One of the first things Gordon does when he gets into town is come to my office. Sometimes he drives straight over from whatever long, dusty drive he’s been on, stopping off at his corrals long enough to unload the horses and pitch them some hay. Gordon stamps the crust off his Tony Llamas outside my door and pushes his way into air-conditioned civilization.

Every cowboy needs a dentist, Gordon might say, someone to fix the teeth broken on tough jerky and stained from Skoal. The dentist traditionally provides a place to test a cowboy’s time-tested values, ones the PBS television series The West of the Imagination called "honor, courage and personal fortitude." A popular joke around here has an anxious cowboy sitting in the dentist’s chair, with his six-shooter drawn and leveled at the sweating dentist’s belt. "We aren’t going to hurt each other, are we?" the cowboy asks softly. Gordon knows I know him better than that. He hides his nervousness with blustery good humor, and we seal our mutual reassurances in a beefy handshake.

But Gordon comes to me for more than mending. He needs his dentist like Wyatt Earp needed Doc Holliday, as a source of support, balance, and encouragement. I’m Gordon’s defining opposite, the calm to his restlessness, the book learnin’ to his rough wisdom, the welcome return to a grounded, gentler life. For Gordon, the dentist’s office is the place where, after all those months in the saddle, hollering at wild burros under the sun and stars and windswept skies, he can reaffirm his identity. Gordon goes where he knows people—the longer, the better—and where he’s known. Where he can call folks by their first name, tell his tales, and rebuild his psychic self. The dentist’s is a place where the High Plains Drifter can get in out of the weather.

Our patients are people, separate personalities with individual needs and expectations. We ignore that reality at our peril. At the end of one his visits not long ago, Gordon rubbed his new tooth, picked up his scuffed white hat and lumbered to the front desk to write a check.

"May I see some identification?" the receptionist asked. She was new.

"How’s that?" Gordon’s watery blue eyes narrowed.

"I just need to see your driver’s license."

"What for?"

"Just to make sure everything’s in order." The receptionist hesitated, then smiled. "So I know you’re you."

Gordon didn’t respond. He stood rooted in his boots, staring at her coolly. "What if you were someone else?" she faltered, "someone who had stolen your checks?"

Gordon sucked in his lip and leaned forward. "Listen here, missy," he spat in disgust. "I come here because I’ve been friends with Dr. Eric’s family all my life. I’ve knowed him since before you were born."

He was flushed and breathing harder now. "I’m not going to flash my driver’s license like I’m some darn stranger. ID, my foot. Look at my belt! Would I be wearing someone else’s belt?"

Gordon turned indignantly. Tooled across the back of his belt were fancy block letters that spelled out his name.

"That’s my ID," he growled. He left the check on the counter and stalked out.

ARTICLES MAIN PAGE