SmokeLong Quarterly

I don’t know what to do about the tiny man stuck between my teeth so I go to the dentist and ask him. The dentist yells at me for huffing laughing gas while I was waiting to be seen. Only I wasn’t. So then he yells at me for doing regular drugs, only I don’t. He tells me to open up so he can see this tiny man for himself — and sure enough, there he is. Making himself at home, right between my two back molars.

When I eat my morning granola, he scrapes the skin of a pecan off my tooth to eat some for himself. When I brush he takes a shower. He digs his feet into my gum to keep warm. He fashions little instruments out of my plaque for fun. The dentist says he’s hung little guitars to the walls of my teeth. He’s about the size of a big crumb. I have never heard him speak.

Of course I’ve tried to floss him out. He screams like someone’s sawing him in half. The dentist says he’s never seen anything like it. The hygienist says she once had a boyfriend that didn’t move from her couch for “Six. Whole. Years.” She explains how his jeans meshed into his buttcheeks, and his buttcheeks meshed into the couch. “He just became one with the cushion.”

“Okay Brenda,” says the dentist, “That’s irrelevant.”

And, feeling that this story was actually highly relevant, I say, “No no, Brenda, please go on: What did you do with the couch?”

“I moved the couch,” she said. “Well, I hired some guys to move the couch, and they moved it into the basement.”

“And the boyfriend?”

“The boyfriend too, yeah.” She explains that friends would come by and hang out with him. They’d watch movies and run around robbing people in video games. They’d smoke weed, play poker. “You know,” she says, “Basement things.” She’d feed him regularly and bathe him with a sponge; she’s no monster. She just wanted her living room back. This went on for a whole year and their relationship was never better. “His and hers couches,” she jokes. But then one day, right after she made him a big plate of chicken parm and clipped his toenails, he asked for a steak knife and cut himself loose. Moved out after that. “You know what’s crazy?” Brenda says, “I miss him sometimes. He was really fun to talk to. Really funny.”

I have so many questions for Brenda like: Why didn’t he move from the couch in the first place, or why didn’t you just tear him off and kick him out, or why weren’t his friends ever like — Hey man, maybe get off the couch? But before I can ask any of them, she asks me: “Do you know the tiny man living in your teeth?”

Here’s where I confess I haven’t actually seen him up close. I don’t really know what he looks like. He’s so small and the crack of space where he lives is at such an odd, inconvenient angle. “And I never got around to buying one of your little dentist mirrors,” I explain. I tell them it’s not like the man is bothering me per se. He doesn’t cause any physical pain or have a weird taste. And sure, I know he must be pissing and shitting in there, but I’m thankful he’s discreet about it. What’s most annoying about him is that he’s always playing music — and not very well! Lately he’s been practicing Elliott Smith on his little plaque guitar and crying. In fact, it seems like he is always so sad.

“And you know,” I explain, “That’s actually what bothers me: the moping. This guy is just moping around in my mouth. Imagine being out on a date — no really, this happened — imagine being out on a date bowling with a really hot, really ripped architect, and a sad, small man starts playing Miss Misery right inside your head, and only you can hear it.”

The dentist puts on his magnifying glasses and takes another look. He describes the tiny man like someone playing twenty questions: Did any of your boyfriends wear glasses? Have curly hair? A big nose? Wear striped shirts? I joke and ask if the man is cute, and the dentist eyes me and says, “He’s probably your type.” I pull out my phone and scroll through photos of men I have dated and those I haven’t: cousins, co-workers, friends. Brenda suggests famous people and pulls up photos of A through D-list celebrities. The dentist compares each to the man in my tooth and confirms it is none of them. He is just some guy.

It’s unfortunate: I would know how to handle any of my exes. With one, I could shake a bottle of xanax like a baggie of cat treats and he’d come right out. The one from college would chase even a photo of a better looking woman if I held it to my lips. I could reason with the last one; tell him I need my space. They were all so simple, these men. This one eludes me. The dentist sends me home without answers, says he’ll need to consult his colleagues to see what’s what.

Later, as I’m lying in bed, the tiny man between my teeth is keeping me awake with Ballad of Big Nothing. I fight my impulse to yell Shut Up! to the empty room, and instead try something new. I say aloud, “Hey you, you’re getting pretty good at that.” And for the first time I feel him, an ant dancing around on my gums. On his little legs he scurries up a tube in my head that connects my mouth to my ear, and whispers in it: “Can I play another one for you?” It’s a voice I’ve never heard before, tender on the bone. And I know, already, it’ll gut me when it’s gone.