My Balls Are Killing Me

Words Chris Robinson,
Pictures Andreas Hykade

( Each issue of Galaxy Brain Magazine will contain an installment of Chris Robinson’s book, “My Balls Are Killing Me.” You can read the first instalment HERE.  and the second HERE.)

Chapter 5 – I Am A Scientist

Darkness. Slivers of Light flicker. Heavy eyes fall again. Like wading through molasses. I can hear voices and sounds. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is playing on a TV. I can hear Jimmy Stewart’s distinctive drawl. Eyes eventually rise to the occasion. Medical people appear. Introductions are spoken. I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. They want me to pee. I want me to pee. I can’t leave until I pee. I REALLY want to pee. I try. No pee. Back to bed. Just want to be home. Don’t feel so bad. Just groggy. Finally, a spit of pee. I’m satisfied. They are not. I beg. They concede. Clea is coming to get me. Woozy. They wheelchair me to the car. They’re worried I’ll faint. I’m worried I’ll faint. I shake the nurse’s hand as we part. Was that weird? Clea’s there in the car. We drive through thick fog. I insist on an energy drink and a snicker’s bar. I have no idea why. Then I mix them with the painkillers. Now I know why. Home. Clea is not a clean freak by any means. Our bedroom is spotless now. Clothes folded and carefully put away. Flowers on dresser. Floor free of debris. She’s always the emotional anchor, always the bubbly optimist. Her gesture reveals her love, and her fear. I worry, more.

Mr. Pimp sits on the lazyboy chair staring at his penis. It looks like a burnt wiener. It feels like there’s a 2inch rock under his incision. He wonders what would happen if he masturbates right now. “Will there be pain? Will it shoot blood sperm? Will my dick blow up?”

“I can’t believe this,” says Athena. “You just survived surgery. You’re home. Your wife has just shown you great love and here you are popping painkillers and staring at your dick. Actually…no….I totally believe this. Always playing with yourself.”

“Wow, you can be a real dick sometimes. I think it’s totally natural that I’m curious about my ability to have orgasms. I can’t do much else right now. And I’m not doing it for me, it’s for science!”

Donning a white lab coat, Mr. Pimp close his eyes as his right arm moves up and down. Time passes. The motions slow. He falls asleep.

Mr. Pimp and Athena are resting on the bed. They stare at the Television as the testicle flips through channels with the TV remote. They pause briefly on a music video. Someone who looks a little like Doctor Wizard Tobin sings: “I’m breathing but it’s not feeling much like breathing…” before the channel changes.

“What exactly is the point of a testicle anyway?” asks Mr. Pimp. “Those wizards said that we don’t really need it. So, why do we have it then?”

 The testicle, trying to watch a movie now, ignores him as he prattles on. “Ha… no one can say ‘well, you’ve got balls’ to me anymore. No, sir, I do not have balls. Just ball. I do have BALL mister, a lot of ball.” 

Athena turns up the volume of the TV.

Mr. Pimp drifts back to sleep

Later, wearing his white lab coat, Mr. Pimp once again tries out his masturbatory experiment. His right arm performs rigorous short pulling gestures before eventually slowing and stopping all together. The left hand takes over this time, but soon gives up. He’s fallen asleep again.

Athena nudges him awake: “Look what’s on TV!?” (We see images of  football players in dark blue jerseys playing football and celebrating together. Then an image of a man on a hospital bed. His teammates around him.)

“What?” he asks annoyed.

“Come on, remember this? You watched this movie when you were a kid and it made you cry.”

“Oh right,” he perks up. “Brian’s Song. I don’t know why that movie moved me so much. It’s not even that good, but it’s always stayed in my memory.”

“It was the first time,” adds Athena, “that you realized that people die, that you would die.  That’s why you cried. That’s when the fear started.”

Mr. Pimp looks moved by the dead testicle’s words, but quickly pushes the emotions away and, for a third time, grabs his lab coat.  He pulls rapidly on his penis. His eyes begin to close, but not to sleep, just to savour, to make sure he didn’t go blind after the explosion. Eventually, his closed eyes roll back, his head lifts slightly as he grunts and groans his way through paradise. There is no pain. After the orgasm has subsided, he pulls out his lab tools to carefully inspect the penis. There’s no blood. No explosion. The penis remains intact. One thing is notably absent: sperm. 

“Where the hell did my sperm go?” he wonders.

The doorbell interrupts his scientific theorizing.

Clea enters the room with a box. “It’s package for you.”

It’s from an old friend in Toronto who had visited them recently.  He rips open the package and inside is an inflated yellow rubber ball.

“Had a Ball” it says.

Athena laughs until the ball flies at her and knocks her off the bed.

The ball lands in a corner and slowly deflates.

The wound is not healing well. There is swelling. He can only wear track pants. Frustrated and tired of being imprisoned, he decides to go outside and shovel their long driveway. Shovelling is always an escape for him; a moment of calm, a diversion from the chaos of home and self and kids and dogs and all that noise noise noise. 

It’s a picturesque winter evening. Light snow. Visible breath. Time fades. Rhythm of one. Mind blanks out. Sweat. Cold forgotten. Everything is working together: Head, arms, fingers, feet, knees, shovel, snow. He floats up in the air and, using his shovel as a cane, starts to dance with the snowflakes. At one point, the snowflakes form a chorus line as he performs dance-like gestures with the shovel. He closes his eyes and allows the joy to seep through him…. until there is voice…loud… angry…WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING!? He ignores the voice and keeps dancing…  STOP IT RIGHT NOW! Suddenly, he begins to fall rapidly and lands face first in the snow. He rises to his knees in great pain. The pain is worse than ever and there is blood where the incision was made. Clea helps him up. Doctor Wizard Tobin appears and sticks a needle in the wound to see if there is pus. There isn’t. Then he pushes down on the wound to see if there is pain. “FUCKKKKKKKKKKK!” he screams. Yes, yes there is pain. Doctor Wizard Tobin bandages him up, gives him pills, and then vanishes into the magic smoke.

When Mr. Pimp returns to the house there is another gift. This time, it’s a small red felt testicle with a happy face. He immediately sticks it down his pants. It feels good.

Chapter 6 – Surgical Focus

Mr. Pimp sits with Clea in a hospital waiting area. The framed medical illustration of a testicle hangs on the wall behind them. Mr. Pimp’s hat rests on his thighs.  Occasionally the hat convulses. Clea takes his hand to stop the shaking.

“They’re ready to see you know,” says a voice.

Doctor Wizards Bob and Tobin are there to greet them. Strangely, they are not in their wizard costumes anymore, just light blue surgical scrubs. “This can’t be good,” thinks Mr. Pimp.

“As we suspected,” says Doctor Wizard Bob, “it is cancer. The good news is that it hasn’t spread beyond the testicle.”

“The not-so-good news,” adds Doctor Wizard Tobin, “is that it’s a non-seminoma type. The tumor is 100% embryonal carcinoma with vascular invasion.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Mr. Pimp replies. 

“It means,” adds Doctor Bob, “that it’s an aggressive form and has a 50% chance of returning.” 

“Okay, so what’s next?”

“You have three options,’ says Doctor Wizard Bob. “1. Surveillance. We do nothing except monthly blood tests, x-rays and CT scans. 2. We do lymph node removal surgery or RPLND. This pretty much ensures that the cancer doesn’t return 

Mr. Pimp turns to address the reader: “I don’t want to spoil things, but I want you to remember that last line for later in the story.”

“3. Chemotherapy.

Doctor Wizards Bob and Tobin outline the pros and cons of the three options. Mr. Pimp has no idea what to do. When he pushes them for advice, they recommend the RPLND surgery. 

“Okay then,” he thinks to himself. “I guess I’m doing the RPLND surgery. I guess it is the best choice. Surveillance is the least intrusive but I’d constantly anxious, always wondering if the cancer was there. Chemo, on the other hand, seems pretty extreme if, at the moment, there is no cancer. All in all, it’s pretty good news.”

They tell him that the Stage 1 cure rate is 100%. The downside is that RPLND surgery is major stuff. Recovery will take 2-3 months. They go into your stomach area and remove the lymph nodes. They shuffle all sorts of stuff in that area to get at the nodes. Then they take the nodes out (and check for any signs of cancer), put all the shuffled stuff back in place, sew you back up and leave you with a big scar on your stomach. 

Mr. Pimp thinks of the stories he can tell his kids and their friends about the scar: 

knife fight – We see Mr. Pimp in an alleyway. He’s dressed in a leather coat. It’s like the set of some stupid 1950s teen movie. He’s knife fighting with some other gang member dressed in leather coat and jeans 

Samurai sword duel – Mr. Pimp (in samurai dress) duels with Toshiro Mafune

Lightsaber battle – Mr. Pimp is dressed in a Jedi outfit and battling some alien creature 

Bear attack – Bear on top of Mr. Pimp, clawing at his stomach.

Alien birth – Mr. Pimp gives birth to some bizarre looking creature that resembles Athena.

“The surgery,” says Doctor Wizard Bob, “will be nerve sparing. That means you’ll still be able to ejaculate.”

Mr. Pimp again turns to address the reader: “Oh, yeah, sorry to interrupt yet again, but it’s really important that you remember that line too.”

He returns to his seat, turns to speak to Athena, perched upon his shoulder: “You know, initially I read that there’s a chance you can’t ejaculate anymore, or rather that you’d ejaculate in your bladder. I guess that means as you ejaculate it flies out another door. What if it wasn’t in your bladder? What if it comes out my ass or ears? What if it went out different ways at the same time? Well, it will save a lot of money on Kleenex. It’s environmentally friendly. Doing my part for the planet.”

“You know this is some escapist stuff you’re doing again, right?” says Athena, shaking her head. “You are afraid to just face and absorb reality. I mean, who cares whether you have sperm or not. You’ll have your life.” 

He flicks Athena off his shoulder.

Surgery will be in a month. He’ll spend about a week in hospital.

They thank the Doctor Wizards and head towards the car. There is no magic smoke this time. Just a door.

In the hospital parking lot, Mr. Pimp sits next to their car and sobs for the first time.