A Flap Of Skin

My daddy knew everything. You could ask him why the sky was blue or why the leaves turned colors or what the name of that mushroom was and he would tell you, right down to the wavelengths and the refraction and the chromatophores and so on. So when I asked how you could tell a boy baby from a girl baby, and the whole room tensed up, I didn't really notice. I was pretty sure he had the answer. Just that right then wasn't a good time.

It was easy enough to tell boys from girls at my age because of the clothes and haircuts, but little babies all looked alike. I waited a day or two and then, since I still wanted to know, I asked again. Mom cut Daddy a glance and discovered something urgent to do in another room, and Daddy pulled the drawing paper out of the secretary and got a pencil. He started to draw and explain, but with none of his usual vitality. The salient feature in his illustration--in profile, as I recall--was what he called "a little flap of skin." I looked at the drawing and suddenly remembered how you could tell a boy from a girl, and also that I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

In my defense, at that point I didn't have a lot to go on. My only brother was seventeen years older than me and out of the house. Dad was the sort who buttoned the top button of his pajamas. I didn't have a lot to go on, but I did have Danny Hall.

Danny Hall was the inordinately proud owner of the first little flap of skin I ever saw. He had made a point of showing it to me not that much earlier. It was a curiosity, for sure, but I had no idea what it was for, and hadn't made a connection with that whole boy/girl thing. As far as I knew, it was just something that Danny Hall had. He was always coming up with stuff. I do remember he was interested in what was in my pants, but that struck me as odd. I didn't have anything in my pants, not that you could point to, or with.

Besides, as gullible as I tended to be, I was getting to the point that I didn't trust Danny Hall that much. Even if you couldn't figure out what he was up to, you could be pretty sure it was no good. That same summer he had found a plain white rock and he held it out to me and told me to lick it. Even though I hadn't figured out it was a petrified dog turd at that point, I didn't lick it. Because why would I lick a stone? Especially one of Danny's stones.

The Halls lived on the end of the block, and they had a giant mimosa tree that was gorgeously climbable even to abbreviated sorts like myself. We used to play over there a lot; we had to make up our own games, because plastic and electricity hadn't been invented yet. It was a wholesome time. So mostly, we played World War Three. This involved a lot of hiding behind bushes and spying and such. That's what we were playing when Danny lobbed a brick way up into the air and it came down on my head, and don't think I can't still show you exactly where it landed. I wasn't much of a crybaby but I screamed bloody murder. The closest grownup, unfortunately, was weird Mr. Balderson, who snatched me into his kitchen, clipped out a bunch of my hair and began boiling washcloths and applying them to my head. By the time my mom intervened, I was still bleeding, newly scalded and hadn't stopped bawling. Danny Hall was apprehended and brought in to defend himself, squirming in his closely-gripped shirt. He had a defense, all right. "I yelled BOMBS OVER TOKYO!" he protested, all innocence.

So back to Danny's penis. Danny's penis reminded me of nothing so much as one of those little valves you blow up a vinyl inner tube with. I didn't say that out loud, which, in retrospect, was probably a good idea, because Danny was the sort who might have sensed an opportunity. Anyway, it was his flap of skin that popped into my head when Daddy drew his somber little picture. I got it right away. I wished I'd asked him about the phases of the moon instead.

I didn't keep track of Danny. I did hear, later, he had become a hoodlum. Much later, I heard he had become a lawyer.

Staying Up For The Game

The World Series got me in front of a TV again, which is good, because I'd been falling behind in my pharmaceutical ad consumption. I can't always tell what the pharmaceuticals do, but that doesn't mean I don't need them. I loved the one a few years back about the little blue pill you can take that sharpens up your athletic ability. Before the pill, the fellow couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a football, but afterwards, man, he was just poking that baby right through the center of a swinging tire, just drilling it, wham wham wham. Hell of a pill.

So they have to mention all the side effects, too, which is how we've all learned that four hours is about the limit for having an erection, after which you should see your doctor. I don't think they mean eighteen-year-olds, who should see somebody else. The first hour of the erection is the one you're interested in, the second and third hours are for display purposes only, and then you're just sort of counting down the last hour with your doctor on speed dial. Of course, you're not going to be able to just pop in on your doctor, so you'll have to go to the emergency room. I'm thinking there is probably a way to make a grand entrance into the ER that will get you right at the head of the line and into a private room in front of the gunshot wounds and heart attacks.

They don't say what the doctor is going to do about it. The problem, as I see it, is that there is too much blood in one place, and it needs to be encouraged to go somewhere it's in short supply, such as the brain. The four-hour erection happens when the brain feels neglected and goes into a complete pout. "Don't bother sending any of that blood back up here," the brain sniffs. "I still have no idea what you were talking about with that betting system that's guaranteed to beat the casino. As far as I'm concerned, you're on your own, Big Boy, and God forbid you should read me a little Jane Austen once in a while."

I personally do not have much of a grip on the concept of the four-hour erection. I got my windshield wipers stuck in the "up" position once, and it just turned out to be a matter of loosening the nuts. But I do remember a particularly obstreperous Jeep from my early days as a letter carrier that might shed some light on this condition. It was hell getting that Jeep to start. You had to pump it for a half hour. Once it finally got going, it had an idle set to about 8,000 RPMs, and you drove it standing on the brake. Darn thing wouldn't shut off, either. You could turn it off, take the key out, walk away, and it would still be going when you came back five minutes later. What we figured out how to do was to cut the engine when it was still in drive, stomp on the gas, and then it would backfire like mad and shudder to a halt. It's worth a shot for the four-hour erection, too. So that's cut it, stomp on it and plug up your ears. I'm pretty confident about this suggestion because it's not my penis.

There's a lot of good free advice on those ads about when you should see your doctor. I generally keep my own counsel. I had some little totally unauthorized thing growing inside of me at one point that was supposed to be harmless, but which had begun to slouch against my bladder to the point that--under certain conditions--it sort of clamped down on my urine flow. I was on the horn about that to my doctor right away, and mentioned the problem, right after asking if Crestor, Spiriva, Prevacid, Levitra, Rituxan, Aredium, Actonel or Evista was right for me. She told me that it was probably all right as long as urine was still coming out, but if it shut off completely, I should get in to the hospital right away. No, really? Let me jot that down.