The Teeth Inspection in People Like Us: A Symbol of Vulnerability and Invasive Threat

What the Teeth Inspection Is

The teeth inspection is a recurring physical violation at the heart of People Like Us: John J. Remus, a scarred stranger who announces his intention to kill the narrator, repeatedly forces his fingers into the narrator's mouth to examine his teeth. The first inspection happens in a Los Angeles alley near Koreatown, when Remus tackles the narrator to the ground and probes his mouth with two-and-a-half knuckles of his index finger. He compliments the narrator's teeth as “high quality,” notes a cracked second molar on the left side, and instructs him to get it filled before their next meeting. The inspection is so invasive that the narrator cannot form consonants—only “a train of vowels” comes out when he tries to speak.

The motif recurs at least twice more. In an Italian bathroom, Remus finds the narrator again and, without preamble, puts his scarred hands back in the narrator's mouth. In Paris, while the narrator cradles an unconscious Dylan after a seizure, Remus forces the narrator's jaw open with a grip so hard the narrator thinks something cracks. Each inspection renders the narrator physically helpless and speechless—a profound vulnerability for a man whose identity is built on words.

Where the Inspection Recurs

The three inspections trace the novel's movement from shock to ritual to revelation.

First: Los Angeles (Chapter 2). The narrator is walking back to his hotel after a week of failed meetings with studio executives. He's tackled in an alley, and Remus's hand is in his mouth before he can process what's happening. The inspection is disorienting and absurd—Remus compliments the narrator's teeth, asks about his writing, and then, after making him pinky-swear not to overreact, announces he intends to kill him. The narrator's words fail him completely: “all that comes out is a train of vowels.”

Second: Italy (Chapter 14). The narrator knows what's coming this time. “I already know what he's coming for,” he says, even before Remus speaks. The inspection is shorter, almost perfunctory—“Not bad. Not bad at all.” But it's followed by violence: Remus stabs the narrator in the stomach. The inspection becomes a prelude—an intimate violation that makes the subsequent violence feel even more shocking. The narrator thinks about the gun he carries but can't reach. His body refuses to obey his commands to defend himself.

Third: Paris (Chapter 26). The narrator is holding Dylan, who has collapsed after a seizure. Remus appears barefoot and bare-chested. The narrator refuses—“No”—but Remus forces his jaw open anyway. The narrator's eyes water, tears run down his face. But this time, something shifts. The narrator hears the strange music more clearly—“like the opening of a song I can almost remember.” And after the inspection, Remus turns, and the narrator sees his back: a mass of scars, “haggard flesh” that looks like it was ripped off and put back on. The inspection becomes a moment of mutual revelation. The narrator sees Remus's vulnerability—the scars that mark a lifetime of violence and suffering—and Remus, having inspected the narrator's teeth, helps carry Dylan and tells a story about a friend who killed himself.

The note Remus leaves after stabbing the narrator—“Keep brushing!”—extends the motif beyond the inspections themselves. The dental metaphor becomes a dark joke between the two men, a thread of connection that persists even through violence.

How the Meaning Changes

The first inspection is pure violation. The narrator is on his back in the grime of an alley, a stranger's hand in his mouth, being asked about his writing and complimented on his dental work. The absurdity—the killer as dental hygienist—is disorienting. Remus makes the narrator pinky-swear not to overreact before announcing he intends to kill him. The inspection establishes the power dynamic: Remus controls the narrator's body, and the narrator's words—his primary defense—are useless.

The second inspection is more ritualized. The narrator knows what's coming. The inspection is shorter, almost perfunctory, but it's followed by violence. The inspection here becomes a prelude—an intimate violation that makes the subsequent violence feel even more shocking.

The third inspection is the most violent and the most revealing. The narrator refuses, but Remus forces his jaw open anyway. The narrator's eyes water, tears run down his face. But this time, something shifts. The narrator hears the strange music more clearly, and after the inspection, he sees Remus's scarred back. The inspection becomes a moment of mutual revelation—two damaged men meeting in a moment of forced intimacy.

Vulnerability and the Failure of Words

The teeth inspection is the novel's most direct symbol of vulnerability. The mouth is intimate—it's where we speak, eat, breathe, kiss. Forcing a hand into someone's mouth is a profound violation of bodily autonomy. The narrator is rendered speechless—literally unable to form words. For a man who “works with words” and has built his career on storytelling, this is a devastating loss of agency.

The narrator's inability to reach his gun during the inspections is equally significant. He carries a Heckler & Koch .45, smuggled into Europe, thinking of it as the “Great Equalizer.” But when Remus is near, his body refuses to cooperate. “I tell my body to reach for the gun, but it doesn't.” The gun—the supposed equalizer—is useless against Remus's physical dominance. This connects to the novel's broader exploration of the normalization of gun violence: the gun is present, loaded, and yet it cannot protect the narrator from the threat he faces.

The Inspection and Storytelling

The narrator explicitly wonders whether Remus thinks “my teeth are where the words I write come from.” The inspection targets the physical instrument of the narrator's craft. His teeth are what make his words possible—and his words are his survival mechanism. Throughout the novel, the narrator uses storytelling to make sense of trauma, to process grief, to connect with others. The inspection threatens that: it's an invasion of the very source of his identity.

This connects to the theme of storytelling as survival. The narrator's stories are his way of staying alive—literally, in the case of his encounters with Remus, and figuratively, in his attempts to process the violence and loss that surround him. The inspection—which renders him speechless—is a threat to that survival mechanism.

Remus's Brokenness and the Echo of Grief

The inspections reveal as much about Remus as they do about the narrator. Remus's own mouth is “a sort of Morse code of pearly whites and inky blackness”—about half capacity. His back is a mass of scars, “haggard flesh” that looks like it was ripped off and put back on. He tells stories about friends who killed themselves. He carries a knife and, later, teaches the narrator to use a gun.

Remus tells the narrator “It all comes out okay” during the first inspection—the same phrase the narrator later uses when a driver asks what he says to people in grief. The echo suggests that Remus, too, carries grief—and that the inspection, for all its violence, is a strange form of connection between two men who are both marked by suffering. This connects to the novel's exploration of grief and the impossibility of changing the past.

Study Questions

1. Why does Remus inspect the narrator's teeth, and what does the inspection reveal about Remus himself?

Remus's inspections are never explained directly. The narrator speculates that Remus might believe “my teeth are where the words I write come from”—a suggestion that Remus sees the narrator's words as his power and wants to control or mark that power. The inspections also reveal Remus's own brokenness: his mouth is “a sort of Morse code of pearly whites and inky blackness,” and his back is a mass of scars. The inspection is a way for Remus to assert control while also revealing his own damage. His demand that the narrator fix the cracked molar—“Next time I see you I want you to have it fixed”—suggests a strange caretaking impulse, as if Remus wants the narrator to survive long enough to be killed properly.

2. How does the narrator's inability to speak during the inspections connect to his identity as a storyteller?

The narrator's identity is built on words—he's a successful author who “works with words” and “even won The Big One” (the National Book Award). During the inspections, he can only produce “a train of vowels”—he cannot form consonants, cannot talk his way out of the situation. This is a profound loss of agency for a man whose primary defense is verbal. The inspection targets the physical instrument of his craft, rendering him helpless and speechless. It's a threat not just to his body but to his very sense of self.

3. What role does the gun play in the inspections, and what does the narrator's failure to use it suggest about the novel's treatment of gun violence?

The narrator carries a gun—a Heckler & Koch .45—and thinks of it as the “Great Equalizer.” But during the inspections, his body refuses to reach for it. “I tell my body to reach for the gun, but it doesn't.” The gun is present, loaded, and useless. This suggests that the narrator's faith in the gun as protection is misplaced—that violence cannot be countered with more violence, or at least that the narrator's own relationship to violence is more complicated than he wants to admit. The novel's broader treatment of gun violence—the school shootings referenced in the opening chapters, the narrator's childhood memory of nearly killing himself with his father's shotgun—suggests that guns are not solutions but sources of trauma.

4. How does the meaning of the inspection shift from the first encounter to the third?

In the first inspection (LA alley), the inspection is a shock—an absurd, terrifying violation that establishes Remus's power. In the second (Italian bathroom), it's a ritual—expected, almost perfunctory, followed by violence. In the third (Paris street), it's a revelation—the narrator sees Remus's scarred back, hears the strange music more clearly, and the inspection becomes a moment of connection between two damaged men. The shift is from pure violation to something more complex: a forced intimacy that reveals vulnerability on both sides. By the end, the inspection is less a threat and more a strange form of recognition—two men who have both been broken by the world, meeting in a moment of mutual exposure.