LJIdol - Week 21 - Gadgets
Miss Lisa, Circa 1986
One of the highest compliments my mother can give a person is "You certainly have nice teeth!" She's practically obsessive about orthodontia. I suppose that was why she found it acceptable to have me fitted for a device of dental torture when I was in the second grade.
It had been a rough year. I had been accepted to the gifted program and then placed alone in a fifth grade reading class - Freak! I had untamed hair and jackrabbit buckteeth - Freak! I had to get glasses that made me look like a caffeinated owl - Freak!
"She sits right on top of the t.v.," my mom had hissed to the optometrist, "and now she's saying she can't see at school."
I think she expected him to commiserate, to tell her what a naughty little faker I was.
The doctor raised an eyebrow. "She's sitting on top of the t.v. because she's blind," he replied coldly.
I sure was. Legally blind without the help of corrective lenses. I'll never know how long I couldn't see before I got my first pair of Coke-bottle glasses, but afterwards, along with the blackboard, I could now see the looks of disdain on my classmate's faces. I was well on my way to being the geekiest girl at Berkeley Lake Elementary. My mom only saw me through a mother's eyes. She liked to tell me those kids were just jealous - "Well, except for those teeth, sweetie. We really do need to do something about them," she’d tell me.
In January, she took me to an orthodontist. Dr. Kinley poked and prodded in my mouth and decided to make some impressions for good measure. Ever have braces? Remember that experience? The moist, pink plaster had a disconcerting smell, like vaseline and candy canes. When he pressed the metal plates full of gritty, pepperminty Silly Putty over my teeth - and down my throat - I quickly remedied the situation by yakking on his lab coat. He was so angry. I was afraid our relationship was off to a bad start and what he did next left me no doubt.
He told my mom the roof of my mouth was too narrow and that, as I aged, it would begin crowding my teeth. If we didn't address the problem immediately, when I was a teenager they'd have to break my jaw and wire it back together.
He pulled a little "appliance," as he benignly labeled it, out of a drawer. It would widen my palate while holding my teeth and jaw in place. Called a frankel, the plastic and metal contraption would need to be worn constantly. I could take it out to eat, but that was all.
The Frankel, AKA Modern Dental Torture Device
Before the frankel could be fitted, we had to fix my buckteeth. I went back to school with shiny, metal brackets glued to my smile. I was the only eight year old on the planet with braces, or at least it seemed that way. Waiting for the bus one afternoon, two little girls, of the adorable variety that resemble baby ballerina Barbie dolls started staring at me and giggling.
"Brace face!" one whispered to her friend, loud enough for me to hear. They tittered as I stood miserably, head down, trying to hide behind my wild thatch of hair, glasses slipping down the bridge of my freckled nose.
Braces were nothing compared to the frankel though. When I put it in for the first time I realized with horror that I couldn't talk anymore! Well, I could, but it sounded like my fist was stuck in my mouth. When I spoke, it was a combination of the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons, 'Wha wa wha wha wa waaaa," and Stan's sister on South Park, "Schtaaan, shtop achling like a sherk!"
At first I kept my mouth closed as much as possible. I tried to secretly remove the frankel when I had to speak. Attempting to keep anything hidden from the curious eyes of elementary students was impossible. They'd watch, wide-eyed, when I was called on. I'd drag the frankel from my mouth, trying to suck my spittle off as quietly as possible and quickly tuck it in my backpack. A boy once asked me if it got pencil shavings and things stuck to it in there. I was mortified but I followed the rules because, as my dad frequently asked me, "Do you wanna drink pizza through a straw after they wire your mouth shut?"
I had to suffer the offensive headgear for 18 months. At first it made me want to crawl in a log and die, but after a while my skin thickened and I was simply defiant. In the cafeteria, instead of discretely removing the frankel, I would boldly stare my classmates down and whip it out of my mouth with a flourish, a shiny trail of saliva glistening before me. I’d drop it with a clank next to my tater tots and start to eat with gusto. My classmates would screw up their faces and yell "Ewwww!" and I would grin wickedly. I might have been gross, and lonely, but what did I need them for anyway?
My mother must not have appreciated how I looked either because in all my childhood photos, I cannot find a single one where I'm sporting braces or the frankel.
I lost the thing twice. The stupid "appliance" cost $500 which I was reminded of often. My mom and dad were always telling me to be responsible with it. That's a big order for a little kid! Would you give a $500 piece of jewelry to an eight year old?
One afternoon I was sitting in class running my tongue over my teeth when I realized it was gone. I frantically dug in my back pack and then dumped it in the aisle in a panic. It wasn't there. I hadn't seen it since...lunch. I hurried to my teacher's desk and told her I thought I'd left it in the cafeteria. She wrote me a note to take to the lunch ladies.
I'd never been in the cafeteria after lunch hours. All the tables were pushed to the sides and I walked gingerly across the wide, freshly mopped floor. I slipped behind the warming carts to where the lunch ladies stood.
"You not supposed to be back here!" one lady barked at me.
"I, I have a note?" I waved the paper at her like a white flag.
She read it and gestured to a door behind her. "If you left it on yo tray, it's in there. You can try to find it if you want to."
I walked across the rubberized floor mats and opened the door. Before me stood six, very full, trash cans.
I wanted to wail, to sit on the floor and hug my knees, but I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the tears and grimly walked up to the first can. If I didn't find my Frankel, the whipping I'd get at home would be far worse than this. I could do this. I was tough. It was just food - dirty, germy, half chewed - 'Gah, don't think about, Lisa!!' I willed myself.
The door swung open behind me and the lunch lady walked in.
"You really gon' get in them?" she asked, and I nodded.
She must have realized how serious I was because she handed me a set of dish gloves that went up past my elbows and snapped some latex gloves on her own hands. Together we started to dig. It took hours sifting through all that trash. I missed my bus and they called my mother who arrived swiftly and angrily put on some gloves of her own to join the hunt.
We found the frankel in the very last trash can. It sat, like a pink and silver toad, amidst the chocolate milk cartons and diced peaches, the most unloved treasure in the world. I wiped it on my jeans and stuffed it in my pocket, glad it would have to be disinfected so I didn't have to wear it for a few more hours.
The second time I lost it was in the summer. I camped out with our neighbor's kids and in the morning, the frankel was gone. I looked everywhere, combing the yard while my dad yelled obscenities, but this time it was truly lost. I wondered if the dog carried it off somewhere, or maybe the kids hid it from me as a joke. Whatever happened, my parents devised two punishments for me. I could have Christmas taken away or I could lose my weekly allowance for an unspecified amount of time. No kid wants to lose Christmas, so I gave up my allowance and, oddly enough, I never got it back again.
A new Frankel was constructed but I just didn't give a shit anymore. I stopped wearing it at night, and I took it out as soon as I got on the bus for third grade. Break my jaw when I'm a teenager, what do I care! That was a long way off. The pathetic thing was, even when I stopped wearing my "appliance" and started lying, Dr. Kinley still complimented how much progress he was seeing.
One day, around 16 months in, he looked in my mouth and declared my sentence served. Because of my "diligence" I could stop wearing it. I was cured and at 9 years old I had a movie star smile. My mother was thrilled but I could have cared less. My mouth may have been saved but my self-confidence was shredded.
I took my Frankel home that night and, after my parents went to bed, I crept barefoot across the cold garage to my father's toolbox. I grabbed the heaviest hammer I could find and walked outside. In the driveway, in the moonlight, I smashed the shit out of that frankel, shattering the plastic and flattening the wires. That was one monster that would never hold me prisoner again.
Years later, when I was in high school, my dad came home from work grinning. "I have something for you," he said. Out of his coat pocket he pulled a frankel, the goblin from my past making me literally take a step backward. Dad chuckled. The camping trip frankel had returned, faded and covered with dirt, but horrible just the same.
"They were doing some clearing on Robert's property and turned this over in a pile of dirt," my dad said. 'Who'd have thought after all these years?"
Yeah. Who'd have thought...but there it was. I took it from my dad and held it in my palm. It seemed smaller, but no less insidious, a Pandora's box that contained the frustrations of my childhood, the cruelty of children, the blindness of my parents to my suffering.
As a child, I hadn't seen the frankel as a betrayal on my mother's part. Didn't consider that she might have gone somewhere for a second opinion. Didn't think that if she wasn't so damn concerned with appearances I might have been spared a little dignity in lieu of a prettier family portrait.
Should I smash this one too?
No. I carried it upstairs and tucked it in my desk drawer. Not lovingly, because it certainly hadn't earned that, but reverently, because even a teacher who opens your eyes to painful lessons deserves respect.
I still have the frankel. I can't throw it away - it almost cost me Christmas once! When I discover it in a desk or nightstand, I glare it at knowingly and toss it in another dark corner. That bastard taught me that my soul could be broken but that I would still live. And more importantly, it reminds me of the necessity of questioning what other people think is right for my children, and to consider how my decisions will affect them as whole people.
Who knew one stupid gadget could leave such a mark on a person?
Miss Lisa, Circa 1988