell reeks of sulfur, of hellfire, lit forever by bundled sticks. Faggot. My sins stain me still, even with the washing. It’s my penance.
After two weeks of aggressive cleansing, I spit at the end and there is no blood. Progress. My penance is ending, surely. The fight is becoming easier. Maybe, just maybe, those little chasms will fill themselves in after all. Maybe the specter was just that: incorporeal, a figment– that is to say, unreal.
It was real, for the next week the day of my inspection came. I lie on the altar and swallow spit for what is perhaps the hundredth time today just to be certain there is no tonsillitis left, no cancer stick fantasmic spector. My tongue caresses my teeth like spoils of war— the little white tombstones, ghostless. How confident I am in my purity. The success of my exorcism is evident.
“I’m sorry to say it wasn’t enough. The demon’s still inside you. You understand, we’ll have to take extreme measures. You understand,” the dentist said, snarling with perfect, pearly whites. I saw heaven in his teeth.