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Chapter 36
Jonathon

Someone was telling me this stuff the other day. It's a secret, I can't tell you. I guess I've got a reputation as a big mouth -- in fact I know I have because this person was reluctant to tell me this stuff for that very reason. So I promised, and I won't even write it down, but it was just about the biggest secret you can imagine. And it was from someone who I'd never have guessed was under such a strain. Just like me, except that for this guy, there's no way out. We sat down and tried to sort it out for ages, but there's just no way. The -- this woman -- she's got him right by the knackers and you just know she'll never let go until she finds another pair to hold on to. God! Poor, lucky bastard.

It makes you realize. Everyone's got their troubles. This secret -- I mean! That's real trouble. And Dino, too. I've been so crushed by this thing, I'd really started to believe I was going to have to die or spend the rest of my life in a state of misery, but it's not really true. I mean, Jackie's definitely not ever going to go out with him again. His parents really are going to separate. He can't change any of that. And this friend of mine is totally stuffed too, but I can do something for myself, however embarrassing it is. I can go to the doctor. The doctor will say, Fine, nope, nothing wrong -- and I'll be OK. I have to do it. I just have to be prepared to get embarrassed.

This friend of mine. This problem he's got! Wow! You should hear about that. I could not believe my ears. I thought I had problems. I tell you, compared to what he has going on, imaginary cancer of the knob is nothing. I mean nothing. And it proves one thing. Sex is trouble. My mum always says, Sex rears its ugly head. Which I always supposed meant that she thought knobs are ugly, but perhaps she just means trouble.

I can't tell you. Really, it's impossible. It's not just being discreet, it's really serious stuff. Honestly, I can't say a word. It was so awful I got over excited and started jumping around the place and Ben had to make me sit down and think about it. All I wanted to ask him was about what she -- this woman he's got himself around with -- how it started and what they did, you know? And how on earth he can do anything about that, I do not know. All he can do is ride it out. But I was really flattered, you know -- that he'd spoken to me. He must have thought I was worth telling. He could have told any number of people. He's a popular guy with the girls and the boys. I'm just a gob, really, but he chose to tell me. It made me think, maybe I'm not so useless after all. Maybe I even helped.

The funny thing about it was, all the stuff I was saying to him, all the advice, could have been applied to me. Like, "You need help." I said that to him. "You have to tell someone who can do something about it." See? If I'd had the courage to tell him what I was suffering from, he'd have said just the same back.

But I didn't. He can, I can't. Apart from anything else, I suppose, he's got a real problem while mine's just a joke.

I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't go to the doctor. Maybe I should tell this friend. But -- it really is too embarrassing. I mean, his problem, it's awful but it's cool. Mine's just crap.

Who else could I tell? My mother?

"I'm worried about my penis, Mother. It's all lumpy."

"Ah, poor dear. Let Mummy have a look at it. There, we'll just put a plaster on that. There! Good as new. Now, go out and stick it in a nice girl like a good boy."

No way! My dad? We'd both sit there in a silent rictus of embarrassment until I got up and left and the matter would never be referred to again as long as we both shall live.

Maybe I should tell Debs...but I know what she'd tell me to do, so I might as well do it anyway.

Doctor.

Fuck it. I just wish so much I didn't have to do this. It's so horrible -- but the alternatives are so much worse. It'll be utterly unbearable, utterly horrible, utterly unpleasant but -- but at the end when it's all over, I'll still be here, won't I? Oh, OK, the doctor might say it is knob cancer -- only he won't, will he? I know he won't. This is juju to make the fear go away. But it's going to work, because -- well. Because I believe in doctors, I suppose.

What's actually going to happen is this. I'm going to get a new knob and be very, very, very happy.

I'm going to tell you this as quickly as possible because it was the most painful experience of my life. I can't bear to think about it, hardly. The suffering was so intense, I'm not sure that I survived intact psychologically. I may be scarred for life.

I didn't get an appointment for starters. The earliest proper appointment was the next week -- too late. So I went down for the emergency appointments at five o'clock. I got there early to get it over with and sat there for hours and hours and hours waiting for my name to come up, scared silly that the doctor would throw me out for wasting emergency time with a neurotic knob. Well, listen -- it was an emergency for me, OK? For all I knew, in the next hour or so I might be facing life with no knob, or certain death or years of chemo and surgery and radio and...

Or a new knob. If it was just a vein and I was -- please God -- just mad and not cancerous. But that was the last thing on my mind at the time. I just kept praying that the doctor would be the kind of person who'd not mind you showing them your knob, without actually liking it.

They called my name. I walked in and there was the worst of all possible worlds. A young female doctor. Very attractive. Short skirt. Legs. It was so awful. As soon as I went in I froze. I couldn't say a word. I could see it all. She'd think I was a pervert. Even if she did agree to look at it, it'd probably get stiff while she was examining it. They'd be ringing around to see how many other surgeries I'd gone into to have my knob checked out. Prison, untreated cancer, amputation, death. Or possibly even just death there and then, because I was gasping for breath, my heart was cramping. I was going to choke to death on my own embarrassment.

"Hello, Jonathon. Sit down. What seems to be the problem?"

I stood there shivering. "I have a problem," I gurgled.

"That's why most people come to see us," she smiled. "What's yours?"

I stared at her in terror. Was she taking the piss? Did she know? What the fuck did she mean by that "What's yours?" It was so...so informal. What's your poison? What do you fancy? How would you like me -- over the desk, on the carpet? Please, please, don't let her try to seduce me!

"I...I have this lump. Well, this bump."

"Whereabouts?"

"On. On. In." I said. I just couldn't utter a word. I half stood up and looked at the door.

"Jonathon?" I made a little movement to go, but I'd frozen to the spot. She cocked her head sympathetically to one side. "People come in here with all sorts of problems. I bet I've come across yours before. You'd be surprised." She smiled at me and opened her palm towards the chair. "Sit down. I'd tell you some of them, but what's said in this room is completely confidential.You should remember that. Nothing that gets said in here goes outside these four walls."

I made a noise like a rat being grated alive.

"Please," she said.

I followed her hand and sat down. She smiled.

"Something embarrassing?"

"Ah," I croaked. I was trying to think of some other ailment I could lay claim to. The pox? Testicular gangrene? Anything but this!

"It's very brave of you to come to talk to me about it. Some people go through years of agony just because of embarrassment. But embarrassment can't hurt you: untreated problems can."

"Ah," I gasped. So! I did have cancer!

"Is it in a private place?"

"Um," I agreed.

"Testicles?"

"Nun."

"Good." She waited a bit but I couldn't speak. "Well," she went on. "That leaves only two other areas, doesn't it? But down below?"

I nodded but my mind was going bonkers. Two other places? I couldn't work it out for a minute, but then it occurred to me; she thought I might have cancer of the arse as well! Did that mean she'd want to get up there too? My God! That would be even more embarrassing! Just seconds before I'd been unable to imagine anything more embarrassing than showing her my willy and now she'd found one within minutes of my coming in to see her. What next?

"At your age I'd say it's most likely to be your penis. Correct?"

"Ah. Ahes," I said.

She nodded. "Where is this lump, on the shaft of your penis, or the head?"

"Jjj. Shi."

"The shaft. OK, if you'd just go to the couch over there and take your pants down, I'll have a look for you."

This was it. Pants down! Mortified! I went to the couch. She was over by the work surface putting on the plastic gloves. Plastic gloves? I'd washed it. My knob is spotless. Or was this for the arse examination?

I got my jeans down but I couldn't do the final thing. She came and stood by me. "Come on then, I don't want to take them down myself."

Like a little boy I jerked to attention and pulled them down. Out came the meat and two veg. Poor Mr Knobby!

"Right," I said. "Here's the lump just on this side I know it isn't very big now but it gets a lot bigger and and and and and harder when I've got annnnurrrection."

"Yes, I see." She prodded it with a finger and stood up. "That's a vein," she said. "Perfectly normal. Penises are very veiny things. This particular vein happens to be close to the surface, that's all. It means you've got a good blood supply."

"So it's all right then?" I said.

"Perfectly normal." She'd pulled the gloves off and went to the sink to wash her hands.What did she think she was handling? She needed to wash after the plastic gloves? Were knob germs that deadly?

"So it's all right, then?" I asked again. I wanted to make absolutely sure, no mistake. I didn't want to have to go through this again.

"Perfectly fine. The thing about these sorts of things," she said, washing her hands and looking over to me, "is not to worry about them."

"Yes. Yes. Right. I see, exactly, sometimes they just get a bit on top of you, I just wanted to get it cleared up. Exactly," I said. "Thank you very much. Goodbye."

I ran out of the door. Just before I closed it behind me she said, "Enjoy," in a soft voice. As if she'd just given me something to eat.

On the way home I was dying, just dying. How had I ever managed to do that? It was awful, awful, awful. The hardest thing I'd ever done in my whole life. It wasn't until I was about halfway back, that I started thinking, Yes, that was very hard, very very very hard. And stupid and horrible. But now, my boy, you have a brand new knob. Thing is, to go and try it out.