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Now it can be told. The question, which has smoldered for many years and plagued the best minds of generations, has been answered. At one time it seemed impenetrable, inexplicable, beyond the powers of the intellect to solve. Aristotle himself was said to have despaired of finding the solution. The question, of course, is this: How can it be that to become a dentist requires the same amount of training as to become a doctor?

Think about it. It defies all logic. No wonder great thinkers were stymied! We know that a doctor, a physician that is, must master the entire human body in all its complexity. The body is full of organs, nerves, tissues, nodes, lobes, fluids, valves, ducts, flippers and flappers: countless things that ooze, squirt, pulsate, and secrete. The human mouth, on the other hand, is nothing more than a small damp cave; it contains but thirty-two teeth, at maximum (fewer after a dentist gets hold of it.) And teeth are nothing more knobby pegs of bone. They just sit there; they don't do anything but wear out and perchance rot. How can it possibly be, then, that it takes FOUR YEARS of study to learn about this handful of choppers? Impossible, you cry, yet the fact remains. There must be an explanation. It's no use asking a dentist; they are sworn to an oath of secrecy far more binding than any Mafia code of silence.

Well, the truth, as they say, is out there, and at a solemn meeting which took place almost five years ago we at the Marquee resolved to pierce the veil of occult or die trying. How prophetic that figure of speech proved to be! With full knowledge of the risks involved we managed to insert an agent into dental school. This brave agent shall only be identified as K. She was parachuted in to the top-secret American Institute of Dentistry, located in a remote mountain fastness somewhere in the West. She carried a small but powerful radio transmitter. Before her tragic disappearance K managed to file a number of reports. Assembled, they lay bare the appalling facts of the dental industry. A word of caution: the following material is shocking in nature. You may never again trust your mouth to a smiling fellow in a white smock.

Report # 1:

Arrived safe. Successfully infiltrated student body. In my student guise, attended something called Initiation and Orientation. Very frightening. All participants masked. Swore allegiance to something called the Dental Arcade. Apparently the Arcade is the master organization, controls ALL toothy matters. Symbol: crossed hammer and tongs. Yesterday I learned something equally chilling. D.D.S. does NOT stand for Doctor of Dental Science, as long believed! It is an acronym for Demonio Dulcis Salarium - meaning, roughly translated, 'damned good racket'. You see it everywhere.

Report # 2:

I've unearthed the curriculum for the first year of study. It's designed to weed out those who can't 'take it' (ominous phrase.) The entire year is devoted to nothing more than habituating the student to the human mouth! It seemed incredible-I feared a trap-but discovered it is all too true. We spent all day peering into the oral orifice. Many fainted, resigned scholarships. They vanish and are never seen again. The maw is horrible. Horrible! To think I'll be doing this for a full year! I must hold on somehow. I must.

Report # 3:

Roommate committed suicide last night. Can't fight feelings of envy. The maw! The maw!

Report # 4:

Whew! Made it through the first year. Fear I will never be the same. Accidentally yawned while looking in a mirror last week; screamed, cried, woke up days later in restraint harness. I was lucky; some never recover. Thank God Habituation is over. The second year promises to be better. We learn billing, or bilking, as it is known around here. That is a joke. I think.

Report # 5:

Bilking proves to be unexpectedly easy. We pick a large dollar figure at random: the patient's age is a good place to start, we are instructed. Double it and square the results. Add forty per cent on top. Simple as that. A child could do it, if a child had the nerve.

Report # 6:

The third year. Hard to believe I've made it this far! Next week begins what is known as Crunch Week. It's got me worried. Supposed to be the core of the dental curriculum, the substantive part of the profession. No one else seems concerned. I'm beginning to wonder if the term 'crunch week' is meant ironically, as it usually brings on a snigger. Maybe I have nothing to fear. After all, we will only attend classes three hours a day, half-hour true/false quiz at end of week and that's it. My new roommate, a fourth-year student, laughed it off: "You could train a gorilla to do this stuff. I'm not talking about a smart gorilla-I mean an average gorilla." I'm not so sure.

Report # 7:

My roommate was right. Crunch Week was a breeze. We learned all the tricks: how to drill, how to fill, how to yank, and how to bank. How to tell a molar from an incisor, how to avoid harpooning the tongue. Really simple stuff. Also some specialty techniques, like how to pack small explosive charges into a tooth, and how to ram a needle into a sensitive gum in the interest of preventing pain. A few other basic skills rounded it out. Frankly I had a much tougher time learning to change an automobile tire. I aced the exam, which made me kind of proud; on the other hand, so did everybody else, which made me feel pretty ordinary. Technically speaking, we are now qualified to perform every dental procedure in the book.
The rest of the academic year is devoted to Operating the Chair. You push levers and it goes up and down and leans back. That should be fun.

Report # 8:

Had a scare at the beginning of this, the fourth year of dental school. Afraid my cover was blown. We were practicing Chair Repartee, the focus of our final year of study. I made a very dangerous slip. I was working on the dummy (Omar, we call him) and without thinking asked Omar a simple, straightforward question. A deadly hush fell over the class: shock, anger, betrayal. Instantly I saw my error: Omar's mouth was free of obstructions. Had he been a living human being, he could have spoken as freely and easily as I. Horror coursed through my veins. No real dentist would ever make such a blunder. Felt hostility on all sides. Thought my hour had come. No one violates the Dentist's Oath and escapes alive. Tried to make a joke but my mouth was too dry. Spotted my salvation just in time. Some of Omar's head stuffing had worked loose - he undergoes much abuse - and I pretended I'd packed his throat full of it prior to innocent questioning. I hauled it out in giant wads, feigning lighthearted jollity and keeping up the hectoring gab. Think I got away with it but it was close--too close. They are watching me now, I feel.

Report # 9:

Two more weeks. If I can just survive two more weeks I'll be free, free to report to an aghast world the dark secrets of this profession. But eyes are on me always. I think - no, I am certain - that they are on to my false role. Yet the steel manacles have yet to clap onto my wrists. Maybe they are toying with me. Hoping I'll crack under the strain. Everywhere I am followed. Let me be strong!

Graduation ceremony promises to test me to my very limits. Can I maintain my cover, so painstakingly built? Can I really bow down blasphemously before the Golden Molar? Can I swear eternal fealty to the Tormentor, which is what they affectionately call the drill in this charnel house? It's more than a mere human being can take! But the alternative is to become one of them! I'm afraid, afraid--wait! O God!--I hear footsteps at my door! They're coming! They're comi

This was the last communication ever received from K. Her courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten. Nor, we hope, will a grateful nation forget the awful truths she revealed, at such costs. May she rest in peace, far from the whine of the Tormentor.

Editor's note: As it happened, K. in fact survived her ordeal. In a sense, she has even flourished. She resurfaced not long ago under the name of Dr. Smilewell, and set up a dental practice of her own. She charges five hundred dollars for a checkup, eight hundred for a simple filling, and twelve thousand for a crown. Anesthetic is extra. Her drill is very well polished, a handsome machine. All over her office one can see copies of her diploma displayed in gilt frames: D.D.S, it says, in bold script. And under that, Summa Cum Laude.

Steve Bovee is a regular contributor to the Marquee. He writes, paints, acts and whatever else in Bisbee. - ed