I flew my uncle for his now semi-annual check-up with his dermatologist. I also flew one of our ranch hands to an endodontist for a root canal.
The old local dentist, a white man with family ties in the area, who retired recently, used to do root canals and whatever else you needed, but the new dentist, a Korean woman, does not. There is a traveling endodontist (no, really) who swings by every whipstitch, as my grandmother would have said, but he is booked up months in advance. I honestly don't get that -- if you need a root canal you are in some nasty pain: how could you wait months to get that fixed? I guess if ya gotta, ya gotta.
Anyway, we found our man an endodontist in Spokane who would take him right away and I flew him there first before taking my uncle back to his appointment. The weather was nasty and I decided to take the King Air rather than the Baron. It was like up and down and there we were, about 45 minutes block to block, hitting FL230 for about a dozen or so minutes, trucking along at 310 knots, blowing through about a hundred gallons of go juice, as dad called Jet-A. Just one of the employee perks of working for Ranch Wanda, lol. White glove treatment for the calloused hand.
I thought about how a dentist deciding to retire cost the people he served so much money. If I hadn't flow him, my man would have had to drive to Spokane, hours on the road, probably had to have gotten a motel for the night and driven home the next day, losing a day of work, so gasoline cost, fast food or restaurant meals, motel, wear and tear on the car, lost wages .... And that was just one person. Imagine all the other people who had to go out of town for dentistry and all the lost income to the area.
Then there is something else lost besides money. The old dentist knew his patients, often knew their parents and grandparents, had treated them for not just years, but decades. I remembered him from when I was a kid. It was not scary to go to him. He was friendly, chatted with you about this and that, your mom or brother, what his son was doing, the kid who won the roping contest. He even knew the names of people's dogs. The office was full of chatter and gossip, jokes and laughter. So it was kind of fun to get your teeth taken care of by him.
But the new person -- and don't get me wrong, the community is lucky to have a dentist and appreciates that -- but this new person, well, it's different. She's competent, no doubt. But there is no small talk. All the old staff are gone and the way it works now is a person does the preliminary stuff like checking your blood pressure, reviewing any changes to your health, going over your chart and so forth. If you need work done, then the dentist comes in, doesn't even say hello, the only communication is directly related to the treatment you are undergoing, and when she's done she leaves, doesn't say anything, just leaves. It's kind of weird. She has an assistant do everything else. But she is fast. Zip, zip. No pauses to talk about the car wreck Wade Scofield's daughter's boyfriend got into last Friday on the way back from dropping off the log splitter he fixed for Jack Spratt's cousin Kevin when a deer jumped out in front of him on that curve just past the old Dodge place and he swerved to avoid it and ran off the road almost hitting the same tree that Dave Miller crashed into and killed himself when he missed the curve coming back drunk from that tavern that the county sheriff had to shut down out at Three Corners because it was home to some sporting ladies. One of them was Louise Hixenbaugh, remember her? She got in a terrible fight with her husband --what was his name? Sam Brixton, that's it; he was up from Gulchville, the Gulchville Brixtons, a bad bunch, all of them, if you ask me -- and ran off with Jed Cranston who had the feed store next to the old Gulf gas station, but that didn't last. Oh, she was a pretty one. Did I...? Well, I tell no tales on myself. Anyway, ol' Dave was quite the character. I remember one time ....
The Korean lady dentist takes the last half of December and the first half of January off to go back to Korea. You get the sense that we are not really real to her. If you know what I mean. We are just dollar signs. It's good to have a local dentist, but.... Ya know? Sigh. Can somebody take me back to before?
My uncle was pretty cheerful before his visit to his dermatologist, but was subdued after. He needs to see an ophthalmologist. There's a discoloration on one of his eyes that needs to be checked out. He warned me not to get old because there was always something wearing out or breaking. I felt bad that he wasn't feeling randy and feisty as he usually does. I'd gotten used to that.
I wanted to make him feel better so I thought of something, hesitated, and then told him about the, um, gentleman's service shoppe I had blundered into on one of our previous visits to town. He perked right up so I asked if he wanted to go and he gave me an enthusiastic yes, so we went looking for it. I wasn't sure if I remembered exactly where it was, but we found it and he strode right in. I actually thought when I mentioned it that he would decline and we'd just have a bit of risque banter as we usually did. Even as we were looking for it I thought if we found it he wouldn't.... But he did. He did.
As I watched him go, I thought how strange it was that at his age he still had the overpowering urge, the need, to engage in sexual congress. What was the point? Why was he, was any man, I guess, whatever their age, willing, eager, to spend hundreds of dollars for three or four minutes of this variety of pleasure, culminating in a couple of seconds of...whatever a man feels when he ejaculates. Good, I guess. I get it. The Big O. I suppose it's just the innate urge to reproduce programed into us by our genes. As long as we are alive we are compelled to try to reproduce. The reason we exist as biological organisms is to pass on our genes. Richard Dawkins laid this all out back in the Seventies in his book The Selfish Gene. Throw that in with the more or less contemporary Sociobiology by E.O. Wilson and you've got a pretty dismaying glimpse at this old world of ours.
According to Wilson, an organism's evolutionary success is measured by the extent to which its genes are represented in the next generation. Period. That's it. Every human behavior from altruism to aggression is dedicated to that end in mindless biological determinism. We are just gene machines. Free will is an illusion in a soulless, material world. Thus an 80-year-old man must mate with a female in a last attempt to spread his genes into the future. Those genes drive his behavior, not his free will.
You doubt I really had all those thoughts in the few seconds it took my uncle to leave my side and walk through the door of that whorehouse? I did. In a kaleidoscopic flash. That and much more. My stupid brain trying again to hurl me into dismay, depression and despair. (Of course, I looked up the quote later to verify it.)
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| Wanda Kosakiewicz |
Someone described Sartre as looking like something hanging off the outside of Notre Dame. But Camus looked like a Gallic version of Humphrey Bogart. Um...I guess. Kind of. But he was like totally cool, man. One look from him and I would have flopped on my back, legs spread, hips raised, waiting for him to wrap us both in his trenchcoat. He wouldn't have had to rip my bodice. I would have ripped it for him. Haha. Kidding. He's not my type. Neither is Bogart for that matter. Sterling Hayden in The Asphalt Jungle is more my kind of guy.
Now I'm thinking of that song from Easy Rider where someone sings, "Don't Bogart that joint." What did that mean? I understand each word, but the sentence baffles me.I digress. From what? Um....
Anyway, after a while, my uncle strutted into the coffee shop wearing a grin the Cheshire cat would have envied. Spotting me, he eased into my booth, patted my hand and just sat there smiling at me.
"What?" I asked.
"What, indeed," he said, "what what indeed."
"I take it you enjoyed yourself."
"Two. Two mints in one," he said.
"What? You mean you --"
"Yup. Two of the most gorgeous gals."
"Two? But you're like 80."
"Not yet, Wanda, don't add years."
"Well, you're pretty --"
"I came in both of them! Twice I did come!"
I looked around the diner. "Keep your voice down, for crying out loud."
"I want the world to know!"
"The world doesn't need to know."
"Yes it does! Oh, yes, it does!" He started to stand up.
"Will you sit down! Control yourself."
The waitress came over and asked if he wanted to see a menu. He asked if they had steak. She said they had a roast beef and mashed potato special. Or a meatloaf and mashed potato special. He asked which she recommended. She said the meatloaf was made from day-old roast beef. He ordered the roast beef and a beer. She said they didn't serve alcoholic drinks, so he said fine, coffee. She called him dearie and honey and he called her sweetie and toots. No, really. Toots.
When she swished away, his gaze following her, he looked back at me, patted my hand again and said, "Seriously, Wanda, thank you. You know what a man needs. I feel great now. I could beat the world."
"Okay, but don't tell mom. Please don't tell mom. She'd kill me."
"And me, too. This is our secret, Wanda girl."
"So, I guess you'll be wanting to come back?"
"You betcha!"
"Maybe they have a customer reward program. Ten visits and you get one free."
"Is that how you'd run the place?"
"Honestly? No. Wouldn't be any need. But I'd sell souvenirs of your visit."
"Like what?"
"Photos, I guess. Panties, stockings, lacy bras, heels. Buy 'em wholesale and sell them for a pretty penny."
"I'd buy them. Got any of yours you want to sell?"
"Oh, cut it out, you old goat."
"Just asking. I know guys..."
"I bet you do."
"... and I heard about the guy you give shoes to."
"Crap. That was supposed to be a secret. No such thing, I guess."
"So how did you two start that?"
"Well, since he blabbed I will, too." And I told him the whole story, which I've written about before. He laughed a good hearty laugh.
"The thing is, though, now that I'm doing this for him, I can't stop. You know? That's what being considerate and non-judgemental gets you. Into a bind. I should have read him the riot act from the get-go."
"You want me to tell him to lay off?"
"Would you?"
"Sure. If you want me to."
"Let me think about it. I don't want him to get mad and quit or something."
About this time I remembered root canal guy and checked my messages. Nothing from him so I texted him. He fired right back that he was done with the endodontist and had gone shopping at Nordstrom's to get his wife and kids some things and when were we going to pick him up. I said meet us at the airport in about two hours. If you're hungry we can all eat at Frank's.
The waitress had put the bill down on our table a bit before, a hint for us to get moving and open up the spot for other customers. I pushed it to unky. He gave me the old arched eyebrow but coughed up and we made tracks for our plane, leaped into the sky and headed for KSFF. Once there we met our passenger and caught an Uber to Frank's diner. Unc got his steak there with fries, he still having an appetite from his day's activities. I had a BLT with potato salad and Mr. Tooth settled for a meatloaf sandwich on untoasted white bread and mashed potatoes. Both the men had two beers each, local microbrews. I had iced tea. Then we skedaddled for home, enjoying a lovely sunset above the clouds.
After a few minutes they both fell silent. I glanced back. They were asleep and I had the sky to myself.
