The Wilt Alternative

'And I wasn't standing out there shouting the odds about what had happened to my penis for all the bloody world to hear. I asked to see a doctor but you wouldn't let me. Deny that if you can.'

'I asked you if you had broken a limb, suffered a wound that required '

'I know what you asked me,' yelled Wilt, 'don't I just. I can quote it word for word. Well, for your information a penis is not a limb, not in my case anyway. I suppose it comes into the category of an appendage and if I'd said I had damaged my appendage you'd have asked me which one and where and how and on what occasion and with whom and then sent me round to the VD clinic and...'

'Mr Wilt,' interrupted the doctor, 'we are extremely busy here and if you come and refuse to state exactly what is wrong with you...'

'I get a fucking stomach-pump stuffed down my gullet for my pains,' shouted Wilt. 'And what happens if some poor bugger who is deaf and dumb comes in? I suppose you let him die on the waiting-room floor or whip his tonsils out to teach him to speak up for himself in future. And they call this the National Health Service. It's a fucking bureaucratic dictatorship. That's what I call it.'

'Never mind what it's called, Mr Wilt. If there is something really the matter with your penis we're quite prepared to look at it.'

'I'm not,' said the admissions clerk firmly, and disappeared through the curtains. Wilt lay back on the couch and removed his pants.

The doctor observed him cautiously.

'Mind telling me what you've got wound round it?' he asked.

'Bloody handkerchief,' said Wilt and slowly untied the makeshift bandage.

'Good God,' said the doctor, 'I see what you mean about an appendage. Would it be asking too much to enquire how you got your penis into this condition?'

'Yes,' said Wilt, 'it would. Everyone I've told so far hasn't believed me and I'd rather not go through that drill again.'

'Drill?' asked the doctor pensively. 'You're surely not implying that this injury was inflicted by a drill? I don't know what you think, Sister, but from where I stand it looks as though our friend here had a rather too intimate relationship with a mincing machine.'

'And from where I lie it feels like it,' said Wilt. 'And if it will help to cut the bandage let me tell you that my wife was largely responsible.'

'Your wife?'

'Listen, doctor,' said Wilt, 'if it's all the same to you I'd just as soon not go into details.'

'Can't say I blame you,' said the doctor scrubbing his hands 'If my wife did that to me I'd divorce the bitch. Were you having intercourse at the time?'

'No comment,' said Wilt deciding that silence was the best policy The doctor donned surgical gloves and drew his own ghastly conclusions. He loaded a hypodermic.

'After what you've already been through,' he said approaching the couch, 'this isn't going to hurt at all.'

Wilt bounded off the couch again. 'Hold it,' he shouted. 'If you imagine for one moment that you're going to stick that surgical hornet into my private fucking parts you can think again. And what's that for?'

The Sister had picked up an aerosol can.

'Just a mild disinfectant and freezer. I'll spray it on first and you won't feel the little prick.'

'Won't I? Well let me tell you that I want to feel it. If I'd wanted anything else I'd have let nature take its course and I wouldn't be here now. And what's she doing with that razor?'

'Sterilizing it. We've got to shave you.'

'Have you just? I've heard that one before, and while we're on the subject of sterilizing I'd like to hear your views on vasectomy.'

'I'm pretty neutral on the subject,' said the doctor.

'Well I'm not,' snarled Wilt from the corner. 'In fact I am distinctly biased not to say prejudiced. What are you laughing about?' The muscular Sister was smiling. 'You're not some damned women's libber, are you?'

'I'm a working woman,' said the Sister, 'and my politics are my own affair. They don't enter into the matter.'

'And I'm a working man and I want to remain that way and politics do enter into the matter. I've heard what they get up to in India and if I walk out of here with a transistor, no balls and jabbering like an incipient mezzo-soprano I warn you I shall return with a meat cleaver and you'll both learn what social genetics are all about.'

'Well, if that is your attitude,' said the doctor, 'I suggest you try private medicine, Mr Wilt. You get what you pay for that way. I can only assure you.'

It took ten minutes to lure Wilt back on to the couch and five seconds to get him off again clutching his scrotum.

'Freezer,' he squealed. 'My God, you meant it too. What the hell do you think I've got down there, a packet of freezable peas?'

'We'll just wait until the anaesthetic takes effect,' said the doctor. 'It shouldn't be long now.'

'It isn't,' squawked Wilt peering down. 'It's bloody disappearing. I came in here to have minor medication, not a sex-change operation, and if you think my wife is going to be happy having a husband with a clitoris you sorely misjudge the woman.'

'I'd say you had already misjudged her,' said the doctor cheerfully. 'Any woman who can inflict that sort of damage on her husband deserves what she gets.'

'She may but I don't,' said Wilt frantically. 'I happen... What's she doing with that tube?'

The Sister was unwrapping a catheter.

'Mr Wilt,' said the doctor, 'we are going to insert this...'

'No, you're not,' shouted Wilt. 'I may be shrinking rapidly in parts but I'm not Alice in Wonderland or a fucking dwarf with chronic constipation. I heard what she said about an oil enema and I'm not having one.'

'No one intends giving you an enema. This will simply enable you to pass water through the bandages. Now kindly get back on the couch before I have to call for assistance.'

'What do you mean pass water simply?' asked Wilt cautiously, climbing on to the couch. The doctor explained, and this time it took four male nurses to hold Wilt down. Throughout the operation he kept up a barrage of obscene observations and it was only the threat of a general anaesthetic that caused him to lower his voice. Even then his remark that the doctor and the Sister were less fitted for medicine than for offshore oil drilling could be heard in the waiting-room.

'That's right, send me out into the world like a bleeding petrol pump,' he said when he was finally allowed to go There's such a thing as the dignity of man, you know.'

The doctor looked at him sceptically. 'In the light of your behaviour I'll reserve my opinion on the matter. Call in again next week and we'll see how you're coming along.'

'The only reason I'll be back is if I don't come again,' said Wilt bitterly 'From now on I'll see the family doctor.' He hobbled out to a telephone and called for a taxi.

By the time he got home the anaesthetic was beginning to wear off. He went wearily upstairs and climbed into bed. He was lying there staring at the ceiling and wondering why he was not as other men presumably were when it came to bearing pain manfully, and wishing he was, when Eva returned with the quads.

'You do look awful,' she said encouragingly as she stood by the bed.

'I am awful,' said Wilt. 'Why I should be married to a female circumcisionist, God alone knows.'

'Perhaps it will teach you not to drink so much in future.'

'It's already taught me not to let you get your mitts near my waterworks,' said Wilt. 'And I mean waterworks.'

Even Samantha had to contribute to his misery. 'When I grow up I'm going to be a nurse, daddy.'

'Bounce on the bed like that again and you won't grow up to be anything,' snarled Wilt on the recoil.

Downstairs the telephone rang.

'If it's the Tech again, what shall I tell them?' asked Eva.

'Again? I thought I told you to say I was sick.'