Photo courtesy Matt Seymour via Unsplash

Open up, ahhh!

—she demonstrated by hovering her face above mine, her mouth agape. Only inches apart, her visage appeared grotesque with her rubbery lips parted above snarling teeth. I smelled kimchi on her breath. She inserted her fingers into my mouth, probed my buccals, and smeared a residue of kimchi essence along my gum line. This was before hygiene laws that required dentists to glove-up. 

Her eyeglasses reflected my distorted adolescent face, exaggerating my too-long too-pointy chin. I knew my chin was a problem because my mother pointed to it during our consultation. (I knew my pimples were a problem because my mother would introduce me to her friends saying, This is my daughter. She has pimples.)

The dentist proclaimed, Your teeth crooked! She spoke to my mother in rapid-fire Korean, explaining that braces would straighten my teeth and reduce my protruding chin, as if braces fixed any facial deformity. Patting my head she said, Good girl. See you at church, ah? Dr. Kim was my dentist and the church deacon. She held a medical degree and completed seminary. She was a god in my mother’s eyes. 

At church, she positioned herself at the entrance, draped in a gold gown, appearing as a heavenly being. Then she opened her mouth. Her lips stained red, her voice fiery, she bellowed like an army sergeant, greeting parents, children, elders, directing staff and the congregation to our buildings. We hustled to obey her commands. Sporting a tomboy haircut—chopped in a straight line above her eyebrows and trimmed above the nape of her neck—Dr. Kim commanded authority despite her short, stocky stature. 

After the initial consultation,

my mother dropped me off for my monthly braces-tightening appointments, leaving me alone with Dr. Kim. I renamed her Dentist Kimchi. I dreaded her breath. I dreaded her fingers. I dreaded the twist of each brace that sent shock waves of pain deep into every nerve root. While Dentist Kimchi inserted fresh wires that stabbed my gums and slashed my cheeks, she boasted about her daughter. Jane just performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto 2. Jane is studying AP French. Jane was elected junior leader for Revival Christian Camp.

Jane and I attended the same high school. Dentist Kimchi knew I played the piano, but hadn’t advanced past Clementi’s sonatinas, or past regular French, and she knew I wasn’t chosen to be a Revival leader. I was a Revival follower. At the end of the appointment, I handed her a check from my mother.

Once a month I showed up for oral torture. In total, three years of terror under Dentist Kimchi, three years of lip-tearing braces that did nada, squat, not one tooth straightened. Dentist Kimchi gave my mother convincing updates, concluding with a laying-on-hands prayer. My mother paid her fee. In the three years that I sat in her patient chair, I went through puberty. I quit piano, quit eating lunch with Jane, and quit going to Revival Camp. I wore blue lipstick, painted my nails striped like zebras, and was on the verge of quitting the church. Dentist Kimchi approached me as if I were a wild dog. Jane won the Chopin junior’s piano contest. Jane was waiting for you at lunch time. Dentist Kimchi gave a viscous twist to my braces, as if yanking me on a short leash. Jane is leading a Bible study class this Saturday. She said she invited you.

As she elevated my chair, I popped up as if sitting up from a coffin. My grotesque visage with cyanosis swollen lips parted over snarling braces caught Dentist Kimchi off-guard. She recoiled. She could no longer pat my head, and both she and I knew it. See you at church, ah? I said nothing and slipped her my mother’s check. Tell your mom to come next time! She shouted after me.

The following appointment, I had been her last patient.

My mother waited in the reception area. It was nearly 8:00pm when Dentist Kimchi completed tightening my last brace and set me free. I sprang into the reception area, ravenous for dinner. All done! I announced. My mother reached for her purse and stood up. At that moment, Dentist Kimchi strode into the lobby and locked the door. She got on the floor. She ordered my mother to do likewise. My mother obeyed. Planted on hands and knees, Dentist Kimchi demonstrated how to speak in tongues: ree-rur-ree-rur-rah-rah-rah. This was considered a high form of speaking to God. Apparently, God liked it when you used your tongue to invoke His name.

I watched, disgusted. I had just had my lip-tearing, useless, good-for-nothing braces tightened, my mouth violated by her probing kimchee fingers. I wanted to go home but watched my mother intimidated into kneeling on all fours babbling ree-rur-ree-rur-rah-rah-rah. Finally it ended when Dentist Kimchi shouted, A-men! Her breath filled the entire clinic. My mother stood up after an hour on her hands and knees. She thanked Dentist Kimchi and gave her a check.  

A year later, I found a new dentist who straightened my teeth in one year. A year later, we left the church. Dentist Kimchi had started an affair with the pastor, who was married with five children. In the ensuing scandal, the wife and five children fled to a different state. Dentist Kimchi’s husband continued to sing in the choir, bawling conspicuously in the front row. The congregation split with half supporting the new union of Dentist Kimchi and the pastor. The other half drifted to other churches or faiths. Or, if they were like me, refused to go to church anymore and suddenly had Sundays free.

Dentist Kimchi and the pastor got married and started a new church. Maybe the pastor liked the taste of kimchi fingers molesting his mouth. Maybe he liked to use his tongue to speak to God.