by Eli S. EVANS

Mc­Crack­en knocks on my door at quar­ter past two.

“I feel like I have a crumb in my pe­nis,” he says.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Who else am I sup­posed to tell?”

“Olm­stead,” I tell him. “Any­one. I don’t know. Your wife.”

“I don’t want to tell her,” he says.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Be­cause there are some things you keep to your­self, Fos­ter, that’s why.” He frowns at me. “What do you think it means?”

“How long has it been feel­ing this way?”

“My pe­nis?”

I look at him.

“I had a lemon­ade at lunch,” he says. “You know how it is. You or­der a lemon­ade and then they of­fer you free re­fills. You fig­ure that as long as you’re pay­ing two bucks for it, you might as well take the free re­fills, to hell with the con­se­quences. In the first place, you don’t re­al­ly need the lemon­ade, but you feel like such a cheap piece of shit ask­ing for wa­ter, and the last thing you need at lunch is the de­ri­sion of some lousy wait­ress. Which is so stu­pid, you know — How many bad de­ci­sions do we make be­cause we don’t want some­body we don’t know from Eve and don’t care about and will prob­a­bly nev­er see again to have a poor opin­ion of us? And then how many times do we dis­ap­point the peo­ple who re­al­ly mat­ter, you know — be­cause we’re not wor­ried about mak­ing a bad im­pres­sion on them.” He shakes his head. “So you spend the two dol­lars,” he says. “And once you’ve spent the two dol­lars — Be­cause these places are mak­ing half their fuck­ing prof­it on drinks. Restau­rants,” he says. “So­da, iced tea, lemon­ade. This stuff ba­si­cal­ly costs them noth­ing. They’re mak­ing ba­si­cal­ly pure prof­it when they sell it to you, which is sort of dis­turb­ing when you think about how much mon­ey the com­pa­nies that are sell­ing the prod­uct to the restau­rants for next to noth­ing are mak­ing, al­though at this point you have to fig­ure that in large part restau­rant sales are just a means of stim­u­lat­ing gro­cery and con­ve­nience store sales. But ei­ther way, they’re deal­ing in a whole lot of vol­ume for that much mon­ey to be com­ing out of some­thing that these peo­ple are ba­si­cal­ly pay­ing noth­ing for.”

“I don’t know any­thing about the soft drink industry.”

“Ei­ther way,” he says. “I must have had three. The next thing I knew I had to uri­nate des­per­ate­ly but I was al­ready in the car on the way back to cam­pus at this point. It did­n’t come on grad­u­al­ly. Be­tween the time I first took note of the need to uri­nate and the time the need to uri­nate be­came des­per­ate to the point of be­ing de­bil­i­tat­ing, I’m go­ing to say that maybe a minute passed. Maybe a minute and a half. Maybe less. It was com­plete­ly de­bil­i­tat­ing. I still don’t know if I locked my fuck­ing car when I came in­to the park­ing lot. I dropped my keys on the way up the walk and was this close, fuck­ing this close, to just leav­ing them there, but then my bor­ing side got the best of me. I prac­ti­cal­ly pissed all over my­self when I bent over to pick them up, but at that point my bor­ing side got the best of me again. I don’t know how I did­n’t. I had a mas­sive uri­na­tion in the stu­dent bath­room, which is dis­gust­ing and I nev­er go in there, ever, and ever since then I’ve felt like I have a crumb in my pe­nis. I may have picked it up in the stu­dent bath­room al­though I’m pos­i­tive that my pe­nis did­n’t touch any­thing in there. Maybe some­thing got on my hand and I touched my pe­nis with my hand — ex­cept that I’m pos­i­tive I did­n’t touch any­thing with my hand, ei­ther. Cov­ered it up with my sleeve and pushed open the door. You know what’s un­be­liev­able,” he says. “I’m at the book­store the oth­er day, the what do you call it — the Barnes and No­ble at South Coast, and I’m just fuck­ing around in there wait­ing for Jan­ice to pick up some­thing she’s got on or­der, and I end up the mem­oir sec­tion, right. They have their own sec­tion, now, peo­ple telling their fuck­ing sto­ries, and they’re not just Oprah peo­ple any­more. It’s the hot thing, now — And I pick up one be­cause I think it has an in­ter­est­ing cov­er, some black and white, it al­most looks like chalk ex­plod­ing on a chalk­board, and I’m read­ing the back, okay, where you’d ex­pect to find quotes from oth­er au­thors who have more cred­i­bil­i­ty than this guy say­ing how great it is and how if you like them you should re­al­ly blow twen­ty bucks on this. But it’s not. Things are chang­ing on us. It’s lit­er­al­ly just a se­ries of quo­ta­tions from the book. It’s its own source of cred­i­bil­i­ty, now, in­cred­i­ble, but ei­ther way — And one of the pas­sages, list­ed un­der the lit­tle head­ing that says fam­i­ly, goes, you know, quote-un­quote more or less, I’m quot­ing from mem­o­ry — my mom al­ways told me that I should wash my hands be­fore I peed, be­cause it was­n’t my pe­nis that was dirty, but the world that was dirty, and I did­n’t want to get any of the world on my pe­nis. Do you know how long I’ve fuck­ing been say­ing that, Fos­ter? Years. I’ve al­ways said that. Then, of course, I fig­ured out you just pull your sleeve over your hand and then don’t touch your sleeve for the rest of the day, but ei­ther way — If I knew you could get a big time Barnes and No­ble book deal by writ­ing that — I’ve been say­ing that for years. It’s the world you want to keep off of your pe­nis. Why? Be­cause it gets on there and the next thing you know you feel like you have a crumb in your pe­nis and your good friends and col­leagues can’t give you a word of ad­vice on it.”

“Have you uri­nat­ed again?”

“Twice. Why?”

“Just — What part of your penis?”

“I don’t fuck­ing know,” he says. “The tip.”

He looks at me like for a mo­ment like he’s ready to fight, or as though he would fight me, per­haps, if he was­n’t con­cerned that it would end up do­ing fur­ther dam­age to his al­ready vul­ner­a­ble pe­nis — it’s that kind of a look.

“What do you want me to do for you?” I say, finally.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Give me some advice.”

“I’ve nev­er felt like I had a crumb in my pe­nis,” I say. “So ba­si­cal­ly, you know — So ba­si­cal­ly it’s hard for me to have any ad­vice to give you. I would just try to keep urinating.”

“You think I’ll just pass it, eventually.”

“I re­al­ly don’t know,” I say. “That would de­pend on what it was.”

“What do you think the pos­si­bil­i­ties are?”

“As far as feel­ing like there’s a crumb in your pe­nis,” I say. “I re­al­ly don’t know. I sup­pose some kind of a stone or something — ”

“What kind of a stone?”

“Look,” I say. “I re­al­ly don’t know.”

“You said it,” Mc­Crack­en says.

“I was just of­fer­ing a possibility.”

“And I’m say­ing what kind of a stone?” he says. “This is what I’m ask­ing you. If you’re say­ing that one pos­si­bil­i­ty is that it might be a stone, what I’m ask­ing you is what ex­act­ly you mean by that, and what kind of stone you might be talk­ing about.”

“I re­al­ly have no idea.”

“You must have some idea.”

“Lis­ten,” I say. “I’m not a urol­o­gist. I’m not a doc­tor of any sort for that mat­ter. I don’t have any med­ical training.”

“Have you ever been to a urologist?”

“I have not.”

“Lis­ten,” Mc­Crack­en says. “You must have had some­thing in mind when you said that.”

“I did­n’t have any­thing in mind.”

“You don’t just say that. I un­der­stand that what you’re say­ing is that you don’t know, that you don’t have any train­ing — I’m not ask­ing for a fuck­ing ex­pert analy­sis, here. If I want­ed ex­pert analy­sis I’d go to an ex­pert, but at that point I’d ba­si­cal­ly have to en­dure the hu­mil­i­a­tion of walk­ing in­to a fuck­ing doc­tor’s of­fice and an­nounc­ing in front of the world that I feel like I have a crumb in my pe­nis, and I just don’t know if I’m ca­pa­ble of do­ing that at this point. So at the mo­ment I’m throw­ing my hat in the ring with you, and with that in mind I’m say­ing to you that if you said it could be a stone, re­gard­less of what you know or what you’re qual­i­fied to tell me, you must have had some kind of a some­thing in mind, be­cause oth­er­wise you would­n’t have said it, would not have used the word stone, and I’m ask­ing you what that some­thing is?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “A kid­ney stone, I guess. A blad­der stone, maybe.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if there is a difference.”

“Do you think it could be can­cer­ous? Your son had can­cer and I’m not say­ing that be­cause of that you’re an ex­pert of any sort, but you might have some insight.”

“No,” I say. “I high­ly doubt it.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Any­thing’s possible.”

“I un­der­stand that,” Mc­Crack­en says. “Yes. I un­der­stand, Gary, that any­thing’s pos­si­ble, but we’re not talk­ing about my fuck­ing hopes and dreams here. We’re talk­ing about a can­cer­ous crumb in the tip of my pe­nis, so as far as plat­i­tudes like any­thing’s pos­si­ble go, I’m con­vinced that there are more help­ful things that you might say, such as things that in­volve us­ing your brain.”

“I’m say­ing what I’m say­ing be­cause I don’t have any­thing else to say,” I say. “Be­cause I don’t know what hav­ing a crumb in your pe­nis could pos­si­bly mean. If I were you, like I said, I’d just try to keep uri­nat­ing. It could be some kind of pres­sure or something.”

“What kind of pressure.”

“Pres­sure,” I say. “Any kind of pres­sure. Pres­sure in your bladder.”

“Why would pres­sure in my blad­der make me feel like I have a crumb in my fuck­ing pe­nis, Gary?”

“I was just of­fer­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties off the top of my head. You’re ask­ing me for pos­si­bil­i­ties. I’m telling you I have no idea what I’m talk­ing about and you’re telling me that this does­n’t mat­ter, that you still want me to of­fer you pos­si­bil­i­ties, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“But that does­n’t make any sense,” he says. “I’m not ask­ing you to be a doc­tor. I’m ask­ing you to lend me your av­er­age layper­son­’s in­tel­li­gence — I’m ask­ing for your reg­u­lar guy un­trained brain pow­er to see if it might be help­ful to me, which is to say you don’t have to do any­thing spec­tac­u­lar or know any­thing you don’t al­ready know. You do, how­ev­er, have to think ra­tio­nal­ly and try to say things that make some kind of sense. Pos­si­bil­i­ties, but a pos­si­bil­i­ty that’s not a pos­si­bil­i­ty is­n’t a possibility.”

He takes a heav­ing breath and puts his hands on his hips.

“Maybe you should ask Ray­mond, then,” I say.

“Fuck­ing Ray­mond,” he says. “Right. Like I want my per­son­al prob­lems to end up in one of his fuck­ing su­per­mar­ket nov­els. What’s his de­tec­tive guy he writes about?”

“Sean Steele,” I say.

“Right,” he says. “Next case — Steele in­ves­ti­gates the mys­te­ri­ous crumb in Miguel Man­delkrack­’s pe­nis. No thanks. I’m just look­ing for some help iden­ti­fy­ing what it might be and whether I should fly in­to a full-blown pan­ic over it.”

“Well,” I say. “With things like that my pol­i­cy is al­ways pret­ty much to wait it out, which is prob­a­bly not good ad­vice. But that’s what I do. My thought is usu­al­ly that it’s more like­ly some­thing than noth­ing so you might as well just wait and let it go away on its own. If it does­n’t go away on its own, then it’s prob­a­bly some­thing. But it will prob­a­bly go away.”

“But then your son ends up hav­ing can­cer,” he says. “I’m not try­ing to be in­sen­si­tive and thank God he’s fine, now, but you see what I’m say­ing. That kind of an at­ti­tude on­ly make sense un­til it does­n’t, and then it doesn’t.”

“Right,” I say. “At the same time, if you build your life around the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the worst, Michael — I’m say­ing that if you were to re­act to the worst pos­si­bil­i­ty every time you have an ache or a pain, you’d end up spend­ing half your life at the doc­tor’s of­fice get­ting test­ed for things you don’t have, and I don’t know if a life that’s half spent in a doc­tor’s of­fice get­ting tests for things you don’t have is worth liv­ing. Or even wor­ry­ing about every ache and pain think­ing it’s the end of the world. The one you don’t wor­ry about is go­ing to be the one that gets you in the end, any­way, is­n’t it?”

“But this is­n’t an ache or a pain — ” Mc­Crack­en says.

“Right,” I say. “But that’s not really — ”

He holds up the palm of his hand to qui­et me. “It’s a sen­sa­tion.”

Filed under Fiction on October 21st, 2006

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