[281] Screed City
[281]
03/22/2024 Friday. Papers Box. CRISIS INC HQ. Ridgewood, Brooklyn.
Well, I wasn't going to talk about it, but I can't stop thinking about it and if I ignore it I am just going to give up and never write another Screed as long as I live. We could all be so lucky, I suppose. I HAVE A FUCKING LOOSE TOOTH. I noticed it the other day when I was eating a breakfast taco and a bowl of rabbit pellets. There was a little bit of pain when I chewed on my left side. I tried to ignore it. I used different parts of my jaw and teeth to chew, but it was undeniable. A day went by and I ignored it some more, pretending that I just needed to give my mouth a rest, but how the hell can you give your mouth a fucking rest? And then I ate a slice of pizza and the thing undeniable was no longer deniable. This morning I decided to do the thing I was dreading to do; I tested the little fucker. Sure as shit; a fucking loose goose. It's not funny and there is nothing I can do about it. I don't know how long I have, a month, a week, a few days? One of my top pointy teeth juts down into the middle of the loose goose tooth. Especially when I am eating sending a sensation all the way down to my jaw. I mean, it is taking all of my effort not to just yank the fucker out as we speak. Be done with it. But because I am still hoping against hope that somebody out there can save me from whatever it is that I did wrong to get here, I haven't yanked it out yet.
I suppose I should go to the dentist. I am laughing HA HA. I have been to the dentist what, seven times, eight times in the last year? Since last March? I have had five cleanings, a deep cleaning where they literally removed tartar the size of rocks from my teeth, I have met with two different periodontists and countless dentists and hygienists and still, I am about to loose a fucking tooth! I can't believe it. I have spent thousands of dollars countless hours of brushing and flossing and rinsing and flossing and brushing and flossing and brushing and rinsing, yet to no avail! I don't know what to say about it. Don't fuck up like I did! I don't know exactly what I did to fuck up, but don't do it!
So, that is what is on my mind right now. It makes it hard to focus. To have a sardonic attitude about life. It's one of those things though, I don't, and have not asked for much aside from some sort of semblance of stability, you know? something to stop the bleeding as David Yow would scream in your face. I have changed my habits and dedicated and diligized myself to a less than stellar future, but at least a future where things don't denigrate at such an alarming pace, yet here I am, getting the same results anyway. I mean, I know who I am. I like to drink. I smoked for quite a long time. I slip up still and find myself smoking, but if none of it matters, if nothing I do makes a difference, I mean, it is possible that I made things worse by going to the dentist in the first place. Maybe all those tooth barnacles were holding my teeth in place? Or better yet, if there was never any action I could have taken anyway to ward off the decay that was certainly going to be beset upon me, maybe I didn't need to spend thousands of dollars on nonsense and countless hours scrubbing the ivory banisters on the Titanic? I don't know. I don't fucking know. It's not like I love flossing or brushing my teeth. I have always obsessed about it because I grew up poor, lived poor and will die poor, so my only chance at survival was self-mediation, but what if that doesn't matter, didn't ever matter? Do you know what I mean? Like why bother? That is what I mean. I don't mean that in like some sort of nihilistic who gives a good god-damn about life because it all sucks anyway, what I mean is; all the worry in the world gets you nowhere when you are doomed to fail to begin with. Why not enjoy the ride?
I don't mind loosing a tooth. I don't. I have been waiting for one of my front teeth to fall out for years now if not decades. I broke the thing getting pulled behind a bike on a rope while riding a skateboard when I was like twelve and some shitty dentist in Wyoming glued some crappy fake chunk to it not long afterwards and that lasted until sometime my twenties when I grinded my teeth so hard in my sleep that I heard a snap and woke up swallowing the thing. Ever since then I just assumed time would catch up with me and that tooth would turn black and flop around like a rotten piece of useless mud flap until it dropped out, stinking and punky. Yet somehow that hasn't happened. There is still time though.
There is still time though. I think that is my point. Time. Life. Living life. Something is wrong with my teeth. My gums specifically. Maybe it is genetic, maybe something else is wrong with my body. Maybe I am just a victim of the American health system. I don't know. I need to figure it out. Everyone knows that once you are older than forty five life is suddenly in decline. They know this from actuary tables and what not. I am in no way complaining that I got a bad deal. Aside from my gums and soon to be one tooth less the normal amount of teeth, I mean, I could put an ostrich in a headlock tomorrow and maybe even tie its neck in a knot I am so strong. My hair is so long and luxurious that people on the street stop me and ask me to sell it to them to make magical brushes and I tell them to get lost because I know for a fact that they don't make wireless clippers and how the hell are you going to shave my hair off on the street if you can't plug your clippers in? And then I spit a few teeth at them and they run away as I whip my glorious locks in their direction like Glen Danzig.
I mean, I am staunch. What is it that Professor Curly called me the other day? Burly? Not burly. Sturdy but not sturdy, we were talking about being sick and she was telling me that if I was sick I was the, I can't remember what she said, it doesn't matter, the point is that, yes, I am very strong and I can wrestle an ostrich but also I am about to lose a tooth, and once that tooth goes, I hate to tell you, it is not good what happens next, but really, I don't know how much I care. I might not be a nihilist, but I am still an American, and the American healthcare system has exactly nothing to offer me. I mean, I am more curious about what happens in your mouth when an adult tooth comes out than I am with how to fix the problem if tells you anything. Like is there a huge hole that gets filled up with hotdog chunks? Is it like that woman I talked to on the street all those years ago in China Town who had scratched a hole in her skull where I could see her fucking brain? Her actual brain. Through the hole she scratched through her skull. You know? Do the hot dog chunks go up the jaw bone and then up around the interior of the brain and then out the brain hole you scratched in your head? I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Or maybe that is a dentist's problem.
[insert Agustin/Jake reading thing]
[insert Jesus Lizard stop the bleeding]