THEODORE DALRYMPLE
It is often said that one shouldn't judge by appearances, but it is rather difficult to see by what else one might judge, at least in the first instance. Besides, appearances are not always as deceptive as they are sometimes claimed to be. There are, after all, many books that you can judge by their cover; and in many instances, appearance is reality. I make these philosophical remarks preparatory to a consideration of the question of gold front teeth. Aural dentistry is to a certain class of male of West Indian or Pakistani descent what the bower is to the bower-bird: the means by which foolish females may be lured and attracted into captivity. The female imagines that anyone who can afford such adornment must, or at least might, be a good provider for her offspring. Of course, the very reverse is true, but somehow, being herself of limited experience, imagination and intellect, she always discovers it too late. Last week we had two members of the gold-front-toothed community in our ward. The first, I mustsay, was a magnificent specimen. He was not horribly overmuscled like a body-builder. but had finely honed sinews like an athlete. Unfortunately, he had taken too much cocaine, and suffered a rare consequence thereof: what are known as choreoathetoid movements, in which his limbs writhed like snakes. My guess was that it couldn't have happened to a nicer chap, for I saw the gleam of gold between his half-opened lips. When he was better — that is to say, when he had returned to his formidable state of fitness — I asked him what he did for a living. 'I'm on the sick.' he replied. I nearly fell off my chair. 'Sick?' I said, looking at this incarnation of human health. 'Yes,' he said. 'And what is your sickness?' I asked. 'Coke,' he said. I said nothing. He was discharged soon afterwards, and no doubt went straight down to the gym to get even fitter to intimidate his doctor into giving him a sick certificate. The next gold-toothed man had tried to end it all when his girlfriend said she was leaving him. 'Were you jealous and possessive?' I asked. 'Jealous andpossessive, yes, but not as in keeping her indoors all the time.' Men with gold front teeth always fear that their girlfriends will find someone with more gold than they have in their mouths. 'Do you have any children?' 'She's got a kid inside her, I'll admit that.' Oh great, I thought, that'll keep me in tax-paying till the day I die. 'Have you ever been in trouble with the law?' I asked. 'I'll admit I'm not a angel,' he replied. And the law is a ass, a idiot. He had just come out of prison after serving 18 months for a machete attack on a newsagent. 'Would you try again to kill yourself?' I asked. `No,' he said. 'I've got my kid to think about. Besides, no woman's worth it. is she, doctor?' I looked down at my feet. We doctors are not supposed to make moral judgments. 'I suppose I've got to get a grip on life before life gets a grip on me.'
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