I remember back to the day Dr Ramsay introduced headphones to his dental practice. Finally! I thought. Now’s my chance to hear Rach 5 – I can only hope my time in the chair lasts at least forty one minutes and forty seconds, I wouldn’t want to miss one agonizing note.

I was nine, you see, prone to cavities and eager to learn the ways of the world, soaking like a sponge every drop of culture I could absorb and if it meant having a few molars drilled in the process, bring it on. My hopes were dashed, however, when I overheard Dr Ramsay telling my father that he would only be offering soporific background noise: “It’s called Muzak. Sleepy orchestral arrangements designed – with some newfangled psychology – to soothe the patient during a stressful procedure.”

He was not only playing schlock, he wasn’t even going to turn it up.

I think it was that session in particular when the two of them colluded to spread the rumour that my father found the headphone experiment to be so relaxing that he fell asleep during an extraction.

There was good reason to accept the myth as true: my father once described the dental experience from his youth in St John’s, the capital city of pre-confederation Newfoundland, where the Union Jack flapped on every flagpole. Times were tough on The Rock and oral surgery was even worse. Within the dentist’s reach were several pliers of crude design, intended for pulling out construction nails but, in a St John’s pinch, also good for extracting teeth. They were kept sterile in a can of kerosene.

Pater gets heroic status with this in his past and it wouldn’t have surprised anyone to hear that he had fallen asleep in the cosseted lap of modern dentistry, with its Novocaine, up-to-date implements, and a psychologically designed listening experience.

Things are different these days – a far cry from Dr Ramsay, that good man with the furry arms and useless headphones. He was my first childhood dentist and there’s a huge difference between then and what I get up to now. Dr Tam has no discernible hair on her arms, can wield a hypodermic needle so deftly I’ve yet to feel a thing, and she has a 72” TV positioned like the final scene in A Clockwork Orange.

The first time I visited her practice – to have the estimate done for a job in my lower jaw – the big screen was filled with grumpy police and security guards awaiting the arrival of Don Trump, somewhere in New York. The screen was dominated by black, grey and dull blue: the suits worn, the uniforms, the concrete walls, the shadows of Manhattan high rises blocking light as they do even on the brightest of days. Disgruntled men – who had very likely never been gruntled in their lives – hired bullies with shaved heads and a patented countenance of tough professionalism. This drab urban nightmare is the iconic view of this century’s America – well, that and piles of flowers and teddy bears outside elementary schools.

But I digress…

Three Dentists I Have Known

Dr Tam stands right up there on the podium of glorious oral surgeons, right next to her predecessor, “Dr Painless.”

“Dr Painless” Robinson had moderately hairy arms and a calm demeanour and I swear I never felt the needle going in and certainly nothing for hours after. Assisted by Phoebe, his mistress of many years, he was the smoothest governor of the syringe I could imagine at the time. He vacationed lengthily in Florida and had no discernible political affiliation (other than time spent in Florida). He tended to my mandibular health for many years before he retired to the beachside villa I bought for him.

Dr Earnest Crowe of Bay Village, Ohio goes way back – had very hairy arms and he provided nitrous oxide for the proceedings. I used to request it – even for cleanings. Good times. Laughing gas was brilliant – not a particularly effective analgesic, but lots of fun – I wonder what became of it.

Dr Crowe closed his office in that little strip mall near the tracks and to all accounts disappeared without a trace. About a year later I was reading in Rolling Stone about Peter Frampton’s lifestyle on the road and I’m positive that’s the good doctor in a photograph backstage with the crew and hangers on. Now heavily bearded, he is smiling and handing a gas mask to a hippie. Behind him are two nitrous oxide tanks identical to the ones he kept in his office.

And back to the first, Dr Ramsay, two doors down from us on Cote St Luc in Montreal, who practiced his practice in his own home. Memories of the pain in his chair, the sharp little pokey things, that dull, thick needle, the drills, the smell of burning enamel. And his furry arms. To a kid, he was fascinatingly hirsute but the tools at his disposal stifled one’s impulse to stare. He was a really nice guy and his wife was really nice too. They had a library in the waiting room with books of European art and in that linoleum basement, accompanied by the high pitched whine of another patient’s drilling, I became schooled in the female form in all its configurations but the real: classical, impressionist, abstract and others my fragile psyche is still mending.

Which brings me to Dr Tam’s gentle touch and my second visit to her comfy chair in front of the big screen. This time the two main attractions were the coronation of King Charles III on the big screen and, in the foreground, the prepping of my mouth for a bridge installation. The atmosphere for the latter is hushed, intimate, the light subdued but for the lamp that matters. Meanwhile, the television displayed a kaleidoscope of humanity, an endless stream of jubilant faces, some painted patriotically, all smiling cheerfully. Given, some were comporting themselves tongue-in-cheek but none sneeringly.

The procession of mostly British citizenry that followed the golden carriage was far more impressive than the obligatory pomp and ceremony of the occasion. Entranced, I watched broad river of happiness pool into the Palace courtyard for the big royal family wave from the royal balcony. I didn’t fall asleep but I was transported across an ocean to join the festivities in a dream-like abstraction – I waved a vicarious flag for Charlie.

“There. Just bite gently down for a minute and the bleeding will stop.” Dr Tam held a small white tray where I could see the tooth. “You can see it wasn’t hanging on by much.”

“You pulled it out already?” I would have asked if my mouth wasn’t already occupied.

“Oh yes, we’re all done.” She would have answered. “We pulled the tooth, prepared for the bridge and also fixed a little cavity.”

“Enx.” I think I managed as she left my side but what I really wanted to say was “Long live the king!”