Letter From Milo: Getting Out Of Dodge

Oh, the bastards, the rotten sons of bitches. They tracked me down.

If you recall from my last posting, a dentist advised me that I had to have several teeth pulled before my heart surgery. I got a second opinion, of course, but the second dentist agreed with the first. Well, they have their opinions and I have mine. I refused to give up any teeth, no matter the reason. What are dentists anyway? What do they know? Dentists are just a bunch of second rate hacks who don’t have the skills or ambition to become real doctors.

Still, there was a lot of pressure on me to get the teeth pulled. Wife, family, friends, all urged me to get them yanked. “It’s for your own good,” they told me. “You don’t want any complications from the heart surgery. Listen to the doctors. They know what’s best.” Plus, no doctor would perform the surgery unless the teeth were extracted. There was too great of a chance of an infection in the new valve they were going to give me.

Well, fuck ‘em all. I don’t like people telling me what to do. I decided to make a run for it, get out of Dodge while the getting was good. I chose Canada as my destination because, as I understand it, the Canadian government won’t extradite anyone who is wanted by the dental authorities.

As I was driving out of town, I began feeling a bit thirsty, so I stopped in the lounge of the Diplomat Motel on Lincoln Avenue. I was just going to have a couple for the road, and maybe pick up a half pint for later on. As luck would have it, I ran into a group of my favorite kinds of people; bikers, whores, out-of-work carnies, a three-card monty dealer and a man who claimed to be a rabbi but seemed to be too good of a pool player for someone devoted to the spiritual life.

One thing led to another and by closing time I was roaring drunk. Deciding I was in no shape to drive I checked into a room at the Diplomat, figuring I’d sleep it off and get an early start in the morning. Just to be on the safe side, I checked in under an assumed name, Milton Samardzija.

About five in the morning, as I was having a sweet dream about Montreal, a group of jack-booted thugs kicked in my door and pounced on me. They were the dreaded Gold Tooth Gang, which is the militant wing of the American Dental Association. They dragged me, kicking and screaming, out of my room, the same way the cops dragged William H. Macy out of his motel room in the movie Fargo, by the great Coen brothers.

The next thing I knew, I was strapped into a chair in the dentist’s office. Just before the sadistic bastard started yanking my teeth, he asked, “Do you want something to relax you, some novocaine perhaps?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well, too fucking bad. You’re not getting anything. That’s what you get for trying to run out on the ADA.”

Half an hour later, all four of my wisdom teeth were extracted, plus two others, just for spite in my opinion.

I felt terrible when I got home. I was afraid to look in the mirror. So, I gobbled a handful of industrial-grade pain pills and lay down on the couch to rest for a few minutes. I woke up 12 hours later, still in pain, groggy, unsteady on my feet.

Gathering up my courage, I staggered to the bathroom to get a look at myself in the mirror. I expected the worst and was not disappointed. My face was lumpy and swollen. My eyes were slitted and bloodshot. There was a lump on each side of my jaw the size of an avocado. The greenish-blue signs of bruising were spreading along my jawline. My face and goatee were caked with dried and flaking blood. And when I opened my mouth I could see a noticeable gap in my smile.

Despite my deplorable condition, I knew I was still better looking than Tony Patellis or, for that matter, Doug Hoffman. But that was cold comfort.

At that moment, my daughter, Nadia, walked by. “I must look pretty bad,” I said to her.

She replied, “To be honest, Dad, you looked a lot worse when you came home from partying with Bruce Diksas last Saturday night.”