Legend of the Pah - 4 (S T Vasectomy Clinic)

 

Alistair returned to the garage, he was feeling out of control, desperate and in this reckless condition, he got inside the Audi awkwardly, scraping the thin skin on top of his head on the damp, spongy ceiling of the vehicle. He found himself inserting the key into the ignition, his body tingling with anticipation. There’s no point Alistair, he told himself, however the urge to turn it was too much, his finger and thumb tingled as he pushed downwards. There was a brief rumble, the car shook slightly then the familiar sound, ‘pah’, and everything shuddered to a halt.

 

He went to the spare bedroom, logged into Amazon and ordered a car battery for next day delivery. Then he took a deep breath and slowly typed the word ‘vasectomy’ into the search engine; adverts, forums, NHS information guides, smiling couples holding hands on a beach, so much information. It occurred to him that he might be better off not knowing, he winced, turned off the screen, had a shower and went to bed.

 

It was a long night. Alistair lay on his back staring at the shadows on the ceiling but he felt vulnerable on his back so he turned onto his side and placed his hands over the front of his privates, cupping them. He pondered over the concept of physical completeness, he was, after all complete, he still had his foreskin, his tonsils, his adenoides, his appendix, his wisdom teeth, nothing had been cut or tampered with, no piercings, nothing. 

 

Visions manifested inside his mind’s eye, all too clearly he saw flesh tubes, like bloodied macaroni, he saw his crotch as a red mess covered with blue paper towels soaking up the blood like blotting paper over a leaky fountain pen. Replacement cartridges are no longer available. ‘Sorry sir, that pen has been discontinued,’ said a voice inside his head.

 

He jumped out of his dreamlike state back to reality and saw the silhouette of Lynne’s bulky frame next to his. She was a fit woman, largish but fit, still good at tennis and moving furniture, her body expanding with age but somehow remaining hard and resisting the autumn tide of soft rolls of fat. He could tell by her silent breathing that she was still awake.

 

‘Do they do females at this Squeezy Tube place?’

 

Lynne took a few seconds to digest the question then she shifted her position in the bed and said. ‘Females don’t have sperm, Alistair.’

 

‘But...they have tubes and things so why don’t they, you know, do women?’

 

‘Because Alistair, doing women would involve an invasive operation, they’d have to cut into my abdomen and poke around, it’s very complicated inside there and I’ve already been through all that shit with the children. With men it’s just a snip within a sausage, a pinhole operation, takes seconds, you go home, have lunch, watch A Place in the Sun and put your feet up for the afternoon. The next day you won’t even know any different.’

 

He sighed and drifted into the semi-sleep of a frightened man. The images returned in vivid tones, the clear refined edges of a dream, a phantasmagoria of gruesome motion pictures, shiny operating tools, white coats and pinholes, scraping and discarding. His penis started to ache inside. It was a strange thing, the anticipation of pain can bring about real pain or was it just imagined. Eventually he found sleep but there was a grimace on his face and his legs remained in a defensive spasm.

 

The following day, Alistair found himself observing his male colleagues in a different light. Anyone over forty was subjected to speculation regarding whether or not they had undertaken the snip. He was dying to ask his colleague Gareth, a happily married father of three in his mid fifties. They worked alongside each other on a pharmaceutical production line. 

 

Every day was much the same, they had a cup of tea and a brief chat in the morning, then as they went about professional operations they brushed past one another several times with a half-smile. Lunch breaks were always staggered so they rarely had the opportunity for a deep and meaningful conversation. Consequently, despite working together for nine years, the depth at which they knew each other had stalled after about three months and never deepened. They were very familiar strangers.

 

Gareth was a straightforward Welshman with absolutely no hang-ups, this made him very perceptive. There was a strange energy coming from Alistair that day, something about his body language, a stiffness in his movements and blankness in his eyes, it made for a heavy atmosphere. The sound of the equipment seemed to echo, the minutes seemed to drag, the air was thick and it seemed to take extra energy to walk through it.     

 

Typically they worked in silence but there was a lightness to their working days, the job was practical but absorbing due to its technical nature. The days passed quickly and they didn’t take their work home with them, stress was confined to the shift. It was a rather old fashioned set-up and meetings were rare. In the old days they would have assembled at the pub after work and chatted however longer shifts and traffic jams had put an end to this culture. The pubs were now small supermarkets or knocked down to build apartments.

 

‘Everything alright today, Alistair?’

 

Alistair felt as if he were wrapped up in a sort of protective film which he was unable to break out of and for a few seconds he couldn’t find the oxygen to answer. ‘Mmm,’ he grunted. ‘Erm, just a bit of trouble with the wife, that’s all.’

 

Gareth nodded. ‘Oh, well if you want to talk you know I’m always here.’

 

‘Gareth?’

 

‘Yes?’

 

‘Have you had a vas..I mean, the snip..’ he cleared his throat, ‘have you had the snip?’

 

‘Yes,’ Gareth nodded, smiling, almost as if he were expecting the question, as if he’d somehow been privy to the conversation he’d had with Lynne over the weekend. ‘I think all of us have, except Nigel but he’s got very good genes hasn’t he. Yes,’ he chuckled. ‘A vasectomy is the best gift a man can give his wife I think, after children that is, it’s essential you do it in that order mind.’

 

Alistair was unable to raise a smile which only served to reinforce Gareth’s opinion that he was a painfully serious man who rarely engaged in banter. The truth of it was that Alistair was slightly taken aback by his colleague’s response. He continued his work on the production line without looking up. All of us have? He thought, how can that be possible and how would Gareth know this information, are they all meeting up after work to talk about their private lives without me? Nigel had a good head of hair but he wasn’t that good looking, his genes were nothing out of the ordinary.  

 

Alistair experienced a familiar and depressing feeling of detachment from the people around him. He couldn’t quite absorb the fact that Gareth knew all about the state of play regarding their colleagues' genitals. How could this be? Lunch breaks were staggered, the men didn’t appear to speak to each other regarding personal issues. 

 

Later that day in the company carpark, Barry from the warehouse called over to him. ‘Hey Alistair, I heard you’re getting a vasectomy.’

 

Alistair blushed slightly, he placed his empty lunchbox in the boot of his car and dropped it closed, hanging his head down for a few seconds to take a breath. For a few seconds he felt a bit affronted. ‘Well, I’m just considering my options at the moment Barry.’

 

‘Ha, there aren’t many options though for men I mean. It’s either one thing or the other. I had it done years ago,’ he laughed, ‘so I could play away from home.’

 

‘Oh.’

 

‘Yes, only problem is it takes at least twenty ejaculations before you’re safe so I had to stick to sloppy school dinners for a while before I could start eating out like, you know, fine dining, a la carte like.’

 

‘Oh, thanks for that, I’d best be off,’ Alistair said, opening his car door and sliding into the seat.

 

‘Big John Sandals who used to work in packaging had it done and his ball sack was so swollen after, it looked like a…..’

 

Alistair slammed his car door before he could hear the end of that sentence. He held his hand up in a stiff wave at Barry and drove on with his own head swollen with concern. It seemed odd that all of a sudden everyone was an expert on the subject.  He didn’t remember it ever being discussed in the workplace before that day.

 

The part about the number of ejaculations puzzled him somewhat. It was a shocking piece of information since he’d assumed that somehow the effect of cleaving the tubes would render the blockage immediate to the eager tadpoles. On the journey home he mused over that information and did some reckoning in his head. Surely he’d only had sex with Lynne about four times in the past seven or eight months, maybe even longer so the operation wouldn’t be effective for another three years. Lynne would definitely be virtually barren by then so the entire enterprise was pointless. He pulled into the driveway suddenly feeling relieved and quite powerful.