scrytch: shabu-gomi (II)

by Darren Bauler

Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 02:28:38 -0500 (CDT)

"Good God!" said The Thing That Lived Under My Bed. "What is that?"

"That's my penis," I replied.

It laughed. "Penis. That's a funny word. Penis, Penis, Penis. It really HAS been a while since I've seen you last."

I had been drinking scotch, again, though not in order to impress friends as much as out of a kind of desperation resulting from being stuck in Waterloo all weekend, and the combination of desperation and hootch makes me pretty fuckin' talkative, which is something to remember the next time you see me get all quiet-like. "There's really nothing else to say, to call it. I mean, there's cock, but that sounds all pornoesque, and you can't get political with it the way a woman can with 'cunt'. you're a woman who uses 'cunt', you're making a statement. you're a man who uses 'cock', you're just kinda white-trashy. And you reach an age where pseudonyms just don't work. And no, I don't have a name for it."

"Wow, so you've, like, thought this out, then."

It must have been three am by this point, and i was having difficulty sleeping due to a) being at a friend's house and having a conversation with an imaginary figure from my childhood, b) the booze -- i've always found sleep to be farther rather than closer from me when i drink, i don't get it either, and c) the meth. It's a long and stupid story, and we have enough of that here already.

"I s'pose. I've had this conversation before, actually. Is this going to be a regular thing, you visiting me before i fall asleep?"

"Nope. In fact, after this, I'm only going to show up when you're sitting by the phone, waiting for a call, afraid if you call back one more time and leave one more message you're going to look like a pathetic fool. Penis, penis, penis. And so you mean to tell me you actually put that thing in women?"

"Not very often. Sometimes."

"And they like it?"

"Yeah. I ws seventeen before i realized that, that women actually liked sex, and i had female friends pretty constantly since i was in elementary school...except when i had no friends at all. I was kinda obtuse, obtuse? Is that the right word?"

"Yes, Darren. Obtuse."

And The Thing That Lived Under My Bed laughed, went away, and eventually I went to sleep.

It was back tonight, while I was waiting for a call.

"I've been thinking about this whole penis thing," it said, as though ours was a discussion between generals or ad execs. "You've been approaching this thing all wrong."

"Listen, I really don't have time for this, not to be rude or anything, but."

"No! but you'll apprecite this, though...oh. OH. I'm sorry, I was interrupting."

Silence, w/o telephone ring.

"How old were you when you clued in to the fact that pretty much everybody masturbates, like often, a lot?"

"Uh..." I said, blushing, trying to be over-casual. "Nineteen. Probably. Though it's one of those things I've never been 100% sure on. For a long time the only people who would talk about it were my female friends, and by then I just assumed I had particularly ravenous female friends."

(people are reading over my shoulder in the lab. fwiw.)

(silence.)

"She's not gonna cll bck tonight, Darren. Go to sleep."

"Naw. I think I'm gonna go to the lab instead-"

"-where you can be around people without actully being with people. It's a compulsion, Darren. You need to start paying attention."

But I didn't hear it, I was already heading out the door.

The Thing That Lived Under My Bed waited for a while until it heard the phone ring, laughed, and went away.

It hasn't been back since.