Issue #20 (2011) PDF - myweb - Long Island University

steady with both her hands and her elbows pressed against her stomach. My job was to wash the
dental tools. I did this by holding them out over the window ledge and pouring rainwater on them.
Then I immersed the tools in a bucket of alcohol for a minute making them ready for the next
patient. Whenever I would get a chance, I would wipe some alcohol on the insect bites on my arms
and legs.
This went on patient after patient. The only difference was that if the patient said no, that
they would not be able to go to town for more dental treatment, Angelo would pull out the damaged
teeth. This is when Rosa and I learned to insert the plastic cartridge containing Novocain into a
syringe. We took turns holding the patients heads and I remember one man who was very happy to
lose his four upper front teeth.
This was a charity Angelo did for the people of the village, strange my uncle, the great
doctor, did none. He spent all day hidden away with his wife in some place at the beach.
The people brought food and even glass bottles of hot Coca-Cola. For this my sister and I
were grateful because we got first pick and were able to eat just enough that we weren‘t hungry and
didn‘t have to eat at the house. We helped every day Angelo opened up. He kept working even after
he ran out of Novocain cartridges. The people didn‘t mind having their teeth pulled with no
anesthetic. It‘s funny. I don‘t remember hearing any of the patients screaming out from the pain.
Every day after work Rosa and I went to the beach. It was the only way we could really wash
all the blood from our hands and sometimes our t –shirts and besides we didn‘t have anything else
to do. Rosa took pictures, saving her film for only the very special shots. In two years she became
the photographer for her high school yearbook using a Leica camera my father‘s other older brother
the merchant marine, sent us. He sent us gifts from all over the world- musical dolls from Japan
dressed in kimonos and binoculars from Germany were among the best. Its funny our uncle, the
doctor being as rich as he was never sent us a thing, not even a Christmas card. On the beach, I
collected exotic tropical seashells in an empty Novocain cartridge box I kept. Later that summer, in
Cali my aunt helped me properly wash the sand from them and she gave me pretty wooden cigar
boxes to keep them.
It was on one such afternoon that we were on the beach. We were in the water, Rosa left to
go back to the house. I don‘t remember why. Since the first day, we never really went down to the
beach with any of the others. The beach was long and the shore curved at many places creating
several different places they could go. We always went in a basic straight line from the house down
to the water. I never stayed out by myself. I didn‘t want to be alone, not that I was afraid, but I just
didn‘t want to be alone. Ever since that first day I stayed away from going in too far when the
waves were high, but that day there were no large waves. I waded in until the water reached my
armpits. I splashed around a bit wetting my hair as I gradually felt the pull of the water trying to
drag me in deeper. I tried to walk. The water pulled me back. I took a couple of steps. The water
pulled me back again. The force of the water made it impossible for me to move. My feet were
sinking into the sand. I was stuck. I was afraid to lift one leg to take a step for fear that I would lose
my balance and be dragged out into the water. So, there I stood with my feet about ankle deep in
the sand. I didn‘t scream. Who would hear me The crabs on the sand or maybe the cow over on
the horizon I panicked on the inside. I froze on the outside. I had remembered a scene from an
old Tarzan movie in which some dumb woman is trapped in quick sand and Tarzan tells her not to
struggle because struggling only makes a person sink and die faster.
The water was very strong and the effort to hold myself up was making me tired. I was
about to give up and try to move when I saw Angelo walking down towards the water. I thought I
was hallucinating, had I prayed in my desperation. I can‘t remember, but I probably did. He did
appear Christ like with his seventies long hair and his mustache and beard that had grown out on
this vacation. I had doubts that it was really him.
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