The morning one awakens as a penis doesn’t feel that much different than any other morning. Most of my life, I’ve felt like a giant dick anyway. No matter the season, my entire body was always aroused, itchy, throbbing. That was my mentality, too. The testosterone, it was how I got ahead, my assertiveness, my swagger. As a man, it was expected of me. As a black man, it was required. Every single morning of my adulthood, as I took a leak, I adjusted my medicine cabinet door so I could get a glimpse of my morning wood in the mirror. Somehow, everything would then seem right, if not in the world then at least in my life.
Like most men, I didn’t realize how deep my love for my own ding-dong went. I was vain about it, but how could anyone blame me? I’d known it for so long. When I discovered it in the womb, I’m sure I was instantly smitten. It was my first possession, my own bodily toy. And unless something really weird happened, it would always be there for me, my first friend.
To this day, I still don’t know how all of this happened, how I was magically transformed into a six-foot penis, but I like to think that, in the cocoon of my bed, I somehow dreamed about myself so intensely that I became the very thing I most desired—me.
Like most men, I didn’t realize how deep my love for my own ding-dong went. I was vain about it, but how could anyone blame me? I’d known it for so long. When I discovered it in the womb, I’m sure I was instantly smitten. It was my first possession, my own bodily toy. And unless something really weird happened, it would always be there for me, my first friend.
To this day, I still don’t know how all of this happened, how I was magically transformed into a six-foot penis, but I like to think that, in the cocoon of my bed, I somehow dreamed about myself so intensely that I became the very thing I most desired—me.
*
Here’s the funny thing: as a man, I wasn’t even six-foot. I was five-foot-six at best. So transforming into a six-foot-tall penis was quite an accomplishment when you think about it. Then again, that was just how I rolled. I’ve always been gifted. Before I became a penis, my life had been going exactly as planned. I was loaded. I had businesses, big ones. I owned a skyscraper, where I lived on the top two floors. I had other homes, many others all over the world. Sometimes, I lost track of how many. I was acquainted with a few single women around my age who occasionally allowed me in their boudoirs if I threw around enough cash. I’d never been married. I didn’t have kids or that many relatives. What more could a billionaire ask for?
Looking in the mirror that first morning in the fall, though, washing my face, hoping when I dried off and opened my eyes that I’d be me again and not a large penis, it was obvious washing my face had no effect. I was still a large penis. Perhaps I was finally complete. I’d reached my ultimate form. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t look that different really. Somehow, I still had arms.
I had a head, too, of course, but not my usual head. Unfortunately, I had a penis’ head. Thank god I was already bald. Hair on a penis might’ve looked weird. I kind of had a face. If I looked at myself in the mirror long enough, at the wrinkles and folds, there was something familiar enough there to make me think it looked like me. All things considered, I was just happy I was circumcised.
I could get around just fine, but I didn’t have legs in the traditional sense. That morning, before I even realized I’d transformed into a penis, I’d risen out of bed and waddled about my home as I usually did, had a cup of tea and read a bit of the newspaper. It wasn’t until I was walking past my full-length mirror on the way to the shower, stripping off my pajamas, that I finally saw my new form.
Where my feet usually resided were two watermelon-sized testicles sitting cozily in nests of hair. I moved what used to feel like my feet and the testicles moved. This was, needless to say, fucking freaky. Testicles should never be that big. They really aren’t appealing. Yet when I looked up and saw my reflection, almost without meaning to, I elongated and stood taller. Instead of being sickened, I was momentarily impressed at how majestic I looked. I stuck out my chest.
My spiritual boner lasted all of a minute. I was fifty-five. I usually needed pills to keep it up. I vomited. I shriveled. I fell to the floor. Reality set in. I wasn’t a man having some weird wet dream. I was a walking reproductive organ. How would I live? How many problems would this pose? Would anyone even notice? I looked back at the mirror and tilted my head much like a dumb dog. I bathed in the shock of how sad I looked, how sad a penis looks, soft or hard, even when it’s twelve times its normal size.
Naturally, I began to scream.
Looking in the mirror that first morning in the fall, though, washing my face, hoping when I dried off and opened my eyes that I’d be me again and not a large penis, it was obvious washing my face had no effect. I was still a large penis. Perhaps I was finally complete. I’d reached my ultimate form. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t look that different really. Somehow, I still had arms.
I had a head, too, of course, but not my usual head. Unfortunately, I had a penis’ head. Thank god I was already bald. Hair on a penis might’ve looked weird. I kind of had a face. If I looked at myself in the mirror long enough, at the wrinkles and folds, there was something familiar enough there to make me think it looked like me. All things considered, I was just happy I was circumcised.
I could get around just fine, but I didn’t have legs in the traditional sense. That morning, before I even realized I’d transformed into a penis, I’d risen out of bed and waddled about my home as I usually did, had a cup of tea and read a bit of the newspaper. It wasn’t until I was walking past my full-length mirror on the way to the shower, stripping off my pajamas, that I finally saw my new form.
Where my feet usually resided were two watermelon-sized testicles sitting cozily in nests of hair. I moved what used to feel like my feet and the testicles moved. This was, needless to say, fucking freaky. Testicles should never be that big. They really aren’t appealing. Yet when I looked up and saw my reflection, almost without meaning to, I elongated and stood taller. Instead of being sickened, I was momentarily impressed at how majestic I looked. I stuck out my chest.
My spiritual boner lasted all of a minute. I was fifty-five. I usually needed pills to keep it up. I vomited. I shriveled. I fell to the floor. Reality set in. I wasn’t a man having some weird wet dream. I was a walking reproductive organ. How would I live? How many problems would this pose? Would anyone even notice? I looked back at the mirror and tilted my head much like a dumb dog. I bathed in the shock of how sad I looked, how sad a penis looks, soft or hard, even when it’s twelve times its normal size.
Naturally, I began to scream.
*
Here’s the ironic part: my name is Dick. No, really, it is. If it weren’t true, it would be too much. In my early twenties, way before all of this, people started calling me Dick without me having to ask. My full name is Richard Dickerson so it was probably going to happen anyway.
I could’ve insisted on being called Rick or Richie or Rich or the Rickster, if I was white, but Dick always sounded better. It was another irony. A black guy named Dick? The jokes just wrote themselves. It set me apart, though, which was something I liked. Naturally, one develops a persona to fit one’s name. I was with many women, many, many women, and a couple of men, just to try it out. I wasn’t that well-endowed, though I wasn’t exactly little. During a three-month period in my mid-twenties, when I was feeling especially inadequate, I’d tried to use all sorts of ointments and pumps and stretchers to elongate myself. Now, yet another irony, I wasn’t just elongated. I was in a penis suit. I could’ve been a sign waver for a sex shop. Penises R Us. The Penis Pavilion. Get it up and come on in!
Of course, one’s first instinct is to blame oneself. I deserved it. I’ve been bawdy. I’ve squeezed a few buttocks without asking. I’ve been investigated. At one time in my life, I was fine with my reputation. I basked in my wide ray of sunlight no matter how many lawsuits came at me. It was part and parcel of my success. Dick Dickerson, Double D, opinionated OG tech entrepreneur/virile black man. Yet, that day, when all this was new, I may have thought for the slightest moment that one of my misdeeds had finally popped back up and put a hex on me.
I could’ve insisted on being called Rick or Richie or Rich or the Rickster, if I was white, but Dick always sounded better. It was another irony. A black guy named Dick? The jokes just wrote themselves. It set me apart, though, which was something I liked. Naturally, one develops a persona to fit one’s name. I was with many women, many, many women, and a couple of men, just to try it out. I wasn’t that well-endowed, though I wasn’t exactly little. During a three-month period in my mid-twenties, when I was feeling especially inadequate, I’d tried to use all sorts of ointments and pumps and stretchers to elongate myself. Now, yet another irony, I wasn’t just elongated. I was in a penis suit. I could’ve been a sign waver for a sex shop. Penises R Us. The Penis Pavilion. Get it up and come on in!
Of course, one’s first instinct is to blame oneself. I deserved it. I’ve been bawdy. I’ve squeezed a few buttocks without asking. I’ve been investigated. At one time in my life, I was fine with my reputation. I basked in my wide ray of sunlight no matter how many lawsuits came at me. It was part and parcel of my success. Dick Dickerson, Double D, opinionated OG tech entrepreneur/virile black man. Yet, that day, when all this was new, I may have thought for the slightest moment that one of my misdeeds had finally popped back up and put a hex on me.
*
When one becomes a penis, one’s first thought is to consult a doctor. It only makes sense. But what does one wear when one goes out in public as a penis, especially for the first time? I donned some sweatpants, somehow getting my testes through the pant legs. I layered from there, a sweatshirt, a trench coat and a fedora. I figured a scarf and sunglasses wouldn’t hurt either. I thought of a business suit, but a business suit on a six-foot-tall penis would’ve looked ridiculous. I looked down at my balls, my new feet, and realized I didn’t need the use of shoes anymore.
I called my driver, Jamison, who I paid to be at the ready at all times. I descended sixty floors in my private elevator to the garage. As I got in his town car, he said, “Dick, as usual, you look quite erect this morning.” I’d given him the name Jamison. He was white. Not that it was related, but he made a lot of dick jokes, I think to please. That day, unsurprisingly, I wasn’t feeling it.
He put the car in gear, was just about to take off, when he looked back at me through the rearview mirror. He put his arm over the seat, turned around, and looked right at me. “Dick, you okay? You look a little—I don’t know—swollen. You sick or something?”
“Bad shellfish. Clams or something.”
“Ooof. So we’re going to the doctor, then?”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Yes, hurry.”
I called my driver, Jamison, who I paid to be at the ready at all times. I descended sixty floors in my private elevator to the garage. As I got in his town car, he said, “Dick, as usual, you look quite erect this morning.” I’d given him the name Jamison. He was white. Not that it was related, but he made a lot of dick jokes, I think to please. That day, unsurprisingly, I wasn’t feeling it.
He put the car in gear, was just about to take off, when he looked back at me through the rearview mirror. He put his arm over the seat, turned around, and looked right at me. “Dick, you okay? You look a little—I don’t know—swollen. You sick or something?”
“Bad shellfish. Clams or something.”
“Ooof. So we’re going to the doctor, then?”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Yes, hurry.”
*
Friends though we were, I didn’t have much confidence in Irv Goodenough. I never did. My former college roommate had always been an underachiever and, I suspected, a closeted dope smoker. I visited him for two reasons: A) to keep the man in business and B) to prove Mimi, one of my exes, wrong. She seemed to think I didn’t have a giving bone in my body, but I had Goodenough. He was my cause, my proof. However, I quickly realized going to him for answers was probably a mistake.
He sat on a short stool. From the exam table, with that thin white paper crinkling under me, I looked down at his bald spot as he seemed to skim my chart instead of actually read it. He had bedhead. He needed a haircut and a shave. I said, “Irv, here is where you look up at me and prescribe a remedy. Now, let’s have it.”
But all Goodenough could do was yawn. “It’s not fatal. At least that’s something.”
My impatience may have gotten the better of me. I told him to stop fucking around or I’d rescind my monthly stipend. He didn’t look like he cared for that. He checked his watch and sighed so deeply he seemed to think of me as a burden. But I was his friend and benefactor. Besides, I thought it was understood that he was one of my yes men. I’d asked him to see me at late notice, sure, but what were friends and benefactors and paid yes men for?
“Listen,” he said. “Dick, I’ve never seen anything like this, okay? But your health is fine. You have all your organs. Your heart is pumping. Your brain is working the way it’s always worked. I mean, Jesus Christ, you have arms!” Goodenough, with his ineffectual pudgy face, to his credit, tried to soften the blow with a delicately placed aphorism. “Maybe you should just learn to live with this. Be a better Dick.”
For some reason, everyone thought I didn’t like myself. I loved myself, extremely. How did they think I’d gotten so far? As I left, I realized I’d been misunderstood my entire life.
He sat on a short stool. From the exam table, with that thin white paper crinkling under me, I looked down at his bald spot as he seemed to skim my chart instead of actually read it. He had bedhead. He needed a haircut and a shave. I said, “Irv, here is where you look up at me and prescribe a remedy. Now, let’s have it.”
But all Goodenough could do was yawn. “It’s not fatal. At least that’s something.”
My impatience may have gotten the better of me. I told him to stop fucking around or I’d rescind my monthly stipend. He didn’t look like he cared for that. He checked his watch and sighed so deeply he seemed to think of me as a burden. But I was his friend and benefactor. Besides, I thought it was understood that he was one of my yes men. I’d asked him to see me at late notice, sure, but what were friends and benefactors and paid yes men for?
“Listen,” he said. “Dick, I’ve never seen anything like this, okay? But your health is fine. You have all your organs. Your heart is pumping. Your brain is working the way it’s always worked. I mean, Jesus Christ, you have arms!” Goodenough, with his ineffectual pudgy face, to his credit, tried to soften the blow with a delicately placed aphorism. “Maybe you should just learn to live with this. Be a better Dick.”
For some reason, everyone thought I didn’t like myself. I loved myself, extremely. How did they think I’d gotten so far? As I left, I realized I’d been misunderstood my entire life.
*
When one lives as a penis for a week or so, one quickly realizes that being a dick is harder than it looks. Let’s keep it real. I wasn’t just a dick. I was a black dick. Given this country’s history with undermining black masculinity, I was sure I was being treated even worse because of my skin color. I was certain there was some white dick traipsing around somewhere, probably in California or Utah, living his life free of scrutiny. Meanwhile, I was in New York. I couldn’t go anywhere without being ogled or sneered at or accosted, especially by big burly white women. They often cornered me as I came out of a movie or Jamison’s car. They felt me up and acted like they didn’t like it. They kicked me in the balls, stood on them even. Then they socked me right in the nose and ran away, but not before saying my presence had offended them. “Why don’t you just kill yourself?” they said. “You know, this is all karmic retribution,” they also said. They started picketing outside my skyscraper.
I know I was a dick and everything, but even I thought that was a bit harsh. I mean, damn, I didn’t even know them. I tried to file a police complaint once, but the cop at the precinct desk just said, “Look at you. You were asking for it.”
I continued to trudge through life. Very few were sympathetic to my situation, but for some reason, a friendly tribe of older Upper West Side lesbians took up my cause for a week or two. To this day, I’m still not sure why. They said they understood me, the disembodied penis. I was the symbol of masculinity, black masculinity no less. It was imperative that I use my station in life for good and not evil. They created Instagram and Facebook accounts on my behalf. I had an illness, they said. Or was it a disfigurement? No one could really say for sure. They were so kind. Though I was already loaded, they set up a PleaseFundMe. They cooked me dinner once, too. Vegan. I drank some of their home-brewed probiotic hooch. On the way home, Jamison and I had to stop at White Castle.
Their message stuck with me, though. I was an anomaly in the gender/sex continuum. “Be out,” they said. “Wave your freak flag high. There may be others out there like you. Stand up for them.” On the way out, however, they did say that the gay mafia was very real. They would fillet me like a tuna if I abused their trust. I took their advice. I stood. I pitched my tent. I did a few TV and print interviews. All the headlines were really punny. Man becomes penis but doesn’t have the balls to hang out. Stuff like that. I was ridiculed even more. No one took me seriously, not even men. They were actually my worst tormentors. I got death threats from a bunch of hillbillies. Inevitably, the porn industry came a-calling. I figured it was a good time to hire security and withdraw from public life.
Goodenough referred me to other doctors, good doctors, penis specialists, at my behest. I hoped something as simple as a penis reduction would remedy the situation, but they said, no, that’s not how that worked. It would be drastic plastic surgery. I would have to be rebuilt. I overheard one of them say they should speak with the Federal government about my body, that I should’ve been studied. Naturally, I ran the hell out of the exam room, still in my paper gown. I found my way down a back stairwell and jumped into Jamison’s waiting town car, my bare ass kissed by the cold winter air.
I know I was a dick and everything, but even I thought that was a bit harsh. I mean, damn, I didn’t even know them. I tried to file a police complaint once, but the cop at the precinct desk just said, “Look at you. You were asking for it.”
I continued to trudge through life. Very few were sympathetic to my situation, but for some reason, a friendly tribe of older Upper West Side lesbians took up my cause for a week or two. To this day, I’m still not sure why. They said they understood me, the disembodied penis. I was the symbol of masculinity, black masculinity no less. It was imperative that I use my station in life for good and not evil. They created Instagram and Facebook accounts on my behalf. I had an illness, they said. Or was it a disfigurement? No one could really say for sure. They were so kind. Though I was already loaded, they set up a PleaseFundMe. They cooked me dinner once, too. Vegan. I drank some of their home-brewed probiotic hooch. On the way home, Jamison and I had to stop at White Castle.
Their message stuck with me, though. I was an anomaly in the gender/sex continuum. “Be out,” they said. “Wave your freak flag high. There may be others out there like you. Stand up for them.” On the way out, however, they did say that the gay mafia was very real. They would fillet me like a tuna if I abused their trust. I took their advice. I stood. I pitched my tent. I did a few TV and print interviews. All the headlines were really punny. Man becomes penis but doesn’t have the balls to hang out. Stuff like that. I was ridiculed even more. No one took me seriously, not even men. They were actually my worst tormentors. I got death threats from a bunch of hillbillies. Inevitably, the porn industry came a-calling. I figured it was a good time to hire security and withdraw from public life.
Goodenough referred me to other doctors, good doctors, penis specialists, at my behest. I hoped something as simple as a penis reduction would remedy the situation, but they said, no, that’s not how that worked. It would be drastic plastic surgery. I would have to be rebuilt. I overheard one of them say they should speak with the Federal government about my body, that I should’ve been studied. Naturally, I ran the hell out of the exam room, still in my paper gown. I found my way down a back stairwell and jumped into Jamison’s waiting town car, my bare ass kissed by the cold winter air.
*
When one encounters a significant life change, such as becoming a penis, one inevitably tries to take shelter in the arms of a lover. Mimi, my old standby, my mean old lady friend, was there for me, at least at first. She pretended to understand and care. We hadn’t seen each other in years. She suddenly wanted to reconnect. It was odd, but I went with it. She was terribly vindictive. I thought I was beginning to see her good side again. Yet something just didn’t feel right. Whenever I offered to meet in public, she had excuses. Somehow, we always ended up at her place instead. I even had to take the backstairs.
When one becomes a penis, say after the sixth or seventh month, one starts to realize how much we all love penises, though no one wants to admit it. They’re everywhere in civilization and nature and we don’t even realize it. Cucumbers, bananas, guns, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
“Tell me those aren’t dicks,” I said.
“Yes, you,” Mimi pointed at me, “are everywhere and we,” she pointed at herself, “don’t even realize it.”
She was a lawyer. She was always fucking correcting people. I’d forgotten about that.
“Huh?” I took off my fedora, but she winced so I put it back on. Most people couldn’t handle the sight of my bare head.
“You’re a penis now. Us humans don’t realize you phallic-shaped beings are everywhere.”
“Phallic-shaped beings?” I said. “Do you not regard me as a human being? I’m a human penis, not some donkey dick.”
Her hesitance to agree should’ve been a clue she may have had hidden motives.
After a particularly trying week of death threats and the usual interview requests, Jamison dropped me off at her building. She said she’d make me dinner, kielbasa and sauerkraut. It wasn’t until my second glass of wine that I began to feel different, impaired. Mimi sat across her glass dining table from me, smirking, as though waiting for me to suddenly capsize. Her old varicose-veined legs were crossed elegantly, her ugly, hammer-toed foot bobbing up and down like a warning sign. I looked at my wine glass.
“You poisoned me, didn’t you, you goddamn weirdo?”
“Poison is a harsh word. I prefer drugged. But don’t worry. You won’t die or anything.”
“What’ll happen, then?”
She shrugged. “Why ask? You won’t remember anyway.” She waved. “Nighty-night.” The room went sideways.
When I awakened, I was tied up on her bed. I turned and she was lying next to me, done up in lingerie, smoking a cigarette. She seemed spent. She was panting. I was really dehydrated but at the same time I was covered in nice-smelling oils. Something had been done to me. Though I was all lubed, I was painfully chafed in other areas, delicate areas.
“You took advantage of me, you witch.”
I looked to my left. There was film equipment, tripods and shit, set up across the room, pointing right at us. I could see myself on a flat-screen monitor.
“What the fuck?” I started to scream for help.
She shushed me. “Remember the night we met?” She sat up and stubbed out her ciggie.
It was at some party twenty years before. “Vaguely.”
“What about after? When I went home with you?”
I thought about it. I said, “Oh, is that what this is all about?” I was about to say that men did those kinds of things back then. But even as I thought it, it didn’t make me sound very good. “So you’re taking revenge on me now? Why?”
“Because you’re a penis now, you asshole. Just the sight of you infuriates me. Don’t you have any remorse?”
“For what?” I said. “Slipping you a mickey or for now being a penis?”
“Both, dickhead.”
My mind was just beginning to travel back to that night. Had it really been that bad? She took all kinds of pills back then. What was the difference if it was me giving it to her? I hadn’t even done anything but spill her onto the bed and pass out next to her. I’d drunk too much. I couldn’t get it up anyway.
It was as if she could hear my thoughts. She smacked me across the face. “You just said all that out loud, stupid.” It must’ve been the roofie she’d given me. She mashed the button of a remote with her thumb and stopped filming. She untied me. “Get the hell out. We’re through. You’re lucky I don’t call the cops.”
I gathered up my clothes. “I’m lucky?” I was almost out the door when I asked if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for me to buy the footage back and for her to sign an NDA. We could put all of this behind us. But she pulled a hot poker from the fireplace and started waving it around like it was a fencing foil. I took that as a no.
When one becomes a penis, say after the sixth or seventh month, one starts to realize how much we all love penises, though no one wants to admit it. They’re everywhere in civilization and nature and we don’t even realize it. Cucumbers, bananas, guns, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
“Tell me those aren’t dicks,” I said.
“Yes, you,” Mimi pointed at me, “are everywhere and we,” she pointed at herself, “don’t even realize it.”
She was a lawyer. She was always fucking correcting people. I’d forgotten about that.
“Huh?” I took off my fedora, but she winced so I put it back on. Most people couldn’t handle the sight of my bare head.
“You’re a penis now. Us humans don’t realize you phallic-shaped beings are everywhere.”
“Phallic-shaped beings?” I said. “Do you not regard me as a human being? I’m a human penis, not some donkey dick.”
Her hesitance to agree should’ve been a clue she may have had hidden motives.
After a particularly trying week of death threats and the usual interview requests, Jamison dropped me off at her building. She said she’d make me dinner, kielbasa and sauerkraut. It wasn’t until my second glass of wine that I began to feel different, impaired. Mimi sat across her glass dining table from me, smirking, as though waiting for me to suddenly capsize. Her old varicose-veined legs were crossed elegantly, her ugly, hammer-toed foot bobbing up and down like a warning sign. I looked at my wine glass.
“You poisoned me, didn’t you, you goddamn weirdo?”
“Poison is a harsh word. I prefer drugged. But don’t worry. You won’t die or anything.”
“What’ll happen, then?”
She shrugged. “Why ask? You won’t remember anyway.” She waved. “Nighty-night.” The room went sideways.
When I awakened, I was tied up on her bed. I turned and she was lying next to me, done up in lingerie, smoking a cigarette. She seemed spent. She was panting. I was really dehydrated but at the same time I was covered in nice-smelling oils. Something had been done to me. Though I was all lubed, I was painfully chafed in other areas, delicate areas.
“You took advantage of me, you witch.”
I looked to my left. There was film equipment, tripods and shit, set up across the room, pointing right at us. I could see myself on a flat-screen monitor.
“What the fuck?” I started to scream for help.
She shushed me. “Remember the night we met?” She sat up and stubbed out her ciggie.
It was at some party twenty years before. “Vaguely.”
“What about after? When I went home with you?”
I thought about it. I said, “Oh, is that what this is all about?” I was about to say that men did those kinds of things back then. But even as I thought it, it didn’t make me sound very good. “So you’re taking revenge on me now? Why?”
“Because you’re a penis now, you asshole. Just the sight of you infuriates me. Don’t you have any remorse?”
“For what?” I said. “Slipping you a mickey or for now being a penis?”
“Both, dickhead.”
My mind was just beginning to travel back to that night. Had it really been that bad? She took all kinds of pills back then. What was the difference if it was me giving it to her? I hadn’t even done anything but spill her onto the bed and pass out next to her. I’d drunk too much. I couldn’t get it up anyway.
It was as if she could hear my thoughts. She smacked me across the face. “You just said all that out loud, stupid.” It must’ve been the roofie she’d given me. She mashed the button of a remote with her thumb and stopped filming. She untied me. “Get the hell out. We’re through. You’re lucky I don’t call the cops.”
I gathered up my clothes. “I’m lucky?” I was almost out the door when I asked if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for me to buy the footage back and for her to sign an NDA. We could put all of this behind us. But she pulled a hot poker from the fireplace and started waving it around like it was a fencing foil. I took that as a no.
*
When one becomes a penis, one eventually has an existential crisis. It’s inevitable. I often overheard people say they wondered what it was like to be me. “Think of the orgasms,” they said. “He’s probably coming all the time.” What everyone failed to remember about my situation was that, as a disembodied penis, I was without agency. There were no hips to thrust me. No large hand to manipulate me. I was essentially a loaded gun always waiting to be fired.
My life was a sham. Total success hadn’t prepared me for life becoming a total tease. What was the use of being a large penis if I couldn’t at least pleasure myself? I wasn’t even connected to a body. What was the point of my life? I was just there, hanging. I fell into a funk. I wanted to be left in my lair.
It took some creative legal web-spinning, but I evicted everyone in my building. I kept it all to myself. I didn’t shut myself in. I just didn’t go anywhere for a while. I started a garden on the roof. I raised cattle in the underground garage. Other than having Jamison, I became totally self-sufficient. I believed I could find my own cure so I assembled a large computer that took up one whole floor of my building. I went back to my old programming days. In one end, I fed it code like branches into a wood chipper. In the other, I spooned in real world scenarios and AI protocols so that it could understand our world and perhaps spit out what had exactly happened to me.
While the computer chewed on data for days at a time, I surfed the internet for days on end. I became obsessed. Evidently, there were more than a thousand ways to refer to the penis since the beginning of records. One of my favorites dated back to 1720. The Love Dart. I read scientific articles about how much men loved their penises. The verdict in every story I read was: a lot.
Jamison often took pity on me. Once a week, he stopped by with some Nathan’s hotdogs and a hard drive of movies. They all happened to be those Hollywood special effects films. As we watched, I slowly realized I had the origin story of a super hero. Penis Man. The Incredible Boner. I don’t know. I should’ve been fashioning a caped garment, figuring out who to save and who to fight, coming up with a super hero logo, but I realized I didn’t really have any super powers other than making people run away in shock or run at me in anger.
Naturally, I fell off the wagon. I started taking my pills again, just to feel better. It was only one or two at first. After a week, I was swallowing them by the handful. By the time I was grinding them up and snorting them, occasionally injecting them into my eyeballs, I knew I had a problem. I couldn’t move without them. I couldn’t function. I had no boing-boing anymore.
By the grace of god, I was able to impose my own sort of rehab. Jamison made sure my dealer, Goodenough, would never again show his face. I fought the withdrawals for a few weeks, but I finally made it out clean and sober on the other side.
My life was a sham. Total success hadn’t prepared me for life becoming a total tease. What was the use of being a large penis if I couldn’t at least pleasure myself? I wasn’t even connected to a body. What was the point of my life? I was just there, hanging. I fell into a funk. I wanted to be left in my lair.
It took some creative legal web-spinning, but I evicted everyone in my building. I kept it all to myself. I didn’t shut myself in. I just didn’t go anywhere for a while. I started a garden on the roof. I raised cattle in the underground garage. Other than having Jamison, I became totally self-sufficient. I believed I could find my own cure so I assembled a large computer that took up one whole floor of my building. I went back to my old programming days. In one end, I fed it code like branches into a wood chipper. In the other, I spooned in real world scenarios and AI protocols so that it could understand our world and perhaps spit out what had exactly happened to me.
While the computer chewed on data for days at a time, I surfed the internet for days on end. I became obsessed. Evidently, there were more than a thousand ways to refer to the penis since the beginning of records. One of my favorites dated back to 1720. The Love Dart. I read scientific articles about how much men loved their penises. The verdict in every story I read was: a lot.
Jamison often took pity on me. Once a week, he stopped by with some Nathan’s hotdogs and a hard drive of movies. They all happened to be those Hollywood special effects films. As we watched, I slowly realized I had the origin story of a super hero. Penis Man. The Incredible Boner. I don’t know. I should’ve been fashioning a caped garment, figuring out who to save and who to fight, coming up with a super hero logo, but I realized I didn’t really have any super powers other than making people run away in shock or run at me in anger.
Naturally, I fell off the wagon. I started taking my pills again, just to feel better. It was only one or two at first. After a week, I was swallowing them by the handful. By the time I was grinding them up and snorting them, occasionally injecting them into my eyeballs, I knew I had a problem. I couldn’t move without them. I couldn’t function. I had no boing-boing anymore.
By the grace of god, I was able to impose my own sort of rehab. Jamison made sure my dealer, Goodenough, would never again show his face. I fought the withdrawals for a few weeks, but I finally made it out clean and sober on the other side.
*
It would’ve been nice to emerge from my drug stupor to find my mainframe had finally churned out an answer to my horrendous question. But while I was detoxing, the massive hard drive crashed. Jamison regretfully informed me that my supercomputer would only boot up in safe mode. Otherwise, he said, it was the blue screen of death. He patted my shoulder and told me I should probably give up hope. I moved on.
I disassembled the computer and sold it for parts. Weirdly, I found solace in the art world. Most of my life had been spent finding unequivocal answers to previously unanswered technological questions. In art, I discovered, there were no right or wrong answers. Shit, there were no answers at all. There were just questions of humanity, feelings and shit. Having the rug of my previous reality pulled out from under me, I could suddenly understand this form of expression. I went to MOMA and the Whitney and studied sculptures and paintings and installations. I watched performance art, which didn’t totally baffle me. I attended film festivals, always coming in and finding a seat right as the lights went down and the curtain went up. Since I had nothing better to do, I started keeping a journal, writing about each play or exhibition I saw. I started wearing a beret, with the occasional monocle. I sent my reviews out and eventually became a critic for a few websites. I can’t say which. I reviewed films and books and plays. I developed a reputation as a hard but fair reviewer. Though, I wasn’t too good for a nice hatchet job.
I sold most of my worldly possessions. I found a recipe for a natural non-habit-forming stimulant on the internet. It was just a smoothie with veggies and fruits and nuts. I guzzled them by the glass. I began hanging out with my lesbian friends again. I took the time to learn their names and not just think of them as lesbians. I went back to nature. I learned how to ferment things. I started smoking cannabis, a fair amount of it. It regulated my moods and gave my life a lustrous merry sheen. I undid my creative legal web-spinning and made my skyscraper into affordable housing for single and abused mothers. I moved myself into a small brownstone on the Upper West Side and rented out the two top floors to Jamison and his family for dirt-cheap. I started calling him by his real name, Cleetus, which he seemed to appreciate. I’d totally forgotten why I’d given him the name Jamison to begin with.
I wasn’t well-adjusted, just mildly not-as-fucked-up. I once saw Mimi getting out of a private car and I thought she didn’t recognize me. I just happened to be holding a cup of to-go coffee. She dropped a handful of loose change in it.
I said, “It’s me. Dick.”
She said she knew and she didn’t care.
I asked if she’d heard of my philanthropic projects. “I’m a changed penis. Sorry I was me for so long.”
She made a farting sound with her mouth. She didn’t look back, but right before going into her building she did wave. It was her middle finger, but still.
I disassembled the computer and sold it for parts. Weirdly, I found solace in the art world. Most of my life had been spent finding unequivocal answers to previously unanswered technological questions. In art, I discovered, there were no right or wrong answers. Shit, there were no answers at all. There were just questions of humanity, feelings and shit. Having the rug of my previous reality pulled out from under me, I could suddenly understand this form of expression. I went to MOMA and the Whitney and studied sculptures and paintings and installations. I watched performance art, which didn’t totally baffle me. I attended film festivals, always coming in and finding a seat right as the lights went down and the curtain went up. Since I had nothing better to do, I started keeping a journal, writing about each play or exhibition I saw. I started wearing a beret, with the occasional monocle. I sent my reviews out and eventually became a critic for a few websites. I can’t say which. I reviewed films and books and plays. I developed a reputation as a hard but fair reviewer. Though, I wasn’t too good for a nice hatchet job.
I sold most of my worldly possessions. I found a recipe for a natural non-habit-forming stimulant on the internet. It was just a smoothie with veggies and fruits and nuts. I guzzled them by the glass. I began hanging out with my lesbian friends again. I took the time to learn their names and not just think of them as lesbians. I went back to nature. I learned how to ferment things. I started smoking cannabis, a fair amount of it. It regulated my moods and gave my life a lustrous merry sheen. I undid my creative legal web-spinning and made my skyscraper into affordable housing for single and abused mothers. I moved myself into a small brownstone on the Upper West Side and rented out the two top floors to Jamison and his family for dirt-cheap. I started calling him by his real name, Cleetus, which he seemed to appreciate. I’d totally forgotten why I’d given him the name Jamison to begin with.
I wasn’t well-adjusted, just mildly not-as-fucked-up. I once saw Mimi getting out of a private car and I thought she didn’t recognize me. I just happened to be holding a cup of to-go coffee. She dropped a handful of loose change in it.
I said, “It’s me. Dick.”
She said she knew and she didn’t care.
I asked if she’d heard of my philanthropic projects. “I’m a changed penis. Sorry I was me for so long.”
She made a farting sound with her mouth. She didn’t look back, but right before going into her building she did wave. It was her middle finger, but still.
*
I left the reviewing business after only a few years, but I still enjoyed seeing the odd play or two. My show of choice was always the Sunday matinee, when no one was around. About a year into my retirement, a new young playwright was debuting his first three-act at a small stage in Brooklyn. The play was based on my life. I was offered a seat up front and the opportunity to do a Q and A with the writer, but I chose to be silent and in the shadows in the back, my usual reviewer’s sniper spot. While the play wasn’t all that good, and its title was much too long, (I would’ve preferred “The Disembodied Penis”) I appreciated the attempt.
Unfortunately, it suffered from a lack of verisimilitude. Without a good amount of recreational drugs, one probably couldn’t fully understand what it was like to become a penis if one had never actually become a penis. I was thinking this as I left the theater, as I pulled my fedora lower over my face and cinched my trench coat. I wasn’t fully understood yet again, but then I thought, how many people are? I was just about to leave the lobby when I heard a woman’s voice.
“Excuse me, Dick. Don’t go.”
I’d always dreamed a moment like this would happen. It would be a woman wearing essentially the same thing that I was wearing. She would be about my age. She’d have my same condition but in the female way. We’d be soulmates. She’d say that she’d been trying to find me so that we could talk. We would have coffee and then marry a few weeks later. We’d adopt. It was a fantasy that I never thought would come true.
So when I turned around and saw it was just a young usher, I wasn’t that surprised. “Here. You left your scarf.”
I thanked her and headed back through the lobby.
The doorman, an older guy, nodded as I approached. He recognized me. In his eyes, I could even see a hint of desire. Perhaps I was what every man really wanted to be. He opened the door as though I were a king, bowing even.
“It’s a pity we’re not in charge anymore,” he said.
I smiled. I thought of the old me. I said, “Is it?” I didn’t wait for a response. I just laughed and threw my scarf around my neck. I patted his shoulder and told him to be well. Then I ventured back out into the cold, windy city.
Unfortunately, it suffered from a lack of verisimilitude. Without a good amount of recreational drugs, one probably couldn’t fully understand what it was like to become a penis if one had never actually become a penis. I was thinking this as I left the theater, as I pulled my fedora lower over my face and cinched my trench coat. I wasn’t fully understood yet again, but then I thought, how many people are? I was just about to leave the lobby when I heard a woman’s voice.
“Excuse me, Dick. Don’t go.”
I’d always dreamed a moment like this would happen. It would be a woman wearing essentially the same thing that I was wearing. She would be about my age. She’d have my same condition but in the female way. We’d be soulmates. She’d say that she’d been trying to find me so that we could talk. We would have coffee and then marry a few weeks later. We’d adopt. It was a fantasy that I never thought would come true.
So when I turned around and saw it was just a young usher, I wasn’t that surprised. “Here. You left your scarf.”
I thanked her and headed back through the lobby.
The doorman, an older guy, nodded as I approached. He recognized me. In his eyes, I could even see a hint of desire. Perhaps I was what every man really wanted to be. He opened the door as though I were a king, bowing even.
“It’s a pity we’re not in charge anymore,” he said.
I smiled. I thought of the old me. I said, “Is it?” I didn’t wait for a response. I just laughed and threw my scarf around my neck. I patted his shoulder and told him to be well. Then I ventured back out into the cold, windy city.