The Midnight Drill

On call with an eleventh-hour savior for supermodels, Secret Service agents and anyone else with a late-night toothache.

Photos by Emon Hassan

On the late-December day the Mayans predicted the world would end, thirty-four-year-old, six-foot-four-inch Dr. Isaac Datikashvili is going about business as usual, looming over a reclining sixty-something tax attorney with a handlebar mustache. Datikashvili prepares to perform an emergency wisdom tooth extraction on the crumpled patient.

“Looking forward to this?” a confident Datikashvili asks, smiling.

“Like the plague,” the man grunts in reply.

From behind my splatter-proof face-gear provided by dental assistant Gladys Montalvo who is Lilliputian next to the towering dentist, I observe as Datikashvili wiggles the problem tooth with sundry metal instruments. Blood leaks from the surrounding gums. Things don’t seem to be moving, but the dentist is undaunted, motioning me closer for a better view.