The Penis Papers, Part 5

"Look at that thing!" laughed my black classmates.

By Terence Clarke

May 19, 2003 | The tricycle accident

Tony works for a gravel company in Oakland, Calif. He is an overweight, balding white man of 50, and has been doing this job since he got out of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1979. He served in Vietnam. He's married and has two sons, both of whom are grown.

I got a gut now, but I was a pretty cute kid. My mother loved me and she dressed all of us very nicely. I liked being a cowboy, so she bought me this fringe leather jacket when I was about 4. It was way cool. I felt like the Lone Ranger in it. Way cool. But I didn't have it for long because I lost it.

I grew up in San Leandro, Calif., which at that time was a little town with nothing going for it. Still is. There was a vacant lot down the street from where we lived on Dutton Avenue, and I used to play war and cowboys and Indians in the lot with my friend Tommy Wurzback. I think a lot of kids had played in that lot because there was even a series of trenches in it, where you could run up and down, defending the fort, fighting off the Apaches. It's funny thinking about that vacant lot now. I mean, we just went over there and played. If I'd have allowed that with my kids growing up in the '80s, they probably would have been abducted or something. Killed in a drive-by.

But, you know, in San Leandro in 1957 you didn't get abducted. Anyway, Tommy and I were playing in the lot, and I took off my new cowboy jacket. Because it was hot. We played some more, and then I got onto my tricycle to ride home. It was only a block away, and when I got home, my mother fixed me and Tommy a glass of milk and some cookies. I was eating the cookies -- chocolate chip! And then my mother asked me where was the jacket? Jesus God! I was afraid right away, because I'd forgotten it. She got really mad at me, and took me right out to the sidewalk, put me back on my tricycle, and marched me right back to the vacant lot.

Well, the jacket was gone. Somebody'd taken it. I couldn't even remember where I'd taken it off, and we looked all over for it. My mother got so mad at me that she told me to get on my trike and go right back home and up to my room, and my dad was going to hear about it when he got home. I was terrified. So I was pedaling really fast, in tears, you know, sobbing! And turning the corner a little too fast, I laid the tricycle down on its side. I mean, actually, I flew off it headfirst, over the handlebars. And when I landed on the handlebars themselves, I tore up my pecker pretty badly. I mean, I cut it! Probably just a small one because, Jesus, my pecker itself wasn't all that big! But I cut it, and blood was running out of the cut and it hurt really badly.

My mother came running up behind me because I was screaming, and I'd opened up my pants to see why my pecker hurt so bad, and when she saw it she screamed and picked me up and ran me home, and ran me to the hospital, and Jesus Christ did it hurt! I don't know what I thought had happened. But I knew that this wasn't like just some other cut, like on my finger or something. This cut was a bad one because of where it was. I mean, if you had asked me before that happened whether my penis was important, I would have said, "Gosh, I guess. But I don't know." Once that happened, though, and especially when the doctor was putting the stitches in it, to close it up, I knew that something bad, really bad, had happened.

I couldn't watch him, but I sure could feel him. It was like a sewing machine going right through that skin there, pulling that thread. There was even a sound to the thread, like some kind of, I don't know, the only thing I can think of now is like rope running through your hands. The doctor'd deadened it, you know, with a shot. But the shot itself was awful! Just awful! I was screaming, and my mother was holding on to me. God, I was afraid! And so was she! I think of it now and, you know, I'm OK. I've had a successful sex life and kids and so on, and six months after it happened I probably didn't think about it too much. I've even gotten some significant laughs when I've told people the story. But, you know, in the end I don't laugh. I was so afraid, I thought I was going to die or something. And if the cut had been worse. I mean, if I'd been really injured, I might have died right then and there, at least in terms of my life, my feelings.

Next Page: "Look at that thing!"

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