Tooth

For years, Dr. Goldman has been after me to do two things: let him bleach my black front tooth and call his daughter, Phyllis. For years, I have not exactly refused, but--my mouth packed with cotton, my throat parching, the drain sucking under my tongue--I have avoided both by ambiguous grunts, by dodges, by head feints, by lines in my forehead that plead: I must rinse now!

Dr. Goldman will stand beside the chair--no, not the chair, for it is not a chair but a pale-gold, decorator's dental couch in which I recline like an odalisque, Goldman hardly taller than myself, even though I am supine--and he will command, "Open," and I will open and he will pause in his work, a patient waiting in each of the two other rooms, and, taking hold of my black left incisor with thumb and forefinger, he will shake his head, pull on the tooth, lean forward, peer through the lower lenses of his bifocals, the upper lenses, and then the two square lenses that extend from the long arm attached to the band around his head; time will (continued on page 201) Tooth (continued from page 177) stop. Goldman will shake his head and the loupes, spattered with many strange and opaque substances, will move back and forth like the antennae of an insect about to pollinate. Goldman will speak.

"Perfect teeth, perfect. White, even, perfect; did you ever let an orthodontist have a crack at these? Dr. Bernstein? Dr. Greenwald?"

"Never."

"They just came in like this?"

"Exactly."

Goldman shakes his head.

"A gift. A gift from God. What teeth! White! The work I've had to do on my kids to give them teeth like this."

My eyes move quickly to the Kodak print of Phyllis Goldman on the cabinet.

"And you, a poor brusher, a guy who neglects his mouth, have teeth like a prince!"

Goldman increasing accusatory pressure on my black tooth and yanking, the gray hairs on the back of his hand disappearing into my vision; Goldman yanks in frustration on my black tooth and shakes his head.

"Perfect! Except for this. This goddamned tooth sticks out like a sore thumb. How in the hell did you ever do this?"

And again, I tell him the simple tale of high school football.

Goldman stares out the window and shakes his head as he listens. Adolescence! For him, it is a tale without redemption.

Once again, the ghost of Dr. O'Connor visits my tooth. Poor O'Connor. Long since the victim of a stroke. But when he was good, he was good--even though he had only a dental chair he jacked up by foot. And a slow-speed drill. Once again, O'Connor is breaking into my root canal and excising the guts of the dead nerve with a twisty instrument, now holding it in front of me, now turning it slowly in the Castle light so I might observe with proper wonder and amazement my tooth umbilicus. O'Connor had subsequently sealed up the nerve passage behind my tooth with the finality of rolling a rock over the mouth of a tomb, the tooth had darkened bit by bit, and so it had become like an aged parchment, a talisman, which Goldman simply had to read at all costs.

Goldman still has the black tooth between thumb and forefinger and now, as I peer up at the double chins he gets when leaning forward, up at the missed gray whiskers, up into his nostrils, up into the very dark insides of Goldman's head itself, I know what Goldman will do next. He will pull back and almost plead, "For God's sake, let me bleach it for you."

He will explain the procedure. He will be patient. He will try to be tactful.

"It won't hurt. You won't feel a thing. I just drill into the canal, apply some bleaching agents--we'll do this maybe three or four times--and that's it. If that doesn't work, we can always grind it down, drive in a gold post and fit a porcelain cap."

And I will always shrug noncommittally. Why I can't let Goldman bleach my tooth I don't know, I honestly don't know. Is it that there's a lot of history in the tooth? That I resist change? I know Goldman is a perfectionist. I know how much it means to him. I really do, in a way, want to let him bleach it--sometimes in my mind I even hear a voice: "Let Goldman have the black one"; or, "Give Goldman that black baby"; or, "Save Goldie the Black Beauty."

Goldman, pulling on the tooth, seeing by the vague glaze of my eyes in the Ritter light it's going to be yet another non-commitment, bears down.

"What? Why go through life with a one percent smile when I can give you a one-hundred-and-one percent smile?"

I mumble something.

"What? Is it the expense? Look, you I don't worry about. You pay me when you can. And money ... where we're all going, you don't need money."

I briefly consider where we're all going. "Where we're all going," I repeat dully, "where we're all going, you don't need teeth, either. Especially bleached ones. More so, capped ones with gold posts inside."

Goldman sadly shakes his head and peers through his various lenses at the black tooth.

•

This has been going on for more or less ten years.

Though I might avoid Goldman for months at a time, dodging across the street when I see him, lest he grab me and command, "Open," right there on the street; though I might travel the wide world over and the whole world round, see sights wondrous passing fair, be gone for years and years, have wandered barefoot and half-crazed in dusty bazaars of the Orient, partaken of food, sweets and potions that might easily have killed a lesser man, gnawed fierce hard nuts, herbs and spices that stain poignantly the teeth of the local populace, still, all in all, no matter how long I had been gone, where I had been or what I had seen, who or who not I had fallen in or out of love with, it was Goldman, Goldman I would come back to.

Oh, not that things stayed the same for Goldman, either. No, no. There would be a new light in the room facing the street, a new dental tray, a compact electronic-looking metal box with some strange gauges and always, always there would be a new dental assistant.

Each of these new assistants, or oral hygienists, while totally different from her predecessor--some fat, some thin; some deft with eye shadow but bad with lipstick; some breathtakingly good in the haunch but woebegone from the waist up; others just the opposite, almost lame but elegant, simply elegant from the waist up; yet others deft with buffer and in all ways excellent in prophylaxis; others, again, embarrassingly and painfully lacking in technique, so that one, I remember, had gotten her hair so badly caught in the drill flywheel I had had to climb out of the couch and disentangle her, hair by hair, while she, bent double, tears streaming down her face, waited patiently, both of us praying Goldman stay involved in the oral cavity in the next room--but each, no matter how different, would have some intangible quality in common with the previous girl.

First, each would greet me like a long-lost cousin, calling me by my first name, saying, we've heard so much about you, and asking me in a chatty voice about particulars of my life I had long since forgotten. Obviously, that would make me uneasy.

I would ease onto Goldman's couch, the sad eyes of myriad departed oral hygienists would flash before me like the life of a drowning man and I'd think, well, this one, this new girl must be different from all the others. Must be. But as soon as Goldman would get rolling, it would be the same.

Goldman would start: "Where's his chart? Have you taken X rays?"

"I thought you didn't want X rays, Dr. Goldman."

"And why shouldn't I want X rays? I don't ask you to think! I don't pay you to think! Just do what I say! Now this time is wasted." Goldman sighing. "Take X rays." Goldman suffering.

X rays taken, we would resume.

Immediately, they would take up right where they'd left off.

"Dr. Goldman, do you need a double forensic douche bag?"

Goldman, pausing, stiffening, becoming still with scorn. Mouth twisting.

"Do ... I ... look ... like ... I ... need ... a ... forensic ... douche ... bag? Do I? For God's sake, please!"

Angels in their starched white uniforms, the girls would stare out the window, blink quickly many times, bite their lips. Who could be the ideal dental assistant for such a man? Could such a mortal creature exist, such a mistress of the dental couch, midwife of the properly blended filling? Christ, didn't these unsuspecting girls sense, when they first walked into his office, that they were dealing with an artist, a virtuoso, the Johann Sebastian Bach of the oral cavity?

My eyes would stray over the glare of the light and inevitably come to the large Kodak print of Phyllis Goldman and though the pictures would change--now she would be standing in snow glare, leaning on her Head poles; now on a beach, leaning forward out of her top, a little bit of domestic cheesecake; hell, in some countries, like India or Pakistan, a picture like that would have half the pubescent and adult male population jacking off until insane--but though the pictures might change, they would remain constant, so that finally I would come to suspect that they had been placed there above the cabinet by Goldman's own hand at exactly the place he knew--through years of dental experience--my eyes must stray. But instead of concluding that I must call aforementioned Phyllis Goldman, slowly, as time returned me again and again to Goldman's dental couch, I came to the conclusion that Phyllis Goldman, the girl coming out of her top, the girl with the cleavage and the perfect white smile, would be the only girl who could make Goldman the perfect dental assistant. In a delirium of fear and pain, Goldman descending with the high-speed drill, I would see her, Phyllis Goldman, anima of Goldman's office, hovering in the rays from the Ritter light like a Chagall lover.

And, invariably, when Goldman would lay hold of the black tooth and wind up with his two-pronged proposition, I would still see her in that role.

What? What was it with the damn tooth? What was it to Goldman? Perfectionist!

And once, after a long foray out into the world, returning to the scrutiny of yet another new Kodak of Phyllis, I almost said, "Isn't she married yet!?"

Instead, I closed hard on Goldman's finger--Goldman, whose finger tips, etiolated, wrinkled, gnawed and eaten, undergo a sea change in our collective saliva, Goldman, who is only trying to do the best he can for himself and his family, and through some strange notion, some attraction in my overbite, has decided I am the best he can do for his daughter.

This time, as I, odalisque, lie supine on his couch, it comes to me slowly, slowly; like Othello, the Moor, I am the last to suspect yet ripe for suspicion; my tooth, its blackness, Goldman, Ariel? my tooth sea-changed, he wants to make me perfect before he gives me to his daughter, perfect! Make the white-porcelain crown and drive in the gold post, too, if need be, make that white tooth the jewel for the crown of my perfect teeth, make me a perfect jewel for his daughter, make.... Oh, I see it all too well, I am to be his gift horse and he is always looking me in the mouth.

Goldman saying: "You're not taking good care of them, we eat hot things, cold things, enamel expands, contracts, things decay, nothing lasts forever."

But I'm not listening.

Has he not had a better chance than most potential fathers-in-law to test me, to scrutinize my inner fiber, to try me at close quarters; was it not a test, that day, years ago, through the spritz of the water and the suck of the drain, when, easing back on his drill, Goldman had stared deep into my eyes, studying me like a lover, and finally asked, "Too much for you? Novocain?"

And I, macho fool that I was, remembering a Hawaiian cowboy I'd met in a bar, who chewed kavakava root and pulled his own teeth with a pliers, had played right into Goldman's hands, fiercely whispering back through cotton packs and dry mouth, "No, no way, pour it on!"

Now Goldman looks long into my eyes, pats me on the shoulder, shakes his head.

"You've got to brush better."

Deep inside me, I hear an unfamiliar voice:

"Give it to him."

What?

"The black one. Give Goldman the black baby."

Huh?

"Go ahead."

I close my mouth and place the point of my tongue against the smooth wet convexity of the left incisor, departed circa 1960. I close my eyes. I tap the tip of my tongue against the tooth in inquiry. I meditate. I hear Goldman, strangely silent except for the expectant rush of breath in his nostrils.

"Go ahead, give Goldman the black one."

I dunno.

I break into a sweat.

"Dr. Goldman...." I complain of nausea. I stammer out my apologies.

Is there a look of triumph around his mouth as I ease myself out and close the door? Behind the frosted-glass panel, the outline of Goldman, D.D.S., looms in silhouette like a Thirties movie gangster.

•

I go through a period of agonizing soul-searching. I walk the streets until the wee hours of the morning. On distant corners, phone booths, like luminous blocks of ice, beckon, Come in, drop in a dime, call Goldman.

Naturally, I think of my father's teeth--the teeth of my father.

There he is, standing, talking to Goldman at a garden party. Apparently, my father has been foolish enough to complain he has developed a pain in his mouth. Bad move. Bad, bad move.

In short order, Goldman has my father out of the garden, into the den and bent back in a lounger. From the doorway, I see Goldman in madras sports coat, tie hung back over one shoulder, Tensor lamp in one hand, spoon in the other. The spoon disappears into my father's mouth, Goldman leans toward my father, my father disappears from view; all I can now see of my father is his hand emerging from around Goldman's body, the fingers impressed in the perspiration of the gin-and-tonic glass. Above Goldman's bent back, through the picture window, the wedding reception transpires in lucid splendor; it is like a tableau viewed through the eyepiece of an Easter egg.

Goldman straightens up. He has made some decision.

Suddenly, they are stampeding by, pressing me back in the doorway, Goldman fairly dragging my father down the hall. They reappear in the garden and I see them hopping from flag to flag down the garden path to the street, Goldman in the lead, moving at a rapid clip, slipping out of his jacket and rolling up his sleeves as he goes, my father, still clutching his gin and tonic, bringing up the rear. In mere moments, they are gone.

I can hear Goldman's gun-metal-blue Jag winding out in the direction of his office.

The intelligence reports come jumbling back fast and thick from the front. Bruxism. Father's been grinding his teeth in his sleep for years. Teeth, all of them, loose as rubber bands--Goldman's analogy!

Goldman working fast. That very afternoon, the final decision made. No prevarication. No hanging back. All teeth must go! All teeth out! To be pulled! False teeth! Full steam ahead!

Shortly after, Father chastened, all teeth pulled, perfect white false teeth, what beauties!

Father suddenly a movie star!

I see the teeth on the blue porcelain of his sink. I descend motionless onto the toilet seat. I contemplate the false teeth. White. Perfect. Even. Equipped with their very own red gums. The distillation of something. What? Being a long-suffering father? A responsible, taxpaying member of the republic? What? Just what? I stare at those even white-porcelain teeth lying on the sink, they stare back and we wonder about each other.

I walk the streets. The voice is insistent: "Give Goldman the black one."

Go away!

"Give Goldman the black one."

I think of my father's false teeth-- the false teeth of my father. Is there a moral in them for me? A warning? If I could pry open those false teeth on the sink and command or cajole, flatter or trick them to speak--"Teeth, speak!"-- what would they have to tell me? What riddles? What aphorisms?

I stare at the false teeth, but they remain mute.

If nothing else, if the teeth won't speak, I know at least this much. My father could take it--having all of his teeth pulled. Well, then, so can I!

But it is not a matter of pulling teeth. And even that convenient old equation Pain × Father = Pain × Son + I-Can-Take-Moren+1 won't wash, since Goldman has sworn on his heart, throwing out his hands, staring at me through any one of his three sets of lenses, "There will be no pain! It's a dead tooth, right? The nerve is dead! So what's there to worry about? What?"

I'm at a loss. Yes, what?

The voice insists, "Give Goldman the black baby."

I say to the tooth, "Tooth, what? Tooth, are you afraid?"

And Tooth doesn't answer.

I try to empathize, to understand my tooth. How would it feel to have Goldman bore in, apply the bleach?

Fear fear fear fear.

Awful to tamper with Tooth, set beneath my nasal cavity, now embedded in the soft, lastly hardened bones of my jaw but scant inches away from the Big Nerve itself, my brain. Tamper and upset the precarious balance of my reptilian cortex. After all, Big Nerve is the home of my alpha, beta and delta waves, my heaven and hell, my centers of spiritual and sexual ecstasy, which are no more than a few synapses away from each other as it is and which are already theologian's nightmare enough in their whispering chemo/electric conspiracy. And to just come barreling in there and mess with Tooth, Tooth so close to the dream factory, Tooth, already the star of so many of my dreams, or nightmares ... ?

I sit down under a streetlight and, taking up some cat-food coupons providently scattered on the sidewalk, I try to write a poem. Nothing comes.

The pen writes of its own accord: "Give Goldman the black one."

•

In the morning, I call Goldman. His new girl, Jean Valentine, picks up the phone. In a parched, tired voice, I whisper: "Give me Dr. Goldman."

It's as though he's been waiting by the phone and on a prearranged hand signal from Jean Valentine, he punches right in.

"Goldman here."

The receiver leaves my ear and dips over the cradle.

"Goldman here."

I lower the receiver.

"Give Goldman the black one."

The receiver rises slowly as the snake charmer's cobra.

"Dr. Goldman?"

"Yes!"

"Can you take me this afternoon? This is--"

"I know who it is! How's one-thirty?" "One-thirty? All right, one-thirty."

We hang up at the same time. I go into the bathroom and give my teeth a good brushing.

•

It doesn't escape me that Goldman is wearing a clean blue frock, that all six of his lenses, even the squares of pure observation extending from his forehead, are free of any and all opaque substances, that, in fact, they are, as the trout fishermen are wont to say of their streams, gin clear; Jean Valentine is in a perfectly starched and pressed white uniform, her lips are visibly buttoned, there are fresh flowers in the vase on the reception desk, the phone is off the hook and Goldman has almost creased his double chins in a smile as he hands me onto the dental couch. As I lean back, I think of the serpent and scepter entwined over the date on the building: 1937. I had never noticed that before. Verily, I have come unto the temple.

Goldman commands, "Open!"

And I open.

The chart is right there.

"Well, we cleaned them yesterday, yes?"

I nod.

"And no cavities, yes?"

I nod.

"So let me guess why you've come."

I nod.

When Goldman finally lays hold of the black one, it is with a look of such (continued on page 206) Tooth (continued from page 203) infinite satisfaction that I avert my eyes.

Goldman smiles, "Yes?"

I swallow, give a half-nod, wait expectantly for some release papers to sign. There are none. No time?

For Goldman is quick. In mere moments he has drilled into the back of the tooth, poked around, I hear the metallic clank of his hook inside the nerve canal, feel the shock waves spread through my jaw. He presses close. His eyes move behind all three sets of lenses like some wondrous species of tropical fish. "More light!" The Ritter light pours its candle-power into my oral cavity and down my throat. Goldman could sit inside my stomach and read a book.

Now a burner is lit, now the heated air shimmers miragelike, Jean Valentine has assisted in packing my mouth with cotton, bleaching agents are disappearing under my line of vision, Goldman is heating the hook in the flame, now applying, his lips pressed together in intense concentrated pleasure: "We'll steam it in," his lips allow as he applies the heated instrument. "Steam. It. In."

I go lightheaded. Goldman leaving me to bleach, my mouth full of cotton, the Ritter light beaming at my tooth, my throat parched, Jean Valentine gazing at me adoringly.

Goldman holding up the mirror.

"Look!"

"I can't."

Goldman pushes the mirror up in front of me. "We're only starting. But look!"

I look quickly.

Already the tooth has lightened up some. But it is still not too late to stop.

Goldman pats me on the shoulder. "Fine, fine."

He is beaming.

"Tomorrow, same time."

I nod yes, resolving no, I'll call back later and cancel.

•

I spend a bad night. Tossing and turning. Feverish. I avoid mirrors.

I dream the tooth has crumbled out, been pulled out, I wake with a start, I fall back to sleep, I swallow the tooth, I dream I am standing in front of Goldman, I am slowly reaching in and bringing a handkerchief out of my pocket, I open the handkerchief, one corner at a time, like the petals of a flower, Goldman looks, my tooth lies in the center of the handkerchief, Goldman is furious, he....

•

The afternoon session is much like the first. The office is deserted, both Goldman and Jean Valentine have fresh uniforms, Goldman's many lenses are immaculate, the flowers in the vase are again fresh. Goldman is swift. In no time, he has broken through the temporary filling and is at work. I stare dully between Jean Valentine and Goldman. Before the light, their heads make a silhouette like Archie and Veronica sharing a malt. I close my eyes. Something is trying to be remembered. At the end of the session, Goldman, beaming, mirror in hand: "Regardez! Voilà! We're getting there."

•

I spend another bad night.

Then, once more, I am standing before the reception desk. Yet another vaseful of fresh flowers. Snapdragons.

Why, why do I keep returning? What is it? I tap my tongue against the back of my tooth.

"Tooth, is it too late to stop?"

I listen. Tooth remains silent.

Jean Valentine smiles encouragingly at me.

I smile back.

"Oh, it's beautiful already."

I feel my smile collapse.

Jean Valentine pops her ballpoint pen. In, out, in, out: Goldman says the companion tooth is so white it's going to take a lot of bleaching.

Am I only imagining things, or is Jean Valentine softening in gratitude to a man within the confines of Goldman's pale-gold walls who does not yell?

I look Jean Valentine over, once again. She's not bad, not bad. Maybe there's hope. I'll get another look at her legs when she comes out from behind that desk.

I take a short turn, tight with nervousness, around the floor.

Jean Valentine, intuitive geisha of oral hygiene that she is, says, "He won't be but a minute."

From the side room, the one where he keeps his tiny cabinets and trays, where there seem to be enough odd pieces of silver, gold, porcelain, wisdom teeth, molars and assorted curiosities to assemble a mouth of any description for almost any race or species from any period in history or prehistory, from this enclave rises a low whir.

Jean Valentine must see a strange fearful look in my eyes, perhaps she thinks I'm going to bolt; she says, confidingly, soothingly, "Oh, he's just making some jewelry; you know Dr. Goldman, he's never happy unless he's doing something with his hands."

She is suddenly like a wife indulging the idiosyncrasies of hubby.

"Jewelry?"

"It's his hobby. He's so talented. He's just finishing up a piece now."

Jean Valentine sighs wistfully, casting her eyes at the flowers. So she must have gazed after the football captain senior year when she caught sight of him passing the doorway of Oral Hygiene Prep III. Jean Valentine shakes her head and sighs wistfully.

"It's beautiful."

"What?"

"The piece he's working on now. Pure gold. And it's not costing him a red cent. It's made from the leftover fillings from extracted teeth."

I pace some more. I look at my watch. Mother of God! Five minutes early for a dental appointment?

And here is Goldman, one-thirty on the nose, in the doorway, beaming, holding his hand forth, enter.

Goldman always gets me onto the couch fast.

Goldman has broken into the root canal, he has the burner lighted and he and Jean Valentine have in unison shuffled cotton into my mouth like a Vegas blackjack dealer, the hook is clanking around in the canal, when it comes to me.

I make a noise.

Jean Valentine taps Goldman.

"He's making a noise, Dr. Goldman."

"What? What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

Goldman looks like a sleepwalker who's just stepped in a bucket of cold piss.

"He's trying to say something, Dr. Goldman."

Goldman looks down at me. "No, no he's not!"

I squawk--raspy, no-saliva squawk. Pink-mouth squawk. Loud.

Jean Valentine vindicated!

Our eyes meet for a second. Maybe something with this new one, this Jean Valentine.

Goldman disgruntled, composing himself, then patting me on the shoulder. "It's all right, you know it won't hurt. Haven't we proved that?"

I squawk again.

Jean Valentine wants to reach for the drain hooked over my lowers. I can see her fingers twitching.

Goldman concedes me two cotton packs and the drain out.

"What?"

"Hawthorne."

Goldman looking around the room. "Hawthorne?"

"The Birthmark."

"What?"

"You know Hawthorne?"

Goldman looking suspiciously through all three sets of lenses in succession. Is he going to send Jean Valentine out for Hawthorne's chart? "What about him?"

"He wrote a story called The Birthmark. It's about this dude who's got a lady who in all ways is perfect...."

Goldman sighing. Restraining himself. The rush of the flame, the mirage shimmer of heated air above.

"We haven't got time for stories--"

"She's perfect in all ways except she's got a little birthmark on her cheek."

Jean Valentine reaching up and tenuously touching her cheek.

"Make this quick."

"Oh, I am, I will, I am, I'm almost finished. The dude loves her, but he wants her perfect, right? So he makes an elixir and when she drinks it, the birthmark vanishes, and just as it's vanishing, her last breath ebbs away."

Jean Valentine nodding, the saliva shining on her parted lips and teeth.

Before I can add, "Nothing mortal is perfect, dig?" Goldman packs the cotton and drain back into my mouth.

"That stuff doesn't happen here. That's make-believe."

Jean Valentine nodding reassuringly, nodding that it is only decaying enamel and the damaged tooth we are interested in here.

But Jean Valentine looking warm and comely. "I had read that in tenth-grade English. So neat! I love the part where she turns pale at the end."

Goldman boring in. Once my eyes stray over the light and catch part of the Kodak sand beach, but I successfully keep them down.

•

At the end of the session, Goldman draws back. He shakes his head. "White. Whiter! Whiter still!"

He holds up the mirror. Again, I can hardly raise my eyes to the reflection. There seems to be a lot of white in front, all right.

I feel rather lightheaded.

"One more time," Goldman says, "one more time! We'll make it like mother-of-pearl, like the ivory tusk of a young African elephant! One last session!"

•

For the last session, the office is heavily redolent of the orchids on the reception desk, after-shave lotion from Goldman, what I think might be some domestic imitation of Chanel No. 5 from Jean Valentine's heated mammalian self, as well as the springtime fragrance of starch in her uniform, all combining with various pink mouthwashes and the odor of nervous sweat staining my shirt armpits.

Goldman gets to work.

Really, I am quite ill, nauseated and lightheaded.

Suddenly, Goldman draws back. "There! Voilà!"

Cotton and drain plucked from oral cavity, the chalice of pink mouthwash proffered, Goldman holding up the mirror, the room grows lighter and lighter.

•

When I open my eyes, I see colors. The Kodak. Phyllis. Phyllis Goldman. She is smiling down at me. She is moving. I never noticed before how much she is her father's daughter--her dental-frock-blue eyes, the fullness of her round cheeks.

Jean Valentine peering down at me.

"Is he all right?"

Goldman's voice, "All right? Please! All right, that tooth is like mother's milk, like the ivory tusk of a young African elephant."

The colors are moving, it's Phyllis, she smiles, it is Phyllis.

I sit up.

Goldman is gone. Suddenly, he returns from his enclave of thousands of tiny cabinets and spare teeth.

Something flashes gold in his hand.

Jean Valentine's eyes fill with a peculiar mixture of joy and sadness.

"Oh, Dr. Goldman, it's just beautiful. You'd never know from looking that it's made out of old fillings."

Goldman, lips pressed together, takes the drill and inscribes inside the ring, "For Phyllis, Love, Dad," slips a buffer onto the drill, gives the ring a quick burnishing and holds it up to the light, turning it over slowly in his fingers.

Trying to clear my head, I start disengaging myself from the couch.

Goldman, in the most casual of voices, in a voice I have never quite heard him use before, in a voice fairly dripping with tenderness and honey, yet laced with a brace of anxiety, says, "Have you met my daughter, Phyllis? She just dropped in ... for a minute."

I stare up at the bikini girl in the picture. Then at Phyllis. I am still having trouble focusing, but I hear my voice far away, "No, no, I haven't, but I feel like I've known you for years."

Goldman smiles, reaches out for Phyllis' hand and eases the ring onto her finger.

She gives him a kiss high on the cheek. Goldman pats her shoulder.

I'm up out of the couch now. This is the girl in the Kodak all right. She has a perfect white smile. I assume I am looking at a perfect bite as well.

Goldman is looking at us, one to the other, beaming.

Jean Valentine is smiling, sighing.

I see Phyllis in the bikini, though she is in skirt and turtleneck. I will always see Phyllis in Kodak, I am afraid. A Kodak bikini.

Under different circumstances, we might have merrily ravished each other and gone our way without a backward glance.

Now, so confused is she in my mind with Goldman's chins, the folds of his eyelids in deep concentration, the special angle of his nose and nostrils as he bores in, that all I can see, even when looking directly at Phyllis, is Goldman.

Still, still, I wait for a long moment, for some chemistry, some little surge from the DNA coils.

There is none.

It is a Kodak vision, through and through.

Goldman is smiling up at me, his hand on my shoulder.

Jean Valentine is sighing. Phyllis is smiling. What teeth!

I savvy I better do something, and quick, but what?

My mouth has gone dry. No words.

Over their heads, I see the frosted glass panel of the door, the gold letters in reverse: Dr. Goldman, D.D.S. Man, it's a long way off.

I look at Goldman, I look at Jean Valentine, I look at Phyllis. Suddenly, I feel myself starting to smile. I can actually feel the smile. It is perfect, dazzling, white. It is like mother's milk. It is like the ivory tusk of a young African elephant. It is like everything Goldman said it would be.

I nod, bow slightly and head for the door.