Sometimes, late night dentistry is your only option. Sometimes, when all other avenues have been exhausted, and a year’s time of begging on the streets has netted barely enough cash to splurge for a dime to cover the extra black olive slices on the $2.99 six inch tuna sub at Blimpie’s, and when the abscess behind a botched street-surgery of an ingrown baby-tooth begins to sour and puss, then you barter what you can to save your jawline. Tonight, Ernest thought, he would finally get the abscess fixed. And, if it cost him’s a night’s dignity, so be it. There was nowhere else to go. There was no one else to ask for help besides the middle aged dental assistant he had befriended by the Chinatown Express bus stop on a sober weekend to DC to cop the black tar herion he would sell for pennies profit in Thompkins Square to other yet-to-be-blissed out gutter punk teen runaways. Bill, he said his name was, and he worked downtown. If he ever needed anything, just stop by the dental office. Even if it’s late. It’s never too late.
![Even on nice days, Willy “Red” Johnson would rest in the park, with nowhere to go, now that he was clean.
Credit:http://evgrieve.com/2012/03/ev-grieve-etc-mourning-edition_14.html
[Photo by Bobby Williams. Spotted on Cooper Square.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0vwlavyrb1qiqm75o1_400.jpg)
