January 4, 2010
My face is a workbench…
I’m lying on my back with a jagged metal rod sticking out of the side of my mouth. I blink once, hard and heavy, trying to confiscate the tear from my lower eyelid. It won’t move. Sweeping my tongue over a metal loop, I cringe as I slightly cut my tongue. The tear grows bigger, the effects of the novocaine taking over, but it still won’t fall.
I start to twitch, my mouth wide open, moving, looking as if I am trying to chew on air. The dental hygienist catches me.
I burst out laughing, knowing she thinks I just crawled out of the jungle:
Me Tarzan.
Shaking my head a little, recovering from my spectacle, I try to release the tear from its prison:
This caged bird just won’t sing.
He, the dental doctor, pulls out a drill. I squeeze my eyes together waiting for the pain to take over. I have been here many times, as recent as a month ago for a pesky root canal, the novocaine quickly giving out before the process is over. I would grab onto the sides of the chair and squeeze my way through the torture. It only lasted for a few seconds, minutes at best. I can hear my mom screaming in my head, making her declaration to her objection to dental agony:
“Pain, BOY! I don’t pay for pain. I wish I would feel some pain. I will get out of that chair and walk out.”
I begin to laugh as I put together images of my mother double back-slapping the hygienist for scrapping her gums too hard and later calling the office to let them know:
“Excuse me, I don’t pay for pain. Not now, not EVER!”
He cuts the drill off. No pain. I sigh in relief, my eye now twitching as the numbing agent creeps up my face. I can feel it in my cheek. It’s cold. My mind immediately harmonizes:
Cold! Cold! Would you light my candle?
I have another laughing fit. The dental doctor moves away again and I looked towards the hygienist and think:
I have got to stop living my life through RENT songs. It is bad enough that my friend was asking me to come see “The Princess and the Frog” texting:
“Can you make it?”
I texted back:
“Just haven’t eaten much today, at least the room stopped spinning anyway…”
She responded:
“Wow, that doesn’t sound good… it was sold out anyway.”
The dental doctor walks in to begin his work, interrupting, yet another, one of my mental musicals.
He tightens something in my mouth and steals away for a quick second to release another patient from his chair. I welcome the break; I need to get this pesky tear out of my eye. It’s starting to tickle my eyelash. I move my mouth and eye together, trying to release the tear. I take another look at the hygienist:
I know she thinks I have tourettes manifesting itself in facial tics.
The radio is humming in the background, lending a soothing effect to the less secure emotions. The song; however, is annoying me. I don’t know the words and I don’t want to ride in whatever train they are advertising. I’d rather walk through a pool of acid in footie pajamas.
The dentist is at work and I am slipping in and out of insanity as two voices add to my anxiety of wanting to leave the chair. They steal my attention:
“…Wilmington Drama League is holding a Season’s of Love Campaign.”
A second voice chimes in:
“They are selling bricks!”
I donkey kick in the chair, interrupting any unoccupied ear:
“Hey, that’s the show I am in. That’s my show. I’m in that! Me, I’m doing that!”
As I’m jumping in the seat the metal jiggling in my mouth scrapes against my open tooth. I looked like a kid in a candy store with my grown up feet hanging over the bottom of the elongated chair. The dental hygienist is startled into my excitement:
“What! Where! I didn’t hear it?”
I turn:
“RENT! At the Wilmington Drama League. It’s happening at the end of this month.”
FORGET REGRET... or life is yours to MISS!!!
She smiles, endearingly. I wait for her to grab a lollipop and pat me on the head. My excitement is youth-thifying me.
The voices finish:
“This is WSTW…”
I sink back into my chair and smile, only the left side my face responds as the right is chemically paralyzed. I toss my head back into an ocean of accomplishments and joy. The entire audition through to the rehearsal processes skip through my mind as I relish in the new faces I have grown to know and miss in their absence. I finish with the main director’s image:
I HAVE TO TELL HIM!
I breeze past the receptionist, smiling, wondering how ridiculous I look with only half a face reacting. I imagine Quasimodo in the HHHHHunchback of Notre Dame. I can feel the drool creeping out, I slurp it up:
How embarrassing!
THE MAGIC HAPPENS IN 25 DAYS!!!
Opening Night –Friday, January 29, 2010 (8:00pm)
Saturday, January 30, 2010 (8:00pm)
Sunday, January 31, 2010 (2:00pm)
Friday, February 5, 2010 (8:00pm)
Saturday, February 6, 2010 (8:00pm)
Sunday, February 7, 2010 (2:00pm)
Friday, February 12, 2010 (8:00pm)
Closing Night – Saturday, February 13, 2010 (8:00pm)
How are you gonna pay for RENT?
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