Preferance with Polunin

— One should protect not only their honor from a young age but also their teeth! —

When I was about 17 years old, I possessed not only excellent health but also perfect teeth. I looked after them like everyone else in the mid-70s, brushing them every morning with the salty-tasting «Pomarin.» One morning, I noticed something that looked like a cavity. Of course, even back then we knew about dental diseases and especially their consequences, so instead of going to lectures, I rushed to the dental clinic.

It was my first visit to a dentist, so everything felt somewhat interesting yet a bit frightening. In the morning, the clinic was almost empty, and I took a seat in the nearest chair. To my right, they were working on the tooth of a pretty girl who endured the execution of the electric drill quite calmly. However, just the sound of it instilled a sense of uncertainty in me — I had a feeling I wasn’t going to enjoy this.

A young dentist approached me, listened to my concerns about the cavity, and asked me to open my mouth. Praising my teeth, he reassured me that it was just a tiny spot he could remove without any trouble. It would be over in a minute, and I wouldn’t feel even a hint of discomfort. The doctor smiled, saying I didn’t even need teeth whitening, showing in every way that his job was practically done.

Since we were already at it, I asked him to check all my teeth — just in case another spot was hiding somewhere — and opened my mouth again. Examining them with a small mirror, the doctor found a black dot on one of the molars and decided to remove it with the drill. I had never felt anything more painful in my life. When the drill touched that black dot, I practically jumped in the chair as if stung. The doctor looked at me and asked me not to be nervous or twitch, as he wasn’t doing anything «serious» yet. I immediately wondered what would happen when he actually started doing something «serious.»

When the drill touched the black spot a second time, I couldn’t bear it and flinched again. At that point, the damn quack pointed to the calmly sitting «Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya» to my right and shamed me, saying I was a man but behaving worse than a girl. At 17, that phrase hits like a ton of bricks. I gripped the armrests and opened my mouth wide.

What followed resembled torture. I imagine I felt exactly what those undergoing «interrogation with prejudice» at the NKVD felt — the ones who confessed to working for seven or eight intelligence agencies, assassinating Kirov, Lenin, and Julius Caesar simultaneously, and most importantly, personally planning to drown the world revolution in the blood of our dear and beloved Joseph Stalin.

Then came darkness and loss of consciousness. I came to from the sharp smell of ammonia. «Kosmodemyanskaya» on the right was still holding out bravely; looking at her, I felt a mix of admiration for her and shame for myself. The chief doctor, who had come running, diagnosed pulpitis. Seeing how pale I was, he started yelling at the «rising star,» saying that such a tooth should never be drilled without anesthesia — that a human is not an animal and the clinic is not the Gestapo. After giving me two shots of Novocaine and some Valerian drops, they drilled a bit more, put arsenic in the tooth, placed a temporary filling, and told me to return in three days.

Leaving the clinic, I breathed a sigh of relief, clicked my Novocaine-numbed jaw, and rejoiced that it was all over. In reality, that was just the prologue — the real story was yet to come!

The Inquisitor’s Return

Three days passed. The arsenic was supposed to have done its job, and I returned to the same dental clinic. What a difference there was between the first time I whistled through the door of this «charming» establishment and today. As soon as I opened the door, my legs turned to lead, blood hammered in my temples like a sledgehammer, and my pulse was that of a sprinter at the finish line. When my nose caught that specific, now-hated «dentistry» smell, I thought:

— What if I just live with this temporary filling for the rest of my life? And when it falls out — I’ll just die without surrendering!

But there was a lingering taste of arsenic in my mouth, and I didn’t particularly want to die poisoned like Napoleon.

As luck would have it, there was no line again. Approaching the chair, my legs buckled and I flopped into it, reassuring myself that the revolutionary Kamo had endured worse. My «inquisitor» approached with a satanic smile, and I realized there would be no mercy. But, as a Caucasian man, I decided not to give up.

— Well? How are we? — By your prayers! — I replied. — Let’s open the little mouth and take a look. — You’re awfully tender today, maybe we should move this to tomorrow? — I said, my voice dropping.

The young apprentice-inquisitor looked at me like a boa constrictor. An internal voice whispered: — I’m with you, don’t funk it! I didn’t answer it, but I thought: — Sure, the internal voice is my friend, but these are my teeth!

To smooth over the awkward situation, I suddenly blurted out: — Have you been practicing? — I’ve spent these past few days drilling teeth with only your tooth on my mind.

Two objects glinted in his hands: a mirror and… a curved needle.

— Now, shall we open the little mouth? Remembering the previous pain, my soul sank somewhere into the region of my bladder, causing appropriate urges; my voice vanished. I felt a large bead of sweat slide from my temple into my ear. The feeling of helplessness was so profound that the expression «Mom, I want to go back» took on a literal meaning.

I closed my eyes and opened my mouth. I could feel the mirror and needle inevitably advancing on my helpless, arsenic-treated tooth, ready to finish it off — and me along with it. The tooth had been quiet as long as it wasn’t touched, since I ate on the other side and avoided hot or cold drinks. But as soon as the «Holy Inquisition» cracked the filling and tested the nerve sensitivity with the needle, my pupils turned inward, and I saw the indescribably terrifying face of pain.

— You forgot the shot! — I hissed, jerking the butcher’s hand out of my mouth. — I can’t. I need to feel when you’re in pain to know if the nerve is dead or not! — Well, it started hurting the moment you entered my mouth!

The sadist demanded I let him back in. — Does this hurt? — he asked in a chipper voice. I was stunned, gripping the armrests and biting down on the metal of the instruments, groaning inhumanly. — Bear with it, you’re not the only one. I’ll determine the state of the nerve, give you anesthesia, and everything will be fine.

When he finally took his tools out of my mouth, I realized there is no greater pleasure than winning the lottery or using the restroom after five mugs of beer.

The Breaking Point

— How do you react to Lidocaine? — What do you mean? — How does your body handle Lidocaine? Do you tolerate it or not? — I don’t know! — Fine, we’ll do Novocaine again. You reacted normally to that, right?

As this «man in white» filled the syringe before my eyes, I wanted to scream: — What for? I haven’t done anything bad to you! — but I only managed to mutter: — Maybe we should just pull the tooth and be done with it? — Are you crazy? Throwing away teeth like these? We’ll give you a shot, remove the nerve, and put in a filling. The tooth will be like new.

I had to accept the Novocaine block as inevitable, as I was bordering on a panic attack from the constant sharp pain. — Now, open the mouth and endure a little! — There’s no turning back, open up, — the internal voice said. I began to doubt that this internal voice was actually mine; I suspected treason. However, there was no time to ponder — the dentist was already hovering over the tooth with all his sadism. I surrendered and opened my mouth.

As the needle slid along the jaw, searching for some canals, a «solitary manly tear» rolled from my eye. «Doctor Mengele» dabbed it with a napkin. — Go smoke for five minutes in the hallway until the shot takes effect.

I was out of that chair like a gust of wind. While I smoked in the hallway, the pain began to fade, and the internal voice mocked me: — Maybe just spit on it all and head home? If I had known what was still to come, I would have realized the internal voice was right!

When I sat back in the chair, not only was the pain gone, it felt like I didn’t have a jaw at all. The Novocaine had worked. I looked at the doctor calmly and thought — let bygones be bygones. I forgave him everything.

Finally, I felt no pain during the drilling, only the smell of something burning, but that was bearable. Then, the doctor picked up the needle for removing the dental nerve. Since I had never been to a dental clinic before, I had no idea what the needle was for. I sat calmly, happy the pain was gone, waiting for it all to end.

When the doctor inserted that needle into the tooth canal, I did feel pain, but it was manageable. While the Novocaine held, I felt more of a scraping sensation than pain — the jagged needle rasping in the canal. Suddenly, the doctor pulled his hand out of my mouth, but the sensation of the needle being in the canal remained. I realized something irreparable had happened, mostly by the look on the doctor’s face and the constant, though not yet sharp, pain from the needle stuck in the nerve.

— Well, here we go. The world is about to look very small to you, — the internal voice said. — Look at the quack’s mug. The «Ripper» didn’t have a face anymore; instead, he was one big question mark!

Then the dentist started behaving erratically. Realizing that once the anesthesia wore off, I’d be climbing the walls from pain, he decided to widen the hole in the tooth and pull the needle fragment out with tweezers. But by drilling further, the burr only pushed the needle deeper into the canal. Now it was impossible to reach. He should have stopped there, showing both prudence and mercy by simply pulling the tooth. But no, this «Kulibin of Dentistry» sent me out to smoke again while he went to consult with the chief.

Five minutes later, the «acupuncturist,» without saying a word, sat me in a strange chair that looked more like an electric chair from American movies — all metal with massive armrests. The apprentice-sadist strapped my hands to the armrests. — Is this an electric chair? — I shared my guess. — In every joke, there’s a grain of joke, — my internal voice quipped. — Relax and close your eyes, — the «SS man» commanded.

It actually was a sort of electric chair where they kill the dental nerve with electricity. When they inserted another needle — this one electrified — into the broken one in my tooth, the pain pierced my brain so sharply that my head jerked back, hitting the wall with full force. Sparks flew from my eyes.

That was the final drop of my patience. Freeing my hand, I stood up and leveled the «butcher» with a short hook to the jaw.

Bursting out onto the street, I caught a taxi and drove to the clinic where the wizard-surgeon Gvelesiani worked. When Batono Jumber — I believe that was his name — pulled the tooth, half a centimeter of the broken needle was sticking out of it.

I never had my teeth drilled again. I just had them pulled — and, of course, only by Gvelesiani!

Once, after yet another «domestic skirmish» at home, I moved in for a few days with my friend and colleague, Zuriko. At the time, Zuriko was about ten years younger than me and a divorced man. He was a high-level amateur expert in everything: from electronics to agronomy, from medicine to culinary arts. Even back then, he washed his socks in a «Vyatka» machine and his dishes with «Landysh» detergent. He was the best option for when you want to slam the door at home, declaring you’re going to «go die at the train station,» but in reality, you just want to spend a few days in pleasant male banter and eating well.

That day, Zuriko decided to make golubtsi (stuffed cabbage rolls). I could only agree, since besides fried eggs, the only thing I had mastered since childhood was whipping eggs for gogol-mogol. We bought meat and cabbage at the market and spent half the day rolling them — well, Zura did most of the rolling while I grazed on the cabbage leaves that didn’t fit the size.

When the rolls were ready, the «feast of the belly» began. To be honest, Zura himself was about the size of a cabbage roll — well, maybe two — so I was the one doing most of the eating, perhaps remembering that if I were actually at the station, I certainly wouldn’t be having such delicacies.

That night, I tossed and turned on the cot, unable to get comfortable. I finally fell asleep with great difficulty after a hefty dose of Valerian.

The Awakening

In the morning, I woke up around seven and headed to the bathroom. Suddenly, I felt a primal, animalistic fear — not pain, but a terror so sharp it forced me out of the bathroom. The moment I reached the living room… I collapsed, losing consciousness.

I didn’t wake up because of a cast on my arm or because I was alone in the apartment; I woke up, apparently, because I simply didn’t want to die! I was lying in a massive pool of blood, understanding nothing. I stood up; my head was ringing, and I was shaking violently. I went back to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and began washing the blood off myself. Even though the water was hot, I couldn’t stop shivering.

A terrified Zura appeared; he had been at the neighbors’ house calling the emergency services. He had woken up to the sound of a body hitting the floor. When he rushed in, I wasn’t moving. Being familiar with the basics of medicine (his sister was a medical student), Zura ran a scrap of newspaper over my pupil. Seeing no reaction, he concluded I was dead!

Realizing I was actually alive, he was overjoyed. He tucked me into bed and piled every blanket in the house on top of me. The shivering wouldn’t stop. The ambulance arrived, put me on a stretcher, and decided to rush me to the hospital. I felt otherworldly, but I tried to act tough. When the doctor asked, «Is he alive?» I replied: — I feel the way dead people feel, I suppose. I wouldn’t know.

My blood pressure was dangerously low. Honestly, I felt wretched. At the hospital, I lay in the ER for a long time because the ICU was occupied by two corpses. I felt so bad I whispered: — Take me to the corpses; it’ll save you a trip to the morgue later.

By some miracle, the head nurse of the department turned out to be the sister of my childhood neighbor. She recognized me and flatly refused to let them take me to the operating room, where they intended to «cut for an ulcer.» She declared I’d die on the table from blood loss and that, as the nurse on duty, she would watch over me herself. May God grant health to her children and grandchildren, for as it turned out later, the ulcer was never confirmed.

The Nirvana of Khashi

It was Friday morning. They put me in a surgical ward, hooked me up to an IV, took tests, and waited to see which way the wind would blow. Drinking and eating were strictly forbidden in case they had to operate. By evening, I felt almost human again, though I was dying of thirst and hunger.

Friends started dropping by. Seeing my face as white as chalk, they fussed over what hurt. Nothing had hurt before, and nothing hurt now — I just wanted to eat and drink. In our large ward, there was a communal table where everyone shared their food. The sight of roasted chicken, khachapuri, and tkemali was like medieval torture. Every five minutes, the head nurse would march in and bark: — Anyone who gives him a drop of water or a crumb of food will be responsible for his death if the bleeding starts again!

So I lay there, surrounded by people who ignored my pleading eyes. Only one man could truly understand me as a friend — my Vova (may he rest in peace; he recently passed from cancer). — Vovik, — I whispered to him. — Tomorrow morning, bring me khashi. Straight from the khashnaya, with lavash and garlic. — Are you crazy? You’ll die! And then I uttered the phrase that would circulate among the «gastric patients» of the hospital for a long time: — I’d rather die from eating khashi than die from not eating it!

In the morning, Vova didn’t just bring khashi. What he brought was a fairy tale, no — a song, no — it was nirvana. First, I devoured it with my eyes. My jaw muscles were clamped so tight I couldn’t even open my mouth at first. The smell was such that everyone in the ward immediately ran to empty their provisions from the fridge onto the common table. Someone even produced chacha — because what is khashi without chacha?

In that moment, anyone in the ward would have sacrificed themselves to eat that portion for me. When my jaws finally unlocked, I began to eat with such voracious appetite that everyone present swallowed in unison with me, their eyes glued to my spoon.

I don’t remember any of it, of course; I saw only the bowl. Vova told me later how the entire ward ate vicariously through me. After the khashi, washed down with Borjomi, I truly came back to life and decided that dying wasn’t worth it. Nothing hurt anymore; I just had a bit of a «sexy paleness» left. I lay there like a boa constrictor, eyes half-closed, digesting.

Domestic Warfare and Hospital Pranks

The men in the ward were whispering, trying to figure out which of the dozen beautiful women who visited me was my wife. — None of them, — said a woman caring for her son. — A wife would have brought matsoni this morning and fed him with a spoon. She was right. My wife never showed up at the hospital.

We lived our whole lives in a state of siege, where rare truces were followed by fierce battles. Her jealousy wasn’t a result of my actions, but a symptom of her psychological state. It wasn’t just common jealousy toward other women — it was an clinical case that extended to everything, even books. The «right of the first night» regarding a book belonged to her and her alone. If she told a friend she was moved by a certain book, and the friend replied she’d already read it, that friend was instantly blacklisted as an enemy. She had many «enemies» and very few friends — only those who agreed with her or criticized me more than she did. Carpet-bombing my conscience and soul was a privilege she reserved for herself.

By Monday, I had settled in. There were seven beds in the ward. To my left was Vakhtang, a polished, dignified man from a prestigious district. His wife, Namtsetsa (which means «Crumb» in Georgian), was actually quite tall with a tongue like a razor. Every time she walked in, she’d ask me: — Yura, I saw a woman in the hall. Was that your wife by any chance? — No, Namtsetsa, not mine. By the fourth time she asked, I snapped: — It’s her husband’s mistress. We didn’t speak after that.

Across from me was Beno, a two-meter-tall giant from Western Georgia with the innocence of a first-grader. His wife barely reached his waist. They both had hernia surgeries scheduled. Before the operation, I asked Beno: — Did you shave? — Yesterday, can’t you tell? — he said, touching his chin. — I don’t mean your face! They’re cutting for a hernia. You need to shave everything from your chest to your knees yourself. Otherwise, the nurse will scrape you dry with a dull razor in the OR.

Beno looked at Vakho, who had gone home to «freshen up.» Beno got an electric razor and worked under the blanket, then sent his wife for a real blade. For an hour, his wife scrubbed him in the shower. When he returned and opened his robe, «woolly» hair poked out from his underwear down to his knees, while everything above the knee was plucked bald — he looked exactly like a half-scalded rooster. The whole ward roared with laughter, and later, the doctors did too.

The Stitches and the Knot

A few days later, they were removing the stitches. Vakhtang went first, then Beno. Vakhtang came back, read a paper, and fell asleep. Beno returned, happy it didn’t hurt. I whispered to him: — Are you crazy, walking around? They took the stitches out! If you walk, your guts will fall out. Look at Vakho — he’s not moving a muscle!

Beno dove under the covers and lay perfectly still for two hours. When his wife arrived, he begged for a bedpan. — Go to the toilet yourself! — she said. — I can’t! The stitches will burst! I walked a little and now everything hurts!

When Vakhtang finally woke up and stood up, Beno’s wife tried to force him back down. — You can’t walk! Your guts will fall out! Beno walked and now he’s in pain! Vakhtang looked at me, then back at her: — Maro, since my wife isn’t here to catch my guts, I’ll just go quickly and come right back.

Beno refused to get out of bed for two days, insisting he was in terrible pain. Finally, the doctor made him show exactly where it hurt. It turned out to be his lower back. When they cautiously rolled the giant onto his side, they found the culprit: he had been lying on a thick knot in the drawstring of his underpants.

I «stayed» in the hospital for twenty days, but they never did figure out what caused the hemorrhage that led to the coma. They discharged me with a diagnosis of «Non-infectious Hepatitis» — mostly because they couldn’t let me go without some diagnosis. I’m just glad the neighbor’s sister didn’t let them cut me open for an ulcer!