CRUDITIES, etc

Doctor Meta’s Hand Soap

(Dec 21/05)
Doctor Meta gripped the knot of my scrotum, where the glans meets the meniscus, and told me to cough, which I did, but sparingly. He cleared his throat, washed his hands with some bluish soap he pumped from the nozzle of a plastic dispenser, and said, ‘you’ve got to stop playing with yourself.’ He cleared his throat a second time, and added, ‘Or else your testicles will dry up and wither and be good for nothing more than keeping the crotch of your trousers from sagging’. I looked around his examining room, pale blue with a border of cutout flowers along the ceiling edge, and noticed a kidney-shaped dish with something fleshy and red sopping around in a clear liquid. The room smelled like the white fat that skims the top of the pot when a pork shoulder is boiled then left to simmer on low heat for too long. Doctor Meta noticed that I was looking at the dish with the red fleshy thing sopping in it, and said, ‘That’s what’s left of the last boy’s who didn’t take my advice. Now he’s got to buy girls pants that fit snugger at the crotch to hide the fact that he couldn’t stop amusing himself to no end.’ I started to cough uncontrollably, like someone with lung cancer or emphysema, and quickly averted my eyes from the dish with the other boy’s testicles in it. ‘Do you ever stop to think’ he said, ‘what your doing to yourself?’ The damage is irreversible, and can lead to all other sorts of medical conditions’. ‘Like what?" I asked, clearing my throat for effect.

Doctor Meta walked over to what looked like a medicine chest, with wire filaments running criss-crossed through the glass, and unlocked the door with a small silver key he took out of his doctor’s jacket pocket. He pushed a few glass vials and what looked like pill bottles to one side, and pulled out a coke bottle size bottle with a cork stopper in the top. He turned facing me, and carefully yanked the cork stopper from the top of the bottle. He shook the bottle upside down, and a small hard looking nut fell into the palm of his hand. He held it up in front of me with his forefinger and thumb and smiled. ‘What’s that?’ I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. He walked towards me, the hard looking nut held aloft at eye level, and once again cleared his throat. ‘This, my boy, is what’ll be left of your testicles if you continue on doing what you’re doing’. I looked back at the kidney-shaped dish, then back at the hard looking nut in doctor Meta’s fingers, and said, ‘Where’d you get it?’ Doctor Meta smiled, one of those stupid ear to ear ones, and said, ‘Do you know Rupert Sims?’ ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Well take a closer look at his pants next time you see him.’ I took the number 7-bus home, the one that passed by Rupert’s house, and pressed my nose up against the window as hard as I could.