Baum Shelter
Going to the dentist has long been a favorite activity of mine, which is a weird sentence coming from a guy who fears-slash-detests doctors. (I’ve gone for a single physical since college.) I took a trip to see The Baumer yesterday—his nickname a friendly, approved shortening of his surname as well as a nod to the character Richie in The Royal Tenenbaums—excited to welcome the hands of a man I see every one hundred and eighty days into my mouth.
After waiting in the lobby for ten minutes—scrutinizing The Baumer’s framed photographs and paintings hanging on the wall—a foreign face called my name. Undeterred by the surprise, I followed Olivia to my chair and wasted no time chatting while “Uptown Funk” played.
“You guys are kicking out the jams today! If you ever get a chance to see him in concert, you gotta do it,” I told her before her gloved fingers entered my oral cavity. (My desire to converse at the dentist is illogical but unwavering.)
“I saw Lady Gaga at the casino,” she told me after a brief Bruno Mars discussion. “She was great! I heard she’s putting out a new album this year.”
“I hope so. I saw her at AT&T Park in San Francisco on that same tour.”
Of course, I felt like I was trying to be a one-upper.
“You go to a lot of concerts, huh?”
“Oh yeah. The last one was Mariah Carey’s Christmas show at the casino.”
“Ooh! I love her. I saw her last spring.”
“Did she play all the hits?”
“Yep!” Olivia told me while the left side of my face involuntarily twitched. “She was incredible! How was the Christmas show?”
“Excellent. Costume changes, tight band, her voice was flawless. I expected nothing less. She’s a pro.”
“Have you seen Beyoncé?”
“I saw her when I was at the Super Bowl. The halftime show. It was only twelve minutes, but it was cool.”
“Man! That was a GREAT show.”
Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” began playing.
“She puts on a great live show too,” I mentioned. “As you can tell, I’ve got a thing for female pop stars.”
“Who doesn’t?”
Somehow the topic of our shared hometown arose—I skipped sipping any water to maximize my speaking time—specifically the grammar school we both attended along with the decaying shopping mall.
“Didn’t someone buy the mall?”
“Yeah. It won’t survive through the end of the decade. They bought the land where Figaro (an Italian restaurant) is too.”
“You know, I lived in Enfield for twenty-one years but never went there.”
“I bet you went to Olive Garden a hundred times though, right?”
“Growing up, it was, like, the best restaurant there was!”
“I was the exact same way! Yet if Enfield has a fancy restaurant, or one close to being fancy, it’s Figaro. You gotta go one time.”
Unable to get in too many words during the toothpasting portion that concluded the hour, I couldn’t help but ask Olivia a strange question.
“How would you feel if I stared at your eyes the entire time?”
“I actually can’t really see your eyes because these goggles focus my vision so much.”
“I asked The Baumer once and he told me how a handful of patients do it. Said it’s awkward as hell.”
Not yielding the silliness I hoped, I moved on.
“I’ve got twenty ounces of iced coffee in the car. I can’t wait to undo all the work you’ve just done.”
“Do you drink a lot of coffee?”
“Forty to sixty ounces a day. I used to have a severe diet soda addiction. It’s how I get my caffeine now.”
“There’s nothing better than a Diet Coke from McDonald’s!”
“Specifically from McDonald’s?”
“The. Best. I could go for one now.”
Olivia informed me that The Baumer would be in shortly to inspect her work on my vestibule. I grabbed a business card from my wallet to give him—he’s told me for years that I should be doing voiceover work on the radio—hoping he’d be excited to hear about my book.
“How’s it look in there?” he asked Olivia upon walking into the room.
“She called it the greatest mouth in the history of teeth,” I told him, beating her to the inevitable accolades she was poised to shower on my face hole.
“I wanted to give you this,” I said while handing him the card. “I finally wrote a book.”
“Oh man! I’m gonna get it! I’ll put it in the lobby with the other local author books once I finish it.”
“There’s a lotta cussing in it. No sex or violence though.”
“Well, maybe you can get those in for the next one.”
“I’m recording the audiobook in a room in my house currently. You’ll finally get to hear my voice on tape. I’m also reading at the Enfield Library on March 4th at 6:30.”
“Damn. I’m busy drilling teeth at 6:30.”
“I’m hoping some unsuspecting old people show up. I wanna offend the shit out of them.”
I stood up and smashed my head on a light.
“Are you okay?” Olivia asked.
“Yeah,” I said, concerned with more pressing matters. “Seriously…a Diet Coke from McDonald’s?”
The Baumer walked me to the receptionist area to make my next appointment and fill out the postcard they mail me a few weeks before my visit. (“This is the only piece of mail I receive that I write to myself.”) I grabbed a copy of the book from my car and offered to let him have it if he wanted to shave the total off my bill or pay me when I returned around Labor Day.
“How much is it?”
“I sell it for fifteen bucks in person. It’s easier because I don’t carry any cash.”
“Wait here.”
He pushed open a door sporting a taped DO NOT EXIT sign, went to his car, and returned with two crumpled bills.
“You gotta market this thing,” he told me. “Find a way to get social media followers or whatever people do.”
“I’m an old man at heart. I’m just gonna keep doing what I can and hope for a break. I know it’s gonna happen. Just gotta stay positive.”
“Good luck. Can’t wait to read it.”
Fighting the urge to fall off the diet soda wagon, I drove home while drinking my coffee. I worried a little about all the horrible things The Baumer would read that had left my mouth over the years, the same mouth he’d spent so much time protecting. Then I realized how proud he’d be to have preserved the lower part of my face long enough to hear my NPR-ready monotone spit out that filth one more time.