by Vanessa Gebbie

AOL News:

"A Welsh rugby fan cut off his own testicles after Wales beat England, police have confirmed."

His name is Norman. He’s a bit slow, 19, lives with his Mam and Dad.

See, its not so much the cutting off … it’s the having to go through with it because he said he would. And my caring female nature is worried for him … where in the name of all fruitcakes did he put the things after he’d hacked ‘em off and showed ‘em off?

Did the barman lean over with a pint mug, say, “Oy, Norm, stick them in here?” Did he wrap them in a paper napkin, a tissue Union Jack for effect, and chuck them in the bin? (where a dog would have sniffed them out and … don’t go there.) Did he stick them in his pocket for later? Later? What … show them to his Mam then flush them down the bog like a blobby red turd?

Oh I’m joking … The poor, poor guy.

Only last week they were indispensable. Little Alice from the chippy went down on him, taking his tackle in her mouth, running her tongue round ‘til they were rocks … and bloody hell it was sooooo good he nearly asked her to marry him then and there.

Only a few days back he paraded naked in front of the full-length mirror in his Mam’s bedroom, pulled himself a bit … and danced, thinking, some lucky bint’s gonna have that lot for life … he watched himself waving, a thick coconut palm trunk on a remote island, a lean to the left (trade winds) … and he thought hey, wonder if I can get the whole lot in? What’ll it feel like? And he covered his hands in his Mam’s Ponds Cold Cream, rubbed his palms together to warm them, then closed his eyes and held himself … couldn‘t stop it, rushed round looking for Kleenex. “Where’s the fucking tissues? Don’t they NEED tissues any more in here?”

He sat on his Mam and Dad’s pink quilt … couldn’t touch the end now … it made him wince … but he cupped his balls, and stroked them, watching himself in the mirror, sniffing the air to see if THEY were still doing IT under this quilt.

And he thought of his Mam saying she hoped he’d find himself a nice little wife who’d look after him … a nurse, maybe, or a librarian, but not too many kiddies mind … the cost … but one or two would be nice. Norman wanted kiddies then, sitting on the quilt. He wanted a boy, a toddler, not a silly baby, who he could throw in the air like he’d seen blokes do down the park, chucking them giggling in the air and catching them gentle and laughing. He thought he wouldn’t mind staying home to be dad while the nurse or librarian was at work … and he saw himself pushing prams full of little Normans throwing them all in the air at once … much cleverer than the other dads.

But then he’d gone to the club to watch the match on the big widescreen telly, and someone had given him two pints when he wasn’t really meant to… not with the pills… and he drunk them down and felt all warm inside, like he belonged here with these blokes, noisy and big and shouting, and making bets about the game, saying “Fuck, if Wales win I’ll eat my Giro …” “Nah … I’ll buy a round every day for a month …” then it got to physical ideas, and Norman was laughing, jigging up and down in his new trainers, pulling his jumper down to hide his stiffy.

“I’ll shave me head if the fuckers win…” “Me… I’ll do me beard…” and Norman with his stiffy shouted, louder than he meant ... “I’ll cut me own balls off ...''

And no one said anything … they just carried on joshing, joking like he wasn’t there.

“I will …” Norman said in a small voice.

And no-one noticed him going behind the bar when it was getting close. No one saw him go outside … and the last thing he thought about was the nurse, the librarian, the park, the pram and the little Normans … he just unzipped, pulled and sliced.

And it will take him a long time, if ever, to understand why the noise stopped, why big men went pale, when he walked back in with his hand outstretched, showing them he was a man, after all.

911

----------------------------------------------------------------------------