Camilo Pizarro

Camilo was eight when Papá pulled his rotten tooth with pliers and some gauze. It was a little barbaric, that was the exact term Gabriel had used when they’d met, Camilo sitting back in the dentist chair, with his mouth wide open as the hygienist reported the patient history to this handsome doctor that had just walked into the room, all while spraying his back molars with water. Camilo regretted instantly having allowed the receptionist to schedule him with another doctor just because Dr. Garza wasn’t taking new patients. Dr. Ortega is just as good, she’d said, all doctors in our practice are. He’d been waiting a while to schedule that appointment with Dr. Garza, though. It was his ex-boyfriend who had recommended her two years ago, right after Camilo had shared the pliers’ story on one of their dates. But, back then, he didn’t have money or a job with dental. He also didn’t have time to fly to Colombia like a lot of his relatives did, to get appointment after appointment with doctors and dentists. Still, he’d kept Dr. Garza’s business card and waited for the day.

“Okay,” Gabriel said, taking the hygienist’s place on the stool next to Camilo. “Do you need to spit?”

Camilo felt his face burn in shame, “no, I’m fine. I think she got everything with her little vacuum.”

“Okay, then,” he said, putting on gloves. “Let’s take a look. Open wide.”

Under his breath, he cursed the moment he’d agreed to this. How uncomfortable could it be, to have this Adonis of a man’s fingers in his mouth in what was possibly the unsexiest of situations?

“So your dad was quite the handyman, huh?” He asked, and Camilo wanted to laugh at just how impossible it was for him to actually reply. “My old man was like that, too. Well, maybe not to the point of pulling a tooth out with pliers, but still.”

“Wheeer wha he rom?” Camilo asked, kicking himself at his constant need of keeping a conversation going.

“He was Cuban,” he said, and Camilo could detect a hint of something in his voice, almost as if Dr. Ortega was excited at the opportunity to answer that question. “His dad was a soldier under Batista, came here right after Castro took over. Married my grandma a couple of months after that. They were both from well-to-do families, and raised five purely Cuban children, never mind that they were all born here. They always had this idea that they’d go back to Cuba. At first, they believed they’d be back before mi tío Tomás, the oldest, started school. They said for the longest time that he’d start school in Havana. Then, they said that the little one, mi titi Matilde, would be the one starting school in Havana. Then, they would start High School in Cuba, no, graduate from High School in Cuba. Also no. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Anyway, to make el cuento largo corto, both my grandparents, tío Eduardo, and tía Matilde died here without being able to step a foot back in Cuba.”

“Ineresin,” Camilo tried his best to pronounce.

“I guess. My old man went back…I mean, can you even call that going back? He went there not long ago, but just to visit. He wanted to see whether he could maybe get a little house or something, live there a couple months a year, but it didn’t work out. Anyway,” he said, taking out his gloves and turning to the computer. “Where’s your old man from?”

“Colombia,” he said, with a certain beam of pride. “I was born there but we came here when I was very little. I don’t really have that many memories of my time there.”

“Where in Colombia are you from?”

“Medellin,” he said, reaching for the napkin on his lap to clean the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, la ciudad de la eterna primavera,” Dr. Ortega said, his eyes still stuck to the computer screen. “My husband was from there,” he said, and Camilo couldn’t help but notice the weird use of the past tense.

“He was?’

Dr. Ortega turned around and Camilo could see that there was something bothering him, a certain discomfort that Camilo couldn’t help but feel responsible for.

“My husband,” Dr. Ortega repeated, confusion in his voice. “Ex-husband? He’s dead. I don’t know how you should refer to a dead spouse, though. In my mind, I guess he’s still my husband.”

“I’m so sorry,” Camilo said. “Forget I asked.”

But then Camilo remembered he hadn’t actually asked, it was the doctor who for some reason had volunteered that information.

“AIDS,” he added, and Camilo froze, unsure about what his reaction should be to that piece of information.

After a very uncomfortable silence, he just said, “Oh, well, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. It’s hard, you know, you don’t hear about people dying from AIDS that much anymore.”

Camilo didn’t know what to say or how to find the right words. Dr. Ortega looked at him, and by the look on his face, Camilo could tell that the doctor had misunderstood his silence.

“I don’t have AIDS,” he quickly said. “I understand it may be a concern considering you’re my patient, but don’t worry, I get tested every three months, even now, three years after his death. The safety of my patients is my priority.”

“No, no,” Camilo was quick to reassure him. “That’s not what it is. I’m just, like, really sorry. And you’re right, we don’t hear about people who die of AIDS that much anymore, I guess that’s what surprised me a little, that’s all.”

“It wasn’t even because he was gay, you know?” Dr. Ortega let out, pressing the button to put the chair back up.

“What, now?” Camilo said, a bit surprised by the way in which this doctor he had just met seemed to be pouring his feelings out at him.

“My husband, I mean. He was born with HIV, either born or had it transmitted through breast milk, they never found out exactly. They diagnosed him when he was four, you know, his mother died of AIDS and then they decided to test him, see if he had it and he did. Wanna hear the messed-up part? His mother was a nun. They made her hide the pregnancy and deliver in the convent. They never found out who the dad was, although I don’t think it’s that hard to guess. They had Miguel grow up in the orphanage of the convent until his mom died.”

“Oh, wow, now that’s a story,” Camilo said.

“Yeah, it wasn’t easy but he got it under control. He lived with it for years without any problem. Until it came back for some reason. It was as if, out of the blue, the treatment had stopped working. He was gone seven months later.”