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.) and the third HERE.

Chapter 7 – The Finest Joke is Upon Us

Mr. Pimp and Athena sit on a rocking chair on the front porch of his house. 

“How are you feeling about all this?” asks Athena. “I know it must be causing you a lot of anxiety and stress, but I have to say – even with your sperm fixation – you’re handling it pretty well. 

Unimpressed and barely listening, Mr. Pimp says, “I was wondering. Does this mean I can play the cancer card now? Can I say I’m a cancer victim? If it’s really a good cancer and all I need is the surgery, is it even fair to say that I’m a cancer victim. Wouldn’t it be like saying you played professional hockey but never in the NHL or that you were a professional musician but played in a Who cover band? Can I use the handicap parking spot? There was a guy in the NHL who had ball cancer. He recovered and is still playing. He played for the Toronto Maple Leafs though, so fuck him. Oh, and fuck Lance Armstrong and his cheating bike and his stupid cancer balls. Did you know that the comedian Tom Green beat ball cancer? He even had the same RPLND surgery. I never thought he was that funny. So maybe it’s not a good example. Can I mock cancer victims now that I’m part of the club? Instead of being a self-hating Jew, I’d be a self-hating cancer survivor. What does that even mean? Do we really survive it? We all die, so we don’t survive shit.

“You know something I discovered via Doctor Google?” asks Athena

“No.”

“You know that football player that Brian’s Song was based on?”

“Yeah.”

“He not only had testicular cancer, but he had the exact same type as you. Isn’t that amazing!”

Mr. Pimp, clearly shaken by this, says nothing. He gets up, “I guess I better call my mother and tell her.”

He calls her. “Hi. So I meant to call earlier, but we’ve had a bit of a rough time.”

“I’ve had a hard time too,” she interrupts. My cat got sick and died. It’s just too much and I couldn’t see anyone and I got her ashes and an urn here to go with the other five of them. Remember them? Pepper and Crocket and Buster and Dinky. I miss them so much. This woman at work is driving me crazy. She’s always talking loudly on the phone and singing to the music on the radio or coming over to my cubicle to talk. The people at the cinema know me by name now. I saw Pirates of the Pacific for the 16^th time…and then there was a sale on fans. I got six of them for $50. Nails too. I really hate my job. I don’t think I’ll get anymore cats. Maybe I will, not sure…..”

He puts the phone done for a second and goes to the washroom. A muffled voice continues to talk through the phone. He finishes, returns, and picks up the phone.

“….and those bastards at the phone company, they keep calling me and asking me to upgrade. I yelled at them and told them not to call me. Then the condo fees keep going up and it makes no sense they don’t do any work for them. Lots of squirrels coming by the yard now but they’re always into the bird reader. Area is filled with Somalians. Don’t know where they all come from. It’s a more violent place here now…”

In the moment she pauses to breath, he finally jumps in.

“I have cancer, testicular cancer.”

“Strange. No one in the family has it. You seem too old to be getting it. The cat had cancer. It was so heartbreaking. I had to take her to the vet every day in a stroller because she couldn’t even walk anymore and the doctor wanted to put her down but I wasn’t ready. good thing I have pet insurance or this would cost me a ton. Haven’t seen your brother in ages. He better come over here and get that god damn snowmobile out of my backyard or I’m going to toss it in the garbage…”

“Okay, well I have to go.”

“well, keep me informed’

“Sure. Bye”

He looks at Athena, shrugs and walks into the living room. Jimmy sits in the lazy boy chair with a hand down his pants. 

Chapter 8 – Game of Pricks

It’s pre-op time. This involves an assortment of scans, pricks, x-rays, and meetings.

Mr. Pimp and Clea sit in a small U-shaped reception room. There are chairs along the sides and unwanted magazines resting on small tables. At the centre of the room is a small, loud TV set to a station that targets men. In the background are sounds of explosions, yelling, sex, sports, grunts. Steven Seagal. It’s a channel for testosterone drunks.

CT scans aren’t as scary as you’d imagine. It’s like entering a giant donut. You lie down flat on your back and then the machine slides you towards the centre of the donut. A soothing voice tells you when or when not to breath. They even have painted maple leaves on the ceiling. For a second I imagine that the voice is that of Homer Simpson. He would be so happy under a giant medical donut.

The actual scan takes about five minutes. The preparation is the real challenge. First, you have to drink boats of water for two days. Then, when you arrive at the hospital, they give you two big cups of what appears to be water. The cups are marked. You have about ¼ every 15 minutes. So, the bulk of the appointment is spent sitting for two hours while drinking these two large cups of water. No big deal except that it’s not water. It’s some kind of soulless contrast fluid that tastes like nightmares.

When they finally call you in, you’re given an injection of iodine. It tastes like… well…how I imagine that metal might taste if I had such a craving. Then, you slide into the donut, you start feeling very warm, as though you’ve pissed yourself.

Mr. Pimp sits in a different hospital waiting area. Like elevators, the waiting room people avoid looking at each other except to steal sneak peeks. One woman reads the bible, another reads Entertainment Weekly. One eats Chocolate flavoured mini-wheats with her hand 

out of a big cereal box. 

Athena is on his right shoulder. They are reading the admissions book.

“For safety reasons, you cannot bring butane (or other gas powered) equipment. Do not bring unacceptable appliances like a coffee maker, a fan, a humidifier or an electric hairdryer that uses more than 800 watts. No personal TVS, laptops, fax machines.”

“Do people do this?” He asks Athena. “Do they think they’re going camping? Who even owns a fax machine?

Athena shrugs and says nothing.

Mr. Pimp continues to talk: “What’s with the colours here? How come they’re so drab? What’s the motivation? I guess they want to inspire calm but it’s just boring. Why not a loud colour like orange or purple? Something rock and roll! Make it fun. I’m having surgery BITCHES! YEAH!”

The anxious monologue is, fortunately, interrupted by a pale looking Japanese nurse: “Please go to room #9”

“#9 #9 #9,” Mr. Pimp thinks as he rises from the chair.

“#9 #9 #9”, Mr. Pimp thinks again as he walks.

“#9 #9 #9,” Mr. Pimp thinks some more, pleased with himself.

–

Swabs of my nose and rectum. Do I have a living will? Then they check my pulse. It’s low. Oh, wait, no, the machine isn’t set right. They try turning it off and on again. A little tune plays when it starts up. They try again. Pulse is fine. Then they talk about the bowel preparation procedure. I’ll have to take some cleansing stuff in advance of the surgery. I can’t wait to shit my whole being out.

“You’ll be in a significant amount of pain” says the appropriately named Doctor Gas. “They will be shifting your bowels around. It makes them lazy and angry. You won’t get any food until you pass gas.”

Blood work again. 

“We’ll call you by name,” says the hyper bald guy with John Lennon glasses. 

“What else would they call me?” 

Mr. Pimp sits in yet another waiting area. Suddenly he notices a woman next to him. She has long dark hair, a gentle face, piercing eyes. “Like an Angel,” he thinks. Then it hits him that he knows her. Her name is Calypso. Seriously. They went to grade school together. Her parents were literature professors or something. Calypso was named after someone in that Homer (no, the other Homer) book, The Odyssey. She was so homely back then. People said she ate garbage. I just remember that in grade 5, we had a school wide reading contest. I finished a distant 2^nd to her. I never saw her again after elementary school. 

Finally, Calypso recognizes him.

“Hi.”

“Wow, Hi Calypso. What on earth are you doing here?”

“Oh, just some minor heart issues. No big deal. What about you?

“I have cancer. Testicular cancer. I have this major surgery next week so I’m doing all these tests in preparation.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Doesn’t sound like fun.”

“No, it’s not but at least it’s a treatable cancer. And it’s my balls. How can I not find that funny?”

“Well, good that you can find some humour in it. What are you doing with your life now?

“Oh I’m a writer and I work for an animation film festival. Basically, it’s my job to watch cartoons. What about you? Where have you been all these years?

“I returned to England after elementary school. Then I went to an art school and worked at a Pub. It was a bar filled with regulars. I got to know a few of them and they approached me with a proposal. They’d sell me counterfeit 20 pound notes for 5 pounds. It worked for a while until some stores caught on. I just played dumb. Then just as I was about to really go big and use the money to buy my own place, the counterfeiters got raided and thrown in prison. So then I moved to New York, married an actor. He was funny, smart, sarcastic and handsome. That didn’t work so I moved to Los Angeles for a few years then back here.

Before he can respond to this surprising story, he’s called in for his blood test.

“Okay…well….good to see you again.”

“You too. Let me give you my email address. Would be nice to stay in touch,” she smiled.

He sits in a recliner chair, buzzing after seeing Calypso.

She was so different than I expected. So beautiful and funny…and wow…those stories. Did she feel it? I thought she did…but oh come on…she’s model worthy. Totally out of my league. Just then he feels a sharp prick in his arm. “OW!”  

“Sorry,” says the nurse, who is drawing blood from his right arm. “Sometimes, you can’t escape the little pricks.”

Next up is the Ultrasound.  Mr. Pimp sits in yet another waiting room. There is only one other person in the room. She is talking loudly on her phone: “I keep getting calls for an Oscar Fuentez. This lady leaves urgent messages for him on my voicemail. I’ve called her back twice and left messages explaining that she had the wrong number. Once I even spoke to her directly and told her, ‘look, there’s no Oscar Fuentez here.’ She said ok. Then a day later she called again and left another message for him! What if I AM Oscar Fuentez?”

“I can’t stop thinking about Calypso,” Mr. Pimp tells Athena. 

“Oh stop it,’ she replies. “You’re married. You have kids and look at everything your wife has already endured and how much love she gives you. You’ve already been an ass to her over and over again. This is your time to fix it, to make things right and love her. This isn’t the time for philandering.  Plus, you’re right. She’s out of your league.” 

Just then a voice calls him into the ultrasound room. Once in the room, he strips down, jumps on the bed and stares at the ceiling. He sees Calypso. She wears a long white dress, her dark hair flowing. She reaches out for his hand. He takes it and joins her. They are on an island, near the deep blue sea. Birds sing. Seagulls roam. The waves of the sea gently caress them. They drink champagne, eat Oysters and make love in the sand. Suddenly, Calypso pours warm sticky liquid on Mr. Pimp’s groin area. He lies back with a big smile and opens his eyes to see the ultrasound technician’s deadpan face above him. “Here, can you hold your scrotum for me,” says the technician.  He feels discomfort the scan and winces in pain. When he looks up again, Athena greets him, “You have to stop this. It won’t go the way you think.”

It’s the day before the surgery. Mr. Pimp holds a packet called PICO-Salax. “Who comes up with these names?” he wonders, as he mixes the cleansing power with water. He drinks the mix down and then sits in his lazy boy chair. Clea and the boys are around him. He takes no notice of them. He just lays back in the chair and checks his phone eagerly hoping to hear from Calypso.  “I can have only clear liquids. There’s nothing like a good cleaning I guess. Why did the nurse tell me this was a more humane process? What the hell was the inhumane process like?” He drifts back into the chair, the family leaves. He falls asleep. 

In the middle of the night, Mr. Pimp’s stomach wakes him up. He rushes to the washroom. When he returns, he checks his phone and sees a message from Calypso. It’s not a normal message. She’s written him a poem:

The Day

Almost time

Let him feel me take his fear and throw it far

Let him feel my lips on his

So soft I whisper

I am here

With time I relish in thoughts of him

Of him and only him in me.

To lie with him, look at him, to touch him.

Walk with him, see with him, laugh with him.

To taste him.

I throb with thoughts of him inside,

Tasting his lips, licking his sweat

All of him taking me.

Please don’t take him, let him wake

Make all the bad have gone away,

Please, please let him wake.

Let me love him, hold him,

Hide him from pain,

Shield him from fears,

Please,

Let me touch him,

If only, just once.

Just as he finishes the last stanza, Clea enters the room, half asleep. “I heard you get up. Are you okay?” Startled, he quickly puts his phone aside.

“Yes, fine. Couldn’t sleep. Have to keep using the facilities. Just nervous about the operation.”

“It’ll be okay,” she says before returning to the bedroom.

He pulls his phone out, but Athena interrupts:

“You’re falling for a dream. You don’t even know her and yet you’re planning your future. It’s not real. She probably didn’t even write that cheesy poem. You have everything you need, yet you can’t see it. All you’re doing is looking for another exit, another excuse to avoid being wherever you are. 

“I want passion!” he responds in frustration. “Clea doesn’t give me that. She’s unemotional. She’s strong. She’s so set in herself that she can do well without me. Her greatest gesture was cleaning up our room after my surgery. She’d never think of writing me a poem or sending me a love song. When we first met she didn’t even want to hold hands. It just wasn’t ‘cool’. I want some fire, some wildness. I’m tired of a sober marriage. I want to drink. I want to get drunk.”

“What horseshit. If this was true,” says Athena, laughing, “you’d have left Clea years ago instead of having all those other flings. If you had any balls, any amount of compassion, you’d have ended things long ago so that she could get on with her life, but you never had the guts and now you’re buried deeper and deeper and the way out will be all the more difficult for everyone.”

Angry, he pushes Athena down deep into the chair until there is only darkness. Then he retrieves his phone, opens the poem again and smiles.