Fred Aiken Writing

“Miss, is this correct?”

“Are you talking about our menu? Because if so, then yes, I’m afraid it is.”

“All you serve is beans?”

“Well, yes, that’s why the owners call this The Beanery.”

“How can you possibly stay in business?”

“I don’t know. I’m just a server here. But I imagine because beans are so cheap the profit margins can remain relatively high.”

“Well, do you guys do anything unique with y’all’s beans?”

“We certainly specialize in cooking them in some unique manners. I guess beans are typically thought of as a side dish, and we like to make them a focal point here at The Beanery. We can do anything from a black bean quinoa salad to a mediterranean chickpea gyro, though my favorite is the tikka masala cannellini bean casserole.”

“So, essentially, it seems like you replace the protein of staple dishes from these different cultures and appropriate beans to them?”

“I guess if you wanted to simplify what we do, then certainly it can seem that way.”

“Well, I guess I’ll try your favorite dish, the tikka masala.”

“Awesome. You won’t be disappointed.”

“Yeah, probably not. I certainly didn’t anticipate a truck stop being so niche, though.”

“I get that a lot. But I think the owners have been here for nearly forty years. I think they just sort of noticed a trend that a lot of their truck-stop patrons were ordering more and more beans. Maybe it was because of the economy tanking, and all people could afford was beans, or maybe their patrons’ tastes were simple changing more and more gradually to the point that they completely redid their name, concept, and, well, everything.”

“Yeah, you think so? Huh. Well, what was the original name of this place?”

“All Things Kidney.”

Bobby’s left premolar came in when he was seven months old, and from the day it started to crown its way out of his gums it caused Bobby nothing but problems. It started with a toothache, which developed into the tooth’s consciousness, and the moment Bobby’s left premolar became conscious of its existence it realized that all it wanted to do was eat. 

At first, the tooth simply asked for food once a day. And really, all things considered, it wasn’t all that much food. Just a little here and there. Though for whatever reason, Bobby and his left premolar never agreed on what they should eat. His premolar wanted more umami vegetables with a  savory taste, while Bobby typically wanted to eat more and more sweets and his idea of a vegetable was ketchup.

All things considered, though, Bobby’s premolar and him coexisted fairly peacefully for years on end, with only the occasional bother. The consciousness of the tooth led it to painstakingly warn Bobby whenever another tooth was coming down with a cavity by biting down into his gums as hard as possible. Bobby was never left alone for all too long with some form of reminder from his premolar about taking care of his teeth. In a way, when Bobby grew older, he became more appreciative of his tooth that reminded him to take care of all of his teeth. In fact, even Bobby’s dentist made mention that he had perhaps some of the most well taken care of teeth ever seen.

It was around the time that Bobby turned forty and started having a mid-life crisis that his left premolar did as well. But the mid-life crisis of a tooth looks vastly different than that of a grown man. Instead of being able to go out and buy a whole bunch of fancy material things, Bobby’s left premolar began to eat more and more food, diverting it away from Bobby’s stomach. Eventually, the tooth grew to three times the size of all the rest of Bobby’s teeth. It became so bad that some of the surrounding teeth around Bobby’s left premolar began to fall out. 

Bobby noticed that his entire mouth was being consumed by one single tooth. He went to his dentist to perhaps get it removed. His dentist stated that he didn’t have the necessary equipment to remove a tooth of that size. His left premolar had taken the center stage of Bobby’s mouth, and there now remained very little other teeth. At times it seemed even difficult to breathe, and because the tooth had rediverted all of Bobby’s food to itself rather than allowing it to go into his stomach, Bobby had become frail and skinny due to his lack of sustenance. 

He pleaded with his dentist to do something, since at that point Bobby had become convinced that his tooth wanted him dead. Of course his dentist reasoned with Bobby that if he died, then so would his tooth, so that would be a preposterous conclusion.

Yet, Bobby insisted, his tooth perhaps did not care. Maybe it felt as if it had suffered enough in this life, and this was his left premolar’s attempt to die along with its host. 

His dentist warned that if he removed such a large tooth it may lead to massive blood loss since the tooth had clung to the roots of so much of his gums. Like the dentist continuously liked to remind Bobby, he had never actually dealt with a tooth of that magnitude or consciousness, so it might go disastrously wrong despite their intent.

But Bobby said he didn’t care, he claimed that nothing could be worse than being consumed by his own tooth.

The procedure was fairly painless due to the sheer amount of novacaine that the dentist administered. In fact, after all was said and done, the Board of Ethical Dentistry claimed that Bobby probably would have survived the procedure if he had been so knocked out on novacaine, since it was determined that he had died of an overdose. The dentist’s reply was simply that he had never dealt with such a large tooth that he could not have possibly have known. He assumed that the larger the tooth, the larger dose of numbing drugs needed to ensure his patient’s safety and comfort.