A Crooked Dentist Walks Into A Bar Pt. 2
By Janet Grace
This is a continuation of a previous article regarding a heinous dentist who bilked his clients as well as the insurance companies to the tune of $6.8 million.
Before my family changed dentists, landing at the office of a crooked dentist, like the one in A Dentist .. Pt.1, who drilled into our perfect teeth, damaging them, only to fix them for extra profit, we used to step into another dimension for worse — The Twilight Zone Dentists at Sydenham Hospital in Harlem.
It smelled of death and decay. The energy in that place was horrible, creepy, dark, dystopian, at best. The walls were dirty gray. People smoked everywhere except elevators. There were roaches scurrying like they were late to their own appointments. It was like walking into the 1800s. The wheel chairs were made of wood with tall backs, wooden wheels, braided straw woven centers and armrests. You know the même that says: “Back in my day, TV’s were carved right out of the tree?” That’s what this hospital was like.
The entire staff at Sydenham were as mean as ogres. This is from a child’s perspective and you know how sharp and intuitive children are.
I didn’t like their vibe. They were so mean and degrading to my mom as she struggled to speak English using the words she had practiced out loud all the way there, while tightly holding my hand and walking way too fast for my little feet to follow.
There was the sucking in of the teeth, the looking at her from top to bottom and back again, the head shaking, as if she did not measure up, and finally the screaming:
“I don’t know WHAT you’re saying. Just Stop Talking. STOP! DOES ANYONE HERE SPEAK SPANISH? WE NEED A TRANSLATOR!”
As young as I was, I understood both languages and then some. I could have translated, but no one considered children back then and both the nurse and my Mom told me to shut it, so, I did, but I would worry being able to feel my moms fear; afraid she wouldn’t get the care we needed, being told that she would need to bring her own translator or “learn English, or somethin.’”
I was the kid they had to literally chase up and down that long stretch of hallway with the many exam rooms on either side where you heard children screaming in every single room from every angle. I ran and they gave chase.
Five creepy old white men, wearing caps bearing large mirrored disks on their heads, masks covering all but their eyes, long white coats, their eyes livid from encounters with a day full of screaming toddlers, against one pre-schooler.
I’d duck under exam tables, push rolling stools into their shins to slow them down. I’d escape the room and I run as far and as fast as my PF Flyers¹ could carry me until they called for my mother, who would be sitting outside waiting. “Janèt!! Pará!” I’d comply. She was scarier than ALL the Monsters.
Once returned to the exam room, I’d be lifted up, strapped to an exam chair with these stinking dark brown well worn thick leather belts that smelled so badly, it could make the dead, nauseous.
They’d bind my wrists because I punched, my feet because I kicked and my head, to keep it still while they struggled to administer laughing gas to knock me out and check my baby teeth. They knew not to go anywhere near my mouth until I was completely asleep lest they lose those digits. I fought, tried to move my feet to kick. I resisted until I was dead from the sickly sweet smell that emerged from the gas.
As I mentioned earlier, they knew better than to stick their fingers in my mouth. My chart said: “SHE BITES” in red marker. My sister told me and added that I was lucky Mommy didn’t know.
I was very proud to know that. It gave me much needed leverage. Damn straight! I bite!
People were treated much like animals in a D- rated slaughter house and given as much respect, at Sydenham.
Little did I know the treasure it was to our Black History. The Koch Administration closed it in the 1980.
The link to its fascinating history on Wikipedia is located at the bottom. It’s written so well, why reinvent the wheel?
There was one other horror story that occurred at Sydenham. My mother was pregnant with twins during 1958-59, yet, there was only one birth. My mother suffered a miscarriage and was taken to Sydenham where she remained on bed rest.
I was born at another hospital, but we would’ve been filthy rich had the following happened today.
My mother was hit, slapped, punched, pinched, bruised regularly by a small group of white nurses. They hit her everywhere but her on her belly and mid-section. She was told if she said one word about it, no one would believe her and they’d place her in the Psych Ward, which, she was no stranger to and was as scary as it sounds. Why, you ask? They thought she’d tried to end her pregnancy herself. Maybe she did. I don’t know, but those white nurses called her the N word plus “killer”. “Negra Kila” is how she said it, with her accent, when she shared the story. My Dad called her “Mi Negra”, but when he said it, it felt like he was saying: My Nubian Queen. He said it with love and that’s how I understood it.
So, yes, Horror in Harlem should’ve been the title of this article, and as you can tell, America has allowed Insanity to Reign Supreme since before Paulie jumped on his horsey to warn us that the British were coming.
Don’t you think it’s time that WE, THE SANE PEOPLE, should straighten this shit out once and for all?
I think I’ll have to sit down with some folks in Washington and give them ideas because if left to their own devices, the extreme right shall defeat the pasé Dems and We, The People, will be no longer. You know what I mean, Jelly Bean?
I love you all. Till we meet again, blessed be.
Peace/Out,
JG )O(
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydenham_Hospital
Here is a second link of this hospital’s history detailing WHY it was an important piece of The Black History of America.
https://www.archives.nyc/blog/2020/3/27/the-occupation-of-sydenham-hospital?format=amp