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The Meat Nazi

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Posted: September 23, 2022 at 6:09 am

At Place des Prêcheurs, I weaved through outdoor bistros, dodging waiters running between packed outdoor seating and the empty restaurants serving them. Nestled between restaurants was Boucherie-Charcuterie du Palais, aka the Meat Nazi. Streetside, a faded red awning shaded a glass case on casters, full of roasted chickens. But the splendor of the meat display inside was almost indecent. Laid in perfect rows was a yoga class of headless, skinned rabbits, performing sun salutation stretches. There were orderly groupings of magret de canard (duck breast), rognonnade d’agneau (lamb kidney), andouilletes (pork sausages), and fourteen kinds of pâté. Tied in precise bundles were alouettes sans tête (larks without a head), which weren’t larks, but beef stuffed with bacon, sausage and spices. Carol cooked them in a traditional Provençal sauce she perfected.

Some displays were not for the faint of heart. Our butcher arrayed lamb and veal brains, looking exactly like wet, mini, human brain models used in medical school. The brains flanked a cow’s tongue, the shape and size of a football. Who bought the unidentified animal knuckles and feet? There were a bunch of bloody, sweating, grossities left over from some satanic ritual which I didn’t want to look at too closely.

Except for one portly man in a white apron stained crimson and terracotta from nipple to thigh, the butchers were no-nonsense, severe women demanding strict adherence to the unwritten rules governing requests for meat and payment for same. 

I waited at one end of the long, glassed-in meat counter. There was a queue every day. I planned to buy chicken thighs for poulet aux lardons (chicken with bacon), but the chicken was at the far end of the counter; if I couldn’t see the meat I wanted from my place in line, too bad. I was not allowed to leave my spot to look at meat further away. As customers were helped, the line advanced, everyone shuffling along one position. With each shuffle I saw more of the meat display, but once past a section, there was no going back. It was my turn when a butcher, the one with the spiky copper hairdo, doing her best Jacques Brel impersonation, shouted, “Suivant!”

I knew this woman well; when I arrived in Aix, my ignorant meat questions provoked much eye-rolling and shrugging. But she taught me something valuable the previous month, when I asked, “Could I please have one and a half kilos of stewing beef, madame?” 

“What are you making?” 

“Bœuf Bourguignon, madame.”

“When are you making it?” she asked, with sidelong suspicion.

“Tomorrow.”

“Come back tomorrow and buy your meat for tomorrow’s meal.”

I never repeated that error; imagine, buying meat a day early! What was I planning, to keep it refrigerated for a day? Put it in the freezer? She knew I would come back. As my meat-buying skills improved, so did the friendliness of my tormentress. When I asked for chicken thighs that day, she almost smiled, not grilling me about their imminent preparation. Wrapping my meat in brown butcher’s paper with a deft hand, she said her signature, “Avec ÇA?,” shouting the second word, asking if I needed anything else. She kept my package on her side of the counter. 

“I would also like some bacon, cut into lardons, please.”

I saw a hint of a smile. She nodded, knowing lardons were part of the chicken recipe, to be used that day.

Before moving to France, Carol and I took turns patting each other’s backs while serving lean and salt-reduced turkey bacon. What great parents we were, saving our kids from future health issues. In France we were addicted to sizzling hunks of pig fat. No self-respecting French man or woman would ever eat turkey bacon.

Marbled, thick-sliced butcher’s bacon was cut into quarter-inch, bite-sized pieces to create lardons. At the supermarket, several shelves were devoted to pre-cut lardons, in every variation imaginable. How could I avoid buying this? Not only was it bacon, inherently irresistible, but they even cut it up for me! In the lardons aisle of Casino supermarket, I was Homer Simpson, drawing out “baaaaaaaaay-con” in a low, sensuous whisper.

“Avec ÇA?” my butcher said. I hoped she couldn’t hear me thinking about buying lardons at the supermarket.

We continued our dance until she held four brown bundles and I said that was all for today. This is when you think I would receive my packages and pay, but you would be wrong. My butcher traversed the length of the shop, and I matched her step along the customer side of the counter. At the end of the display case, she put my order in a red plastic shopping basket and pulled a plasticized number from her breast pocket. She placed the number in my basket, regarded me solemnly and said, “Thirty-seven.” As I thanked her for my basket, I could see the back corner of the shop. The male butcher was serving people in a line of two or three. I learned later this line was for important people, family and friends of the butchers. So much for égalité.

Basket in hand, I was required to immediately take two steps, and place it on a roller conveyor belt, a smaller version of the one at A&P when I was a kid; at my hometown supermarket, groceries were packed in brown paper bags, arranged in plastic bins and placed on a conveyor which disappeared through the wall. A teenager would load them into our car outside. The Boucherie conveyor was only six feet long, and it was blocked by customers standing beside their respective baskets, waiting for the cashier. In the crush, I could not approach the conveyor to unload my purchases, so I stood there like an idiot, holding my basket of meat. Understandably, all hell broke loose. The lady butchers stormed from behind the meat counter in a race to be first to explain why my foolish actions could lead to the end of 400 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and France. My basket was taken, and several people in the cashier’s line were asked to move, allowing my basket to be placed in the correct order on the conveyor. I felt relieved to be standing basketless, like the other customers waiting to pay.

Each basket inched along the conveyor when another order was rung in. We stood beside our baskets; why couldn’t we stand in the correct order holding our baskets? When it was my turn to pay, the cashier moved my basket to the little shelf beside her cash register. She tossed my number thirty-seven in a pile without looking at it. The number was unfailingly taken from the basket before the meat; otherwise, it was anarchy! The purpose of the plasticized numbers, and the payment system, remained a mystery to me. My instincts warned that questioning the procedure in fractured French could result in banishment from the shop, a risk I was unwilling to take.

The Boy Named Alice

Bill Crow, blog, cartoon, comic, William Crow, writer, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted: May 17, 2021 at 8:16 am

We were lost on a two-lane road twenty kilometers from Aix-en-Provence when Devon said, “Dad, this boy back here is going to throw up.” This boy back here.

         The Boy Named Alice, eight-years-old, had not spoken since he got in the car. A Marcel Marceau fan, he didn’t say he needed to vomit. He poked Devon and made throwing-up motions. I swerved my newish car to the shoulder and Carol pulled a plastic bag from her purse. Too late. A small dollop of puke made it into the bag. The rest splashed The Boy Named Alice, the backseat, the floorboards and the inside of the door. Neither Carol nor I are squeamish about vomit; we’re parents. But this was someone else’s kid, he seemed mute, and we didn’t know his real name.

         “Kcchhhchhh,” said Sophie in the backseat, retching.

         “Ghllghlhl,” said her brother beside her, holding his throat.

         I scooped vomit from the upholstery with a Kleenex. Carol cleaned The Boy Named Alice’s soccer uniform, standing in the ditch. He remained silent, indifferent to the situation or the stranger scraping barf from his shorts. We left the putrid plastic bag and the vomit-slathered contents of a box of Kleenex in the ditch, to lie with the detritus common to the shoulders of French roads.

         “I feel awful leaving our pukey garbage in the ditch, Billy,” said Carol. She looked down, and saw a spot of vomit on her shoe.

         “I don’t like it either, but what choice do we have? I don’t know how much longer we’ll be stuck in the car.” I swallowed back something rising in my throat and gagged.

*

         Every Saturday, Devon played a match for his Aix-based soccer club. The club employed a comical system to get players and parents to the out-of-town pitches each week. If I ran the club, I would send an email to each player’s parents on Monday, asking if their child could play that weekend. I would include the name of the hosting town and soccer field, the time to arrive there, and imbed in the note a Google map. A lawyer’s preparation. Call me crazy, but I imagine that would work out pretty well.

         Devon’s club had a different system. On Thursdays I received a message from an anonymous texter, something like: “come to the stadium on Saturday at 2 p.m.” There was no information about the text’s author, the game time, the opponent, or whether the text had anything to do with my son or soccer. Was it an invitation from a Marseille wiseguy to pick up a suitcase of drugs? I felt like a Luddite, but an email would have been nice.

         Being my father’s son, I had my family at the stadium five minutes early. That was my first mistake, forgetting about le petit quart d’heure (which allows every French citizen to be at least 15 minutes late for everything). Over the next thirty minutes, parents and players would drift into the parking lot. The first time this happened, I ignored the tardiness, and picked the least-late parent to befriend. I targeted a sallow-faced smoking father, held out my hand and said, in French, “Hello, I’m Bill, I’m Devon’s father.”

         The man gave me one of those handshakes which offers only fingers, no palm. “Yes. Hello,” he said, without giving his name.

         “We’re here from Canada. We’re living in Aix this year.”

         “Yes. I know,” he said.

         “Devon is enjoying playing for this club. Is this your son? What position does he play?”

         “Oh, here and there.” The man tossed the remainder of his cigarette to the asphalt.

         That was the end of the conversation. I made similar attempts to engage other parents on other Saturdays, but had the same results. With no parents to befriend, every Saturday we waited in silence for the latecomers, staring into the distance like models in department store catalogues.

         Eventually, the coach told us the name of the town we had to find. I asked him the address of the soccer pitch. Every time the coach replied, “There’s only one stadium. It’s easy to find.” This was patently false.

         The plan was each driver would follow the car in front, and we would arrive at the pitch en masse. Within thirty seconds, all the cars were separated. The soccer pitch was never plunked beside city hall in any of these towns, and was often outside the town’s borders and down an unmarked dirt road. One cannot find secreted and unnamed soccer pitches accessed by unmarked dirt roads without stopping several times to ask indifferent locals for directions. In French. With a Québécois accent. And we were late. Did I mention this scenario played out every week?

         Well, not exactly like that every week – one Saturday had a vomitous twist. Sure, we had the mystery location, lack of directions, and chronic lateness. But as we were leaving our home stadium, the coach pulled me aside.

         “Could you take another player in your car to Peynier?” he asked.

         “Of course,” I said, as a uniformed boy peered up at me. It was his first game with Devon’s team, so I asked him his name.

         The boy spoke to the asphalt. “Ah-leece.” What did he say?

         I didn’t think it polite to ask him again since it was likely a normal French name I didn’t hear clearly. I let it slide.

         “Do you usually play with a different club?” I asked the boy. He looked at me warily and whispered something to his father. They kissed each other on each cheek and the boy silently joined Devon in our car.

         “Thank you for driving Ah-leece to the game,” said his father, strolling away.

         His name couldn’t be “Ah-leece,” I thought, as “Ah-leece” was French for “Alice.” Was it an homage to Alice Cooper, or “A Boy Named Sue” knockoff? I decided to drive this kid to the match without knowing his name. As The Boy Named Alice’s father opened his car door, I thought, hold on, shouldn’t a parent know the name and number of the foreigner driving his son out of town? He didn’t even ask how he would collect his kid when, or if, we returned to Aix.

         “Wait a minute, monsieur,” I said. “Shouldn’t we exchange phone numbers?”

         “Yes. I guess so. If you want,” he replied, retracing his steps.

         “Otherwise, how will you know when to pick him up?” Using a pronoun was a clever way to avoid saying the boy’s name.

         “I was going to come back here in a few hours and wait for you,” he said.

         Waiting, again. The French could plan better, but in France everyone waits for everything; it’s built into every process. This man was content to sit in a hot parking lot with only a vague idea of when a stranger might return his son sometime in the future.

         “I think it’s better if I phone you when we’re close to Aix, and you can meet me here,” I said.

         “OK, if you want to do it that way.”

         Thirty minutes later, we climbed back into our car with The Boy Named Alice reeking of vomit, to continue our tour of Provençal roads which didn’t lead to the Peynier soccer pitch.

         “I can’t sit beside this boy anymore,” said Sophie in English, to spare the feelings of The Boy Named Alice. “He stinks, and I threw up a little in my mouth.”

         “Hang in there, Soph,” I said. “It’s rough, I know, but after a while you’ll get used to it. It’ll become our new normal.”

         “Ewwww.”

         We acclimatized to hurtling down the road in a metal box, the inside smeared with a thin film of puke. I was not surprised that once we reached Peynier, the soccer pitch was nowhere to be found. We approached a local man stuffing a mattress into a SmartCar, and I called to him before we were too close. I thought he would be reluctant to provide directions if he smelled our vomitorium.

         “Excuse me, monsieur,” I said. “Do you know where the soccer pitch is?”

         The man advanced toward the car in a friendly fashion, stopped abruptly and made a face like he had sucked a lemon. He reversed two steps and said, “I hope that’s a rental car. Heh heh. The soccer pitch, yes. Do you want the one beside the school or the new one that was recently built beside Monsieur Beaudrie’s estate?” He pulled a cigarette from where it was wedged atop his ear and flicked it to his lips.

         “I was told there was only one soccer field. Could you give me directions to both? I have a feeling the game will be at the second field we drive to.” Prophetic.

         Both sets of directions were unintelligible. We thanked the man with the sincerity he deserved, and drove away aimlessly.

         “Dad, are we late?” asked Devon, drumming his fingers against the back of the driver’s seat.

            “No, we’re not late.”

            “Are we going to be late?”

         “I don’t know. Maybe. It would help if there was a sign or something to tell us where the field is.”

         “I’m getting worried. I can’t be late, daddy.” Devon’s finger-drumming intensified. “I hate being late for anything.”  Like father like son, like grandfather like grandson, like great-grandfather like great-grandson.

         We crisscrossed the town’s major streets, and chanced upon the school where the deserted soccer field was a stony, hardscrabble playground with rusted goals, the memory of nets blowing in the breeze. That couldn’t be it. We stopped an ancient woman shouldering a straw shopping basket with three baguettes sticking out.

         “Excuse me, madame, but do you know where the soccer field is?” I asked.

         “The soccer field?” she said with a screwed-up face, as if soccer was an obscure sport, like Quidditch or hockey. What we call “soccer” in Canada, and “football” in England, is “le foot” in France. When the French named their national sport, they chose an English word that none of them can pronounce. It sounds like ‘le fute.’ “There isn’t a fute field around here. The only field I know is down that way, about halfway to the next town.”

         “Merci, madame.” This information would have been helpful when I asked the coach where in town we could find the pitch. Devon became increasingly agitated, and bounced his feet on the floorboards. The Boy Named Alice remained silent and unflappable. Scouring the roads between the two towns, we prepared to drive back to Aix when we passed a game of boules, bocce for you Italians. Like all games of French boules, the players were ancient, smoking men, with high-belted pants, ratty cardigans and cock-eyed cloth caps. A serious game for squinty-eyed competitors, mouths set in bloodless sneers. I was deathly afraid of interrupting this crowd with my stupid question in my stupid accent. But I love my kid, and he wanted to play soccer. I mentally prepared my question in French. And chickened out.

         “Carol, I’m driving the car. You go ask them,” I said, looking out the window, away from her.

         “No, Billy, you do it.” Carol crossed her arms. “You’re way better at French than me.” I hated when she said that. While true, her statement extracted her from making linguistic errors in front of car salesmen, immigration officials, doctors, the optometrist, the telephone company, the cleaning lady, the school board, the mayor’s office, and many people working in industries where knowing all the French words related to hockey (as I do) was useless. Carol spoke acceptable French, and was perfectly capable of asking directions. I exited the car to confront the boules players.

         As I approached the group, the game immediately stopped. The players and spectators looked at me, not moving a muscle. Ten people standing still as stone, unsmiling.

         “Hello, everyone,” I said. “I’m very sorry to interrupt your game. I’m trying to find the stadium near here. My son has a soccer game starting in a few minutes.” Blank looks all around. No one was happy I barged into their game.

         “Where are you from?” asked an old woman with a kerchief tied to her head.

         “Aix-en-Provence, madame.”

         “No you’re not,” she replied. “If you were from around here, you’d know where our stadium is.” That witticism garnered laughs all around. “Americans,” the woman added, under her breath. More laughter.

         “Well, we live in Aix now, but we’re from Vancouver. In Canada.”

         A light switch was flipped somewhere as the woman broke into a bright smile and said, “Canada? Céline Dion? I absolutely love Céline Dion! You have a lovely accent just like her!”

         I despaired for my country. Why did everyone in France equate Canada with Céline Dion? Couldn’t we do better than that? I felt it was an inopportune time to mention Céline Dion was my most intolerable public figure, music division, in the world. I had enough of her anguished theatrics when I lived in Québec City.

         “You like Céline Dion?” I asked, faking enthusiasm. “We have the same birthday!” This was true, to my everlasting shame. My disgrace was almost cancelled out by the knowledge Vincent Van Gogh and Eric Clapton were in the same ignominious club.

         “Lucky man,” she said, and gave me perfect instructions to a soccer pitch in the middle of a forest, covered by a Klingon cloaking device.

         Once at the pitch, I was happy to see there was a bar.

         After the game, The Boy Named Alice continued the silent treatment until we returned to our home stadium’s parking lot. The father of The Boy Named Alice was staring at the sky while sitting on a large rock, the kind put in parking lots to prevent French drivers from parking beside fire hydrants.

         “Ah, there you are,” said the father of The Boy Named Alice, pushing up from the rock. “How did it go?”

         “Fine, fine.” I said. “Well, there was a small problem. Your son was a bit carsick on the way there. He vomited a little in the car but he’s feeling better now.”

         “Oh, I’m very sorry about that.” There was genuine concern in his voice. “Is your car okay? Can I do something?”

         “No, it’s all cleaned up,” I said, shaking the hand of the father of The Boy Named Alice. “Don’t worry.”

         As father and son wandered away, The Boy Named Alice said excitedly to his father, “……and we won our first game, but that team wasn’t too good, I was playing midfield, but in the second game, which we also won, they put me at striker and I scored two goals, the second goal was the best, I used the outside of my left foot so it was really hard…….”

         It was considerate of The Boy Named Alice to let me know he could speak French. Sadly, his consideration had not extended to the previous three hours, when he could have said, “please pull over,” or “thanks for the ride,” or “sorry I puked all over your new car.” And the true name of The Boy Named Alice remains a mystery.

TOUGH ENOUGH – KELLY’S NEW JOB

Bill Crow, blog, Kelly Tough, Miss October, Playboy, Playboy Magazine, playmate, William Crow, writer, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted: February 16, 2021 at 6:28 pm

In this excerpt from Tough Enough, my co-author Kelly Tough sinks deeper into a world of drugs and criminals:

For two years I lived with the manager of the Guildford Station, in an apartment above the bar. Continuing to waitress on amphetamines, I was a textbook functioning addict, barely functioning.

Splitting with the Station’s manager required a new address, so at 34, I moved in with Corey, a Guildford Station regular. Not as his girlfriend, but as Senior Director of Illegal Drug Distribution. Or gopher, however you looked at it. Corey was a hefty guy with a mean streak, long blond hair swept straight back because it thinned on top. His hair often fell forward, so he had the constant habit of jerking his head back and combing hair off his face with his fingers. He often showed kindness, setting up a basement suite for me. I sold cocaine and speed from the house, meeting buyers when Corey was out. It was a constant stream of addicts at the door, and many dangerous situations, but I wasn’t worried; we had an alarm and a safe, bear spray and lots of weapons. Not that I would ever use a weapon. I was also Corey’s mule, transporting drug shipments around town. Sometimes, Corey took me along to visit suppliers or watch him intimidate (well, torture) business associates. Corey liked having a Playmate working for him…everyone wanted to see Corey’s bunny.

Looking back, I now understand moving in with Corey was my tipping point. Not long before Corey, I was married, had a proper home, focussed on being a mom. Everyone in Corey’s world sold drugs or was a drug addict. The people I hung out with were criminals, Surrey underworld figures, biker gang members or members in training. These criminals, or people like them, were the type who took me in when Mum kicked me out at 13. These were people I was comfortable with.

I quit waitressing to work for Corey in the drug trade full-time. He didn’t pay me a salary, but took care of whatever I needed, housing, food, cigarettes, whatever. He also supplied free speed and its nasty younger brother, crystal meth, as much as I could handle, insuring I was constantly high. I wasn’t making pension contributions or planning for my future.

*

“Bunny, you’d be good at making clones,” said Corey. “That’s your new job.” Corey clicked a secret lever at the foot of the stairs, and the staircase rose so we could access the clone room, like Batman’s lair. We ducked our heads going in. Stacked trays of baby pot plants, rows of fluorescent lights, a long counter like the one in Mum’s gardening shed.

“We’ll get Sharon to come over and teach you.”

I loved making clones from day one, and I was great at it. They were my babies and I was the mom. In the windowless clone room, I’d talk to my plants, encouraging them to take root. It was warm and calming in there, like in the womb. Not Mum’s womb, but a womb where you felt safe and appreciated. I took cuttings from larger plants and transferred them to teensy pots. I’d turn my babies, lift them, check on them umpteen times a day. Every time I lifted a plant from its pot and saw a tiny curling root I’d say aloud, “Five dollars! That’s another five dollars.” The illegal pot producers bought as many clones as I could grow.

I could have happily lived at Corey’s place and tended baby pot plants until I died. But with all things related to Corey, money eventually became a bone of contention. After two years I was the best clone maker in Vancouver, but Corey refused to increase my pay.

“It’s only a dollar, Corey,” I said. “A dollar more for every clone. You keep raising your prices, but you pay me the same.”

“Look, Bunny, that’s what it pays. You’ve lived here for free, for three years, you’ve got a great deal. If you don’t like it, go get another fucking job.”

“It’s not fair and you know it. Christ, I’ve had enough of guys walking all over me. Just fucking pay me you cheap bastard!”

Corey simmered for a moment, and quietly said, “That’s it, Bunny. You’re done here. You’re lucky I’m letting you leave with all your fingers. Get the fuck out.”

Homeless, again. I immediately called Manny, a drug dealer I met at Corey’s. Manny owned a grow-op in Surrey, so I hoped we could arrange a work/shelter deal. He had a crush on me, so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “Yeah, you can stay at my place and look after my shit. C’mon over.” That was a relief, because I needed a home and someone to take care of my daily expenses. I offered my clone expertise, not my love or my body, and he seemed OK with that.

Playmate of the Month

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Posted: October 11, 2020 at 2:36 pm

In this excerpt from “Tough”, 17-year-old Kelly frets in Vancouver, wondering if Hugh Hefner and the Playboy editorial team will choose her as a Playmate of the Month:

The day of the editorial meeting in LA, I sat in Mum’s kitchen all afternoon. I picked up the phone before its first ring ended, and Mary O’Connor said, “Congratulations Kelly. Your centerfold has been approved.”

“Oh my God, Mary.”

“It wasn’t God who decided. Well, almost. Anyway, we’ll get in touch soon to arrange the rest of your layout shots.”

“Mary, I can’t thank you enough. I’m so excited!”

“I almost forgot. Your money. You get ten thousand when your pictorial is published, but if you want, I can give you partial payment of two thousand now, and eight grand later.”

I’d never seen $2,000 before. “I’ll take the partial payment now, thank you.”

Two days later Federal Express delivered my check, and I told everyone I’d soon move back to Los Angeles to finish my photo spread. After waiting a month, I took a waitressing job I didn’t want. Another month later, those friends happy to know a soon-to-be, real-life Playboy Playmate stopped asking when I would be in the magazine. Instead, they made snide remarks under their breath, just loud enough to hear.

Unsurprisingly, Mum got in on the action. One night when I came home late from work, she was on the couch, watching television. Mum squeezed Otrivin, a nasal spray, into one nostril. She used Otrivin for many years, not knowing she was addicted to its ephedrine. Her eyes looked glassy. “How’s that big job of yours going, Kelly?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I thought it was just temporary. You were moving to LA at any moment.” Another squeeze of Otrivin into a giant sniff.

“I am, Mum. When they call me.”

“It doesn’t look like they’re calling you.”

“What do you want me to do about it? They said they’d call.”

“Did they say that? Or did you just make that up?”

“How can you say that Mum? You know I went to LA.”

“Lots of dreamers go to LA, Kelly. And lots lie when they come back with their tails between their legs.”

“I don’t believe you! Why do you want me to fail? You’ll see.”

“I’m already seeing what I always see.” Mum sprayed her nose once again and raised the volume on the television to end the conversation.

Three months after leaving Los Angeles, I finally admitted to myself Playboy wasn’t going to call. Hef changed his mind, or found someone younger and prettier to bed. It didn’t make sense…he said I was beautiful, flirted with me, and invited me, not anyone else, for a one-on-one. That had to count for something. I thought eventually I’d be Hef’s Number 1, queen of the Mansion, but it seemed he’d forgotten I was alive. That’s why I wasn’t expecting a call one afternoon before I went to work.

“Hi Kelly, this is Micki Garcia from Playmate Promotions. We wanted to ask you something.”

OK, this is it. I’m going to be a Playmate!

“Can you sing?” asked Micki.

I said ‘yes’ without knowing if I could. No one ever told me to stop singing along with the radio, but that didn’t mean I was good. I said ‘yes’ because it was my chance to get back to the Mansion and Hef. I would have said I could juggle while skydiving to return to the Playboy lifestyle.

“Would you be interested in flying down and trying out for the Singing Playmates?” asked Micki.

“Singing Playmates? What’s that?” 

The First Cut Is The Deepest

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Posted: September 24, 2020 at 8:00 am

Shaving my balls was the least humiliating part of the whole vasectomy experience.

The ordeal started the day after the birth of Lizard Boy. My son was a mewling lump of peeling hunks of skin, but I thought he was one good-looking kid. Having met my quota of one perfect daughter and one perfect son by the age of 45, I was ready to relinquish my admirable skills of procreation. I wanted to snip them in the bud.

“OK, Carol, you promised. I want to go to see Doctor Neil and get spayed.” Doctor Neil was the only vasectomy doctor on the North Shore. That’s all he did, no-scalpel vasectomies. And circumcisions. Talk about having a fixation on one small, but notorious, part of the male anatomy. It’s too bad that I was already circumcised…I could have tried to negotiate a two-for-one. His laser focus on masculine genitalia may sound a bit creepy, but thankfully Doctor Neil was a non-creepy guy. He looked like a dour accountant. I guess that’s the same as a normal accountant.

“You’re not getting spayed,” said Carol. “That’s a removal of ovaries and you don’t have ovaries.”

“Well, I don’t want to be castrated then. But neutered would be OK.”

“Billy, I had a baby yesterday. Couldn’t we talk about this later?”

“You did a great job at that, by the way,” I graciously said. “I just don’t want you to have to do it again. What’s to talk about?”

“I think we should wait a bit until we are sure,” replied Carol.

“I’m 45. I’m SURE,” I said. Apparently, we weren’t sure yet, so it wasn’t until six months later that I was standing in Doctor Neil’s office as he cupped my clammy testicles in his reassuringly warm and gentle hand.

“Everything looks OK, Bill,” said Doctor Neil. “But before we can schedule your procedure, we should talk first about cryogenically freezing some of your sperm.”

“I thought the point was that I didn’t need my sperm anymore, because, you know, because of the strong scientific evidence that it leads to children.”

“Think of it as a kind of insurance policy for the future. Your circumstances may change and you’ll be happy to be able to have more children some day.”

“I won’t be putting any kids on ice, Doc. I get what you’re saying, but I am 100 percent confident that I don’t need to save some kids for a rainy day.”

Returning home, I learned from Carol that we were not as 100 percent confident as I thought. “What if something bad happens to the kids?” she said. “Maybe we should freeze some sperm, you know, for a year or something.”

“WE should freeze some of my sperm? Are WE going to masturbate together, or am I going to be the one masturbating in a hospital operating room, with all the lights on? C’mon Carol, you know that’s not my favourite activity.”

“It won’t be too bad,” Carol said. “It’s not as hard as having a baby, you know.”

She had to bring out that little chestnut. The one argument, that to her credit she rarely used, which trumped all others. Once this gauntlet has been thrown down, the only thing any guy with a brain in his head can do is graciously concede. I may not be smart, but I’m not stupid. I made an appointment to visit the fertility centre for sperm storage. Before this call, I don’t remember ever having a detailed conversation about my sperm when I wasn’t a bit drunk.

“Yes, Mr. Crow, you can come in next Thursday to leave us a sample for analysis and cryopreservation,” said the bored technician. Cryopreservation, I thought. Isn’t that what Ted Williams’s kids did to his body after he died? Of course, it would have to be after he died. “And you will produce your semen sample in our discreet, private facilities.”

“Really?” I said. “The semen production room is private? I thought you’d have me put on a show standing in the middle of West Broadway.” Had the technician heard this joke before? Not even a giggle. If you spend your whole career handling the last liquid hopes of soon-to-be-gelded men, you lose your sense of humour.

“Oh no, sir. It’s a separate room with a door and everything,” she clarified.

The ‘and everything’ was the part that I only fully understood when I was escorted into a small room in Vancouver General Hospital. It was bad enough that the pretty, petite, 25-year-old technician knew exactly why I was there and what I was expected to produce while she waited outside. My mortification reached new levels when she said, “There is a collection of pornographic magazines on the table over there for your use. Please don’t take any of them home. You can see the TV on the wall, and the VCR has an adult movie in it for you. There’s also a large collection of towels. When you’re done, please put the specimen through that little door right there. I’ll be waiting for you, but take your time.”

I refrained from telling her that she wouldn’t have to wait too long if she stayed in the room with me. That could set a sample-producing world record. I thanked her instead, never meeting her eyes in my shame, and locked the door behind her. The first of many disgusting features of the room was the lone chair. It was a brown, overstuffed, faux-leather recliner, facing the television. I supposed the chair’s upholstery allowed simple hose downs after each client, but there was no way I was going to sit on that. Curious, I turned on the VCR (yes, a VCR), which was showing trashy 70s-era porn. The entire movie consisted of an ursine Burt Reynolds look-alike being administered by three women of improbably balloon-shaped breasts, voluminous hair, and rugs to match. It reminded me of the Baby Blue Movie that played on television every Friday at midnight when I was a teenager. When one sex scene seemed to meld into the next I realized that the VCR was on a continuous loop and I had watched the same performance three times. Since the film did not produce the desired effect, I turned to its two-dimensional cousins.

There were about 20 dog-eared magazines in a messy pile beside the sink, under a large bathroom mirror. The top cover showed a disturbingly young-looking Asian girl in a school uniform, well, almost in a school uniform, being spanked. Flipping through the pages, I could quickly see that every page featured naked or near naked Asian girls, which would border on child pornography if they weren’t all so buxom. All of the other magazines also featured Asian schoolgirls. I wondered what market research went into the supply of reading material in the ‘sample-producing room,’ but it wasn’t working for me.

Even when I decided to forget the carnal aids and take matters into my own hands, my efforts proved unproductive. I should have practiced more in high school. I don’t know if it was the ticking clock or the bright lights, or seeing the look on my stupid face in the mirror. All I could feel was humiliation and failure, and the need to run out of that sordid room as fast as possible. I wasn’t ready for that kind of pressure. I decided to give up, to slink away and try another day. Then I thought of the shame of walking past the technician without leaving a sample. What could I tell her? How could I explain the last 40 minutes? As much as I didn’t want to go through that whole degrading procedure again, I also worried that I wouldn’t be able to get another appointment before the day already scheduled for my vasectomy. I’m not a doctor, but I was certain that providing the sample to be cryogenically frozen after the vasectomy would be counter-productive.

While these defeatist thoughts ran through my head I must have cleared some other mental block, because I suddenly rallied. I produced that sample faster than a teenage sailor on shore leave, and placed the precious vial in the square compartment in the wall. It had a door on my side and a door in the room next door, like the place where the milkman would leave the milk in the homes in my childhood neighbourhood. There’s an analogy in there somewhere. The relief was indescribable but my embarrassment returned when I realized that the technician had been waiting for 45 minutes. On exiting, I tried to make a lame joke about needing a film with higher production values, and she said, “It would have been OK if your wife had gone into the room with you. Some of our patients find that helpful.”

“What?! Now you tell me?”

I dreaded ‘V’ Day Eve, because of the afore-mentioned testicle shaving requirement. I had heard that teenagers not receiving vasectomies were shaving the entire area, porn-style, in an effort to produce the optical illusion of a larger manhood. My assignment was to concentrate on the area where a man I barely knew was preparing to slice into my scrotum. Doctor Neil provided me with a special razor for the delicate job, to be performed on a bumpy, spongy, ever-shifting worksite. I have shaved my face thousands of times, but that’s mostly a taut, smooth surface. This was a much more challenging procedure. I succeeded in cutting myself so many times that my testicles resembled the skin of some exotic Dr. Suess creature, patterned by moistened pieces of toilet paper, each with a congealed red bullseye.

Most of the bleeding had stopped by the momentous next day. As instructed, I slid the athletic supporter over top of my underwear, and then stepped into my jeans. This was a particularly goofy sensation, akin to what an adult diaper might feel like. The bulbous front package made me look more virile than I expected to feel by the end of the day. As I drove to my appointment, I was anxious, but serene. I knew this was the mature thing to do, and didn’t feel like any kind of hero because of it. I planned on shouldering this ordeal with dignity.

My dignity lasted until I presented myself at the reception desk at Doctor Neil’s clinic. The waiting room was full of moms holding whimpering infant boys and men with suspiciously bulging groins. On closer inspection, the men all looked pale and it was obvious that they had bags of ice in their pants. As I checked in, everyone could hear the receptionist when she loudly said, “Mr. Crow, have you shaved your testicles as directed?”

I noticed several heads lean forward to catch my response. “Yes, I have,” I murmured.

“But did you use the special razor and insure that you have completely removed all hair from your entire scrotal area?”

“Clean as a whistle,” I said in a quiet voice. The other patients sat back in their seats, disappointed in my response. I took my seat and scanned the room while I waited. A framed poster of a cat with enormous eyes, precariously suspended from a tree branch, advised me to “Hang In There.” A collection of 19th century torture surgical instruments were expensively framed and hung on the wall. As the infants shrieked and wailed in their nervousness, their baby lead soloist, off stage and in the hands of Doctor Neil, screamed his displeasure in the musical stylings of AC/DC’s Bon Scott. One of the post-operative men stood up too quickly, and promptly fainted at my feet. Amid the bedlam, a man of my age walked up to the reception desk and even the babies became quiet.

“Mr. Weddigen, have you shaved your testicles as directed?” We waited for his response.

Almost too quiet to hear, he replied, “No, not yet.”

“Uh, oh,” said one of the patients, loudly.

“Oooooooohhhhhhhh!” said everyone else, dragging out the word. A few of the guys giggled. “Marcie! Get ready for Marcie,” they laughed.

“Well, that will never do,” said the receptionist, sternly. “It was very clear in the welcome package that you were to completely remove all of the hair from your scrotal area. You have just earned a date with Marcie.” The unshaven man slunk to a chair, but his sheepishness soon turned to terror. A hulking, frowning Amazon, with a cursive ‘Marcie’ embroidered in pink on her smock’s breast pocket, entered the room and gestured him to follow her down the hall. The next sound I heard could have been the man, but it also could have been another baby being circumcised.

“Mr. Crow, please come with me,” said a voice to my right. I turned to meet the owner of the voice, but no one was there. Then I looked down, and saw an expressionless nurse, a sturdy Filipina about four feet tall. She was the shortest person I had ever met not suffering from dwarfism. I followed the nurse to a small operating room, with a table of surgical instruments and one bed covered by a paper sheet. Doctor Neil wasn’t there.

“Please leave your shoes and socks on, but lower your pants, underwear and athletic supporter in one motion down to your ankles,” said the nurse.

“I think it would be better if I took off my shoes first,” I said. “It will certainly look better.”

“Please don’t do that. Lower everything down to your shoes, but leave them on.”

I had known the nurse for 30 seconds, such time period reducing my taking-down-my-pants-in-front-of-a-woman record by a large negative exponent. As I stood there naked from my waist to the bulk at my ankles, my nether regions refusing to leave the warm cocoon of my body, I was confident that my level of embarrassment could not increase. It was then that the nurse asked me to hop up onto the bed. With ankles held by shackles of denim and underwear, my hop attempt turned into an awkward teeter, ending in a loud splat as I hit the floor. Lying face down, my fish-belly colored butt greeted Marcie as she entered the room.

“I heard a noise. Is everything OK in here, sir?” asked Marcie, in a flat monotone.

“Really, I’m fine,” I said to the linoleum floor. There was no dignified way to stand up in front of these woman, half naked, ankles constricted. Before I could fall again, Marcie increased my humiliation by flipping me over, picking me up like a baby in her brawny arms, and depositing me on the bed.

“Thank you Marcie,” said the nurse. “You can leave now. Okay, Mr. Crow, lie back and don’t be embarrassed.” That train had long left the station. Mortification took over. I thought that water skiing in the Pacific Ocean on New Year’s Day the previous year had caused significant shrinkage, but I longed for a comparable display of manhood. It was then that the nurse reached below the bed and started turning a crank. The bed slowly rose, and she continued cranking until my frightened penis was exactly level with her face. I guess she wanted to get a good look. She opened a drawer and pulled out a thin rubber hose and a metal clip. The nurse then tied one end of the hose to my glans in a squeaky flurry of hand movements not unlike a clown making a balloon-twisting dachshund. Grabbing her rubber lasso in one hand, she yanked my penis so that it was stretched and pointed at my chest, and secured the free end of the hose to my t-shirt with the clip. I was thankful that she remembered to use the rubber hose for this procedure. The clip had sharp teeth.

“Is all that necessary?” I asked, feeling somewhat vulnerable.

“We don’t want it flopping all around during the procedure,” she replied.

I mentally thanked her for the compliment, but I suspected she used this line on all the boys.

Opening a jar of an antiseptic-smelling liquid, and using a cotton ball, the nurse painted my scrotum bright crimson. It was the same colour as the iodine some moms put on scraped knees in my childhood, and it could have been the same stuff. It was cold. With my shaven, exposed, retina-searing balls, I looked like a Mandrill monkey, hairless red genitals sticking out of my fur.

“Alright Mr. Crow, you’re now ready for the doctor. Just relax until he comes in.”

“But I am a little worried,” I said, setting up the old joke. “Will I be able to play the piano after this?”

Without a flicker of recognition or humor, she soothingly replied, “Of course you will be able to. The operation will not affect any of your motor skills.” I could not believe she went for the joke, and didn’t have the heart to pursue it. “Please wait for the doctor who will be in shortly. And please stay on the bed.”

It is a good thing the nurse added that last part. I was already planning to waddle onto the elevator and push all the buttons, showing off a scrotum that looked like the goal light at a hockey game, and a penis roped and tied like a steer. I decided to quietly await my fate on the bed. And wait. And wait. After 10 minutes I wondered whether they had forgotten about me. After 20, I started to laugh, as a person could not be left in a more ridiculous or vulnerable position. When Doctor Neil and the nurse arrived, after leaving me helpless for 30 minutes, I said, “I waited so long for you two, I went ahead and performed the operation myself. It didn’t hurt too much.” The nurse looked alarmed, but I saw a small smile at the corners of Doctor Neil’s mouth.

“If that’s true,” deadpanned Doctor Neil, “then why can’t I smell burning flesh?”

“I don’t smell it either, Doctor,” said the nurse in a serious tone. I was happy that at least Doctor Neil had a sense of humour, but I could only concentrate on the phrase ‘burning flesh.’ Considering my physical predicament at the time, I seemed the most likely candidate in the room to soon own burning flesh.

“OK, Bill, not to worry,” said Doctor Neil. “We’ll have this done in no time. Did you bring any background music? Some patients feel better if their own relaxing music is playing during the procedure. Or you can suggest something and I’ll see if I have it on my iPod.”

“How about Cat Stevens’s The First Cut Is The Deepest?”

“Never heard that one before. I don’t think I have it. Since you’re from North Van, I have already cued up Bryan Adams’s Cuts Like A Knife. Local guy. Now don’t sweat about me cutting anything. As we’ve told you, this is a no-scalpel vasectomy,” said Doctor Neil.

“That’s the part I don’t understand. Aren’t you going to cut into my scrotum?”

“Well, yes, we make a small incision,” replied Doctor Neil. “But we use a pair of special forceps.”

“Special forceps or a scalpel, what’s the difference? It’s still cutting. You could call it a ‘no samurai sword vasectomy’ too. Wait a minute, what do you use to cut the sperm tube once you have yanked it out of my scrotum?”

“Oh, we use a scalpel for that,” Doctor Neil admitted. I started to question the wisdom of antagonizing the guy who was about to perform this most delicate operation upon me, but Doctor Neil seemed unperturbed. “Would you like to watch the operation being performed?” asked Doctor Neil. “We have a big mirror up there in the corner, by the ceiling.”

“Sure,” I bravely replied. The nurse pulled out a stepladder and from the top step, on tippy toes, she pulled the towel off of the concave mirror staring down at me. I liked the concave mirror, because it was like a funhouse mirror. From my position, my penis looked enormous. Some day I would like to live in a world where funhouse mirrors are at my beck and call, and they could adjust others’ perceptions of my physical flaws.

“Now Bill,” said Doctor Neil, “what I’m going to do is freeze part of your scrotum with this little spray. OK, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Now the small incision, and then I pull the vas tube, or what you call the sperm tube, out of this teeny weeny slit in your scrotum….”

“What’s that thing in your hand? The cutting thing?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s a scalpel,” said Doctor Neil.

“Thanks, just checking.”

“There. It’s cut,” said Doctor Neil. “Now we cauterize the end…….” This is where the smell of burning flesh came in. “And we do the same thing on the other side. Easy. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine. I understand the cutting and the cauterizing and all that. But you only sealed one end of the tube. Isn’t the other end still open, and spurting semen like a garden hose?”

“Not all the time, I imagine,” said Doctor Neil.

“Yes, yes, I know. But I assume semen will still be produced. Where will it go if you’ve sealed off the only available transportation hub?”

“It leaks into your scrotal sac,” said Doctor Neil, matter-of-factly.

“That doesn’t make me very comfortable. It also sounds painful, you know, with the buildup and all.”

“That doesn’t happen, said Doctor Neil. “The body breaks it down, and recycles the sperm into its component parts. And the body uses them again.”

“We already recycle at home, so that sounds pretty good,” I said. I was still worried about my body’s capacity to recycle such a large sperm output, but I was not in a position to argue. Doctor Neil finished his intricate work and I shuffled out to the waiting room for a well-deserved juice and a cookie. And a big icepack to put in my jock for the drive home.

Two months after my operation, having far exceeded the 20 ejaculations demanded by Doctor Neil to flush out my system, it was time to have my sperm tested. I had to ensure that I was officially shooting blanks. The sperm-testing procedure was almost as pressurized as the sperm-saving-for-freezing procedure. The advantage was that the sample could be produced in the privacy of one’s home, but it had to be delivered, still warm, to a medical clinic within 30 minutes. I reserved a whole afternoon for the manufacture and delivery of my sample, when I knew that Carol and the kids wouldn’t be home (I couldn’t have Carol help me with the happy ending in the middle of the day with two infants at home). The details of my production of another sperm sample all by my lonesome are best left private. But from the exact second I dribbled my pathetic offering into a sterile plastic container, it was time to play Beat the Clock. I had to immediately clean myself up and pull up my pants…..I realized too late that I should have taken the nurse’s advice and left my shoes and socks on for the procedure. I had to race out of the house because I knew I had a 20 minute drive to the clinic. That left 10 minutes for everything else, which was cutting it a little tight. As I pulled away from the house, I slammed on the brakes, having left my sample on the bathroom counter. Retrieving the vial, I tucked it between my legs for the drive to the clinic. This was to keep it warm, but I thought it also nice to keep the sample close to the scene of its production for old time’s sake. As luck would have it, the waiting room at the clinic was jammed, and I was forced to take a number. I waited impatiently for my turn, my face still flushed from my solitary bedroom activities, checking and rechecking my watch. The plastic container in my lap felt like a bomb that would go off if I didn’t soon hand it to the medical staff for dismantling. With my 30 minutes almost expired, holding a paper number close to infinity, I realized that drastic action was necessary. I stepped up to the counter where a nurse was taking details from an elderly patient, and wedged myself in front of him.

‘I’m very sorry to have to do this,” I said politely to the patient, “but I must go next.”

“What is your number, sir?” asked the stern nurse. Her authoritarian manner forced me to show her the number, but then I realized that wasn’t the point. “You’ll have to wait like everyone else.”

“But you see,” I stammered, “I have to drop something off here, and I’m in a hurry.”

“Everyone is in a hurry,” said the nurse. I looked around the waiting room and none of the patients seemed to be in a hurry to me. Most of them seemed catatonic.

“But I have to drop off my sperm sample,” I said in a faint whisper.

‘What did you say,” she asked.

“I said I have to drop of my sperm sample,” I said, a tiny bit more loudly.

“OH. YOUR SPERM SAMPLE. GIVE IT TO ME. DON’T YOU KNOW THAT TIME IS IMPORTANT? DID YOU PRODUCE YOUR SPERM IN THE LAST 30 MINUTES?”

The waiting room went completely silent, as I softly groaned “Yes.” Humiliation complete.