Monday, April 11, 2008
Mexican Teeth
080411 0845 PST
I saw them up ahead, blatantly assessing the border traffic coming in to Mexico, four older teens that looked tough enough to leave alone and a couple of hombres in their twenties that looked even rougher. One of them almost imperceptively glanced at me before looking over at a stocky thug who was away from the group. The Thug started walking toward the same turnstiles as I was. Sure enough, I could feel his attention as I approached the ten-foot-high, sealed gates. His pace was too slow. I've seen it before; he was pacing me from the front, probably planning to mug me as soon as I got through the rotating bars, so he could throw my money (or whatever he hoped to get) back to his boys on the other side of the irreversible barrier. Maybe he would have pushed me into a van and held me for ransom. The Federales wouldn't care; as long as they get their cut. I was beginning to regret telling my assistant Jeff not to come along. I could use a guy like him right now. He'd been through some pretty bad scrapes too. But he had split after dropping me off on the US side in a parking lot I knew well, from spending many hours trying to gather some sleep or sober up in whatever car I'd had at the time. I won't ever miss the blistering, Mexican sun; amplified through the windshield, drying and cracking the corners of my lips on hung-over mornings too inebriated on whatever, yet prudent enough not to attempt the drive back to San Diego.
In the past year or two, Tijuana has been getting very dangerous with increasing tourist abductions; the police being stripped of their weapons; drug cartels stepping up the trafficking and violence, and the army trying to enforce the law. Even many Southern California Mexicans are staying away from TJ. Soon I knew why. I've been lurking around the backstreets and the alleyways pretty much my whole life and I have rarely seen a maneuver as blatant as these street kids were trying to pull on me as I came toward the taxi stand just on the other side of the border. The FBI says 26 San Diego residents were abducted last year, that's only San Diegans! I couldn't find out how many others in a brief internet search but someone was estimating 6 a month. WOW! However, I didn't know about this on the morning of April 11, 2008, as I sauntered across the border looking as casual as I could. After all I've been to TJ many times before and for much more nefarious intent than a cheap root canal and a twenty dollar extraction or two.
I've been hearing about Mexican dental work for a while now. For years I've needed to get a broken root canal fixed. Recently, two old fillings cracked and I knew I'd have to get them taken care of before I have to leave on the Appalachian Trail for four months. I'm sure there are plenty of "Appalachian Dentists" out there but the thought of using a misaddressed ice skate to extract a tooth and the subsequent recovery while trying to carry a pack 20 miles a day was unthinkable. I could only imagine the vile poultice I'd have to cram in the socket that came from 'ole Grandma Jackson over in the holler, up the ways.
I'm a Veteran; a US Marine for ten years. I served in the Gulf and the Adriatic Sea in '95. For some reason, the VA will provide us Vets with healthcare but not dental, even when they were the ones who never finished my root canal in the first place. My End Of Service was up before it got crowned and of course they lost my dental records on out-processing. I see an awful lot of yellow ribbons out there and if someone REALLY wants to do something for a Marine, pay for his dental expenses and then I'll believe you.
Anyway, after consulting with a really nice old lady after a gig in La Jolla about where SHE goes to get her teeth done, I decided it was time to take the chance. Especially since the estimated costs would be a ¼ of what I would have paid, even with insurance. Unsurprisingly, I don't have Dental, so OFF TO MEXICO! I don't need to be told twice by some rich, old lady that you can get great, inexpensive dental work done in Mexico. "Washington Dental," she told me, "that's where I go." It turns out that Washington Dental even has a Wiki, which bolstered my confidence, and after doing some research I decided to go for it. "Mexican Teeth!" I said to myself, "Now maybe the coyotes won't eat me." I once heard a series of stories from the wild west that coyotes won't eat dead Mexicans.
So, the Thug was pacing me from the front and I wasn't sure what to do; but I knew he wasn't alone and I would have to walk back past his crew to avoid going through the turnstiles. I decided to bank on the chaos move and turned sharply to walk behind him and past the lookouts. I glanced as innocuously as I could at them and they relaxed and I knew they had let it go. They probably had a specific set up that they ran and only when the circumstance was just right did they strike. That's what I would do. I breathed a sigh of relief but didn't really relax; I upped my pace without running and jumped in the first cab on the sidewalk going toward Revolucion.
"Calle Segundo por favor! El Dentisto!" I quipped, I didn't know the address. Under the circumstances, I didn't want to pull out my $400 Smartphone in public view.
We weaved through Third-World Traffic, past no less than thirty dental clinics. Funny, I had never noticed before. As we pulled up to Washington dental I was a little disturbed at the condition of the building. I was still buzzed from adrenaline and a little unsure of the neighborhood. As it turns out, I had chosen the older clinic. There is a new state-of-the-art facility on Revolucion.
I paid the fare and ducked in, not wanting to linger on the run-down street and was greeted by an empty waiting room and a male receptionist who spoke excellent English. I explained that I had made the appointment the day before and they had been waiting for me. The place was clean and I was introduced to my dentist. We'll call him "Doctor G". He was cool, and I spoke enough Spanish to talk to him during initial examination: "breathe through your NOSE!" he snipped at me. It was a no frills operation, they put a thin lead blanket on me for x-rays but neither him nor his assistant left the room when they zapped me. In fact, I helped to hold the film in place with my finger… several times. After the first round of x-rays I was briefed by the receptionist on the procedure. I was still nervous but what the hell, let's do it! It turned out I needed two extractions and a root canal. I said "OK let's go!" and he shot me up. Although I was in a mild freak-out mode (in the Marines we call this "Pucker Factor Three") I needn't have been. I felt nothing. Actually, I can't remember a dental appointment when I haven't been at least at Pucker Factor Three. The last time I was at a dentist was this Navy Dentist that didn't believe I could feel him scraping around in my tooth. It was like he was paying for the Novocain himself, the bastard! "Doctor G" just shot me up like it was cool. I couldn't even feel my earlobe. The assistant was singing gently to the radio which was playing modern Mexican pop as they chatted in Spanish about how she likes to go to karaoke bars and how he should come and yadda yadda. I was trying so hard not to laugh, seeing myself from above: Former Marine turned Jazz singer in an old dental chair, Mexican Brittney Spears playing in the background, being worked over by a nonchalant Mexican dentist and his flirtatious assistant who was dotting my mouth with the suction thing in between singing along with the radio, "No estoy loca, no estoy loca!" SLURP SLURP! I mean, she may or may not have been flirtatious; but my Spanish is limited so the bad translation in my head was coming up with ridiculous scenarios. Smiling or laughing was not an option with this guy and his drill in my mouth, but I had to let the occasional chuckle out anyway. Once they found out I was a singer she stopped singing for a while. She must have thought my hysterical outbursts were in response to her voice, which by the way, was rather nice. I told her so. Just then, Dr. G redoubled his efforts on my mouth. To quote Speedy Gonzales, "aye yay yay!"
The work took about two hours and one of the extractions felt like my jaw was going to pop out of the socket. I muffled exclamations and the assistant started rubbing my chin for some reason. The only purpose this served was to distract me as I wondered what the hell she was thinking I was complaining about that she was rubbing my goatee around in circles. The tooth finally came out (the Mexican people are nothing if not diligent) and although it was frustrating to not be able to communicate to this dentist in English, I realized, you can't ever really talk to a dentist anyway. It's tough enough to articulate in my native tongue with gauze and spacers and a half-numb mouth; but to articulate in Spanish? Forget about it! Try to say "mi quijada está estallando!" or "es dificil desplanar me lingua" in Spanish, with a pair of pliers on the furthest-back molar and a knee in your chest. I resigned myself to my fate and let him do his thing. They shrinky-dinked a plastic cap on my tooth and told me to come back in two weeks for the impressions.
"Dr. G" gave me a prescription for antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory (I refused the painkillers on account of my alcoholism) and the pharmacy was only a block away. Forty dollars later I was all set, root canal and extractions from phone call to pharmacy in 24 hours. I realize this kind of thing isn't for everyone; but I have a feeling all my dental work will be done in Mexico from now on. Next time I'm bringing a crew though. I'm not taking the chance that those guys at the border have adjusted their technique and closed the gap in their ambush. I know the key to staying safe is simple: don't look like a lucrative target, or look savvy enough that you are too much trouble for them to mess with. There's an old adage I'm fond of saying, I can't remember where I heard it but it applies here: "You don't have to be faster than the lion, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you." I'm not sure that method applies when there isn't much enforcement going on; nevertheless, I'll be going back for my crown in a couple weeks and I'll let you know how it went. If you don't hear from me, I'd like to encourage you to contribute to the Williams Brothers Adventure Foundation Inc
www.wbafinc.org and maybe they'll have enough to bankroll my release. Unless of course, I get abducted by Gloria Trevi; in which case, to quote Sir Galahad in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "you can just leave me there to face the peril."
David "Williams" Patrone
Raconteur
Jazz Singer
President
Williams Brothers Adventure Foundation
Website:
http://www.brotherproof.comBlog:
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http://www.youtube.com/wbaf1Myspace:
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http://www.davidpatrone.com
