ROOT CANAL, ANYONE?

         Dr. Tybalt performed root canal work on me without Novocain. It was so much simpler to take the nerve out and work on the mouth without waiting for the painkiller to take effect, not to mention that it freed up one of the chairs in the surgery, as they like to call it over the pond, much faster. It happened over thirty years ago but my friend Maralyn says it is important to write it down.

         My sister has many warm stories of sitting in that room staring out at the sky beyond the window, but all my buddies called him "Butcher" Tybalt. Until that weekday morning I thought it was a term of affection. Prior to that he had extracted one or two of my teeth and done the job well enough that I was able to walk up the street to the courts and play some basketball, looking a bit like Dracula every time I opened my mouth. He had also done the normal drillings and fillings, concluding each session with his time honored line, "Now doesn't that feel better?"

         I was his first appointment that morning. The smell of his garlic was especially strong at nine a.m.; I am not sure if he ate it for breakfast or feared one of his patients had vampire tendencies, but it was always part of him. He told me this time my problem was bad. "Root canal," he said. The nerve would have to come out. He would have to shoot me full of Novocain and let me sit for an hour. "What a pity. I could go in without painkiller, take out the nerve and be able to work on it immediately. It will hurt like hell for a minute or two, but I think you can take it."

         When you are twenty-five and honed tough by your environment, nothing seems impossible, especially when you have an irrational fear of seeing a needle stuck in your mouth. It was toughness and fear that led "Go right ahead, Dr. Tybalt" to take over the number two spot on the list of great blunders, just behind "Iceberg, what iceberg?" I admit he was able to work on my mouth without a long wait once he talked me down from the ceiling. I also thought it nice he did not charge me for the shattered glass in his windows.

         That was the last day I saw Dr. Tybalt. Fifteen years later a woman in her mid-thirties came to get her taxes done. It was Debbie Tybalt, daughter of the sainted "Butcher of Bishop." He was still alive and practicing with the rest of the Boys from Brazil. It was hard not to be on the side of the Internal Revenue Service when I did her taxes.

         So now I have written it down. Don’t I feel better? Actually, I don’t. Writing it down brought nothing new to the experience. It hurt worse than anything that has ever happened before or since and I still hate the thought of his smiling face. I have made it a rule of life: Never trust anyone who tries to tell you how good he or she will make you feel. They are lying through their teeth! And don’t trust me either! I go about life repeating the mantra “I am not infallible.” To my public I say, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

         This was the baggage I carried when I had to find a barber this summer. For years my wife had cut my hair. Even though she would often conclude with Tybalt’s aphorism, she worked cheap and always left my ears intact. It had been seven months since she had cut it before Christmas. My hair does not grow long, but rather thickens with age. Every so often I would take her scissors and lop a bit off, but I knew I was just delaying the inevitable. Promised a picnic if I would get a hair cut, I began to scour the area to find a barber.

         The nearest seemed to have a lock on the State Police, not exactly a prime recommendation. My dog groomer was not interested, but suggested a man down the road from her. I made an appointment with him. Bernie looked at the thin patch on top and the thick hair on the side and asked when was the last time I had a professional haircut. I told him the mistake that most barbers made with my hair. It grows right on top of my ears, but most barbers do not realize this. He paid attention, took himself seriously, but not that seriously and in a bit, I had a lovely haircut.

         Bernie was not full of himself. He understood that neither he nor I were a threat to Mel Gibson. When his next customer walked in, he told him he would not be long because ‘Brother David doesn’t have much to work with here.” Beautiful! I still had two ears, and he did not say ‘doesn’t that feel good?’

         I went back again yesterday. It was the last lovely day of the year. His shop is fifteen miles away; but it was just the afternoon for a drive. Once again he worked his magic while we talked of bees, plants, weather and procrastinators. I looked presentable again. The rush of air felt so good on the way home. I found myself doing seventy plus on the twisting byways I followed, pushing the car to the outside of every curve. I did not even slow when I remembered that I had to have the car realigned

         A mile and half from home, I fell behind a slow moving Honda driven by a middle-aged woman. She pulled onto the highway behind a State Policeman, who was probably heading for the local barber. She slowed even more and then to my astonishment, made a left just in front of a large truck barreling down on her. Amazingly, she did not buy the farm. Had she done so, Dr. Tybalt and my root canal would remain in deserved obscurity, and I would have written an account of another person who proved not to be infallible. Don’t you feel better now?