h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A long time ago...I was hanging out with one of those wild girls you see on the street in those art house/bohemian sections of town by the name of Elaine. She was beautiful in a classic sense, very Nordic features and skin a shade lighter than you imagined people came in. Her eyes were barely tinted blue, like some kind of Aryan genetic experiment brought to life. She was also pierced through and through, her left eyebrow, nose, lip, tongue, breasts, belly button, c**t, just a full array. This was about '94, so all that was high fashion then. Needless to say, I wanted to get to know her well, but standing in my way was her boyfriend of 4 years. He was a Glenn Danzig clone with even the voice a perfect match. His biggest distinguishing feature was a missing index finger on his left hand, cut off at the second knuckle. It turns out he had cut it off himself as a tribute to a Pre-Satanic force he worshipped and believed held sway over his day to day existence. I happened to not believe in much, similar to my present state. But after a party at my apartment one night, he nearly had me convinced that I should start my own religion. We sat out on my patio the three of us negotiating my visitation rights with his girlfriend in what can only be described as a normal evening in Los Angeles. I only remember part of it in any detail, the reason will be clear.

"Did Elaine ever tell you about the time I tried to appease Satan while we were making love?"

"Oddly enough, no, I don't think it came up."

"I had my knife," pulling a long, ornate blade from his leather jacket. "And I was letting some of both of our blood, using thin slices in the forearm, like this." He proceeds to cut himself.

"You want a towel or something?"

"No, I'm good...it gets good here. So, I'm sitting like this." He leans over, sitting crosslegged on my picnic bench, blood running down his arm. "Only I'm naked, see. And after I cut Elaine, I start to open myself...and then the knife. See, it's got a mind of it's own. It likes the taste of blood. And it can see my dick, erect in front of it."

At this point I am too shocked to reply. Elaine is sitting casually by like she's heard this story a thousand times before. I grin at him, and light a cigarette.

"The next thing I know, it's cut right through the head and I'm bleeding badly. I drop the knife and try to wrap myself in the sheet, holding pressure on it." He drops the knife and grabs his crotch. "Now I'm bigger than your average man; I've got about nine inches...and it's thick. So I'm worried that it won't stop on it's own, so Elaine and I dress and head to the emergency room."

"How are you gonna explain it, when you get there right?" I find a way to spit out. I don't know if I can bear to know.

"No, listen, it gets good here." He turns, "Elaine you tell him."

"Well, we get to the hospital and they rush him right in. They see the cuts on his arm and they think 'suicidal' case. But they get him in and start stitching him up while I try to distract them."

"Eleven stitches, across the crown. That was nifty." The last word resonates as he puffs out a cloud of smoke at me. "I manage to convince them that it was a religious ceremony and that I slipped while performing sacred rights, so they let me go afterward."

"I haven't been in the same bed as that knife with him since." She doesn't seem as relieved as I would imagine.

"Yeah, the knife's got a mind of it's own."

The knife has since come to rest in front of me, and seems content to stay that way, so I offer no restistance. "Looks like a serious knife." I observe.

"So you want to see the scar?"

"No, no, really, it's scary enough to visualize without aids."

"I think I need a beer, how about you?" He rises and goes in as I nod and flick my cigarette off the balcony.

"You know why he told you that story, don't you?"

"Because he's really friendly? Has no sense of boundaries? Is drunker than me?"

"No, it's because you make him nervous. He figures it's an easy way to let you know he's got a big dick."

"Oh. What's he nervous about?"

She just smiled, and looked away.


I would eventually steal Elaine away long enough for her to be stolen from me. And I even got her back again briefly.
I ended up being friends with the man, Dave, and his scarred penis until he died a few years later. It was a scuba diving accident in Costa Rica of all things. Maybe he was suicidal.

Whoah! That's very gritty and good too. I really can't diss it at all so I guess I'll just have to rave.

Thank you, although it's not nearly as good as I wish. Honestly though, I though he was going to "whip it out" so to speak, that night. And that has haunted me for years, more than not being able to tame Elaine. That chick was out of control. I hear she does sword fighting demos at "renaissance fairs" now with her latest paramour. Guess I should have been better with sharp objects than round leather ones.

With her you'd have to get out of control too. There's no taming there. If you had succeeded, she wouldn't be the same person.

Ahhh, the good ol' days. My wife hates 'em.

I wonder why that is?

She thinks I was way too wild and wishes I had been more Puritanical in my younger years. That and the fact that I usually remained on good terms with the majority of my exes. Once you get married, you learn that you have to cut all the old ones off or risk a permanent feud within your own house. It took me a while to learn that. I thought my wife would be open minded and that I could be as well. Turns out we're both possessive and jealous. So we both agreed to cut all the exes out of our social circle. And I think our relationship improved, but at the same time it's like you lose a connection to your past and the courses your life took. Maybe that's a good thing though.

Sometimes it helps to have what they call "rites of passage".

When I had my first period at 12, I knew what the cramps meant and the bleeding. It's wasn't a big mystery or anything but I also knew in our family certain things would happen. So when my aunts came for me, I was expecting it little.

They took me out into the desert where they'd made a little shelter for me. They said I would have to stay there for four days, running towards the sun every morning then running back and working hard every day to gather fuel, food and water or it would be a very bad time for me. They also said I shouldn't touch my hair or face so they gave me sticks to scratch myself and stuff.

So there I was all by myself in the middle of nowhere and getting very lonely and not feeling like doing anything. So I just curled up and cried. I really didn't know why but I wept all night on and off and the next morning I was very tired but I ran anyway toward the sun and run back sweating and coughing and then since I was very hungry I decided I should get to work.

So I worked all day and that evening I had a little meal and fell asleep very soon after dark.

The next day, I ran towards the sun again and it seemed a little easier since I was well rested. I did my work too and ate better that evening. I even stayed up for awhile and watched the sky and the stars. It was very beautiful.

But again, I started to cry, thinking about how things were when I was a little girl and I knew then I couldn't go back ever and it made me very sad. I fell asleep then muffling my crying in my blanket and dreamed about a badger.

She was digging a hole like badgers do and I watched for awhile as she rolled the dirt in waves around her body and then I asked her what she was doing that for? She answered that she was making a home for her children who would be coming here soon. She wanted to be ready because otherwise her children would have no place to live. She wanted them to live well because by and by she would die and return to the earth she was digging up. She stared at me then and her face became my face, black with white streaks where the tears had cut through the caked dust and sweat. And then I woke up.

It was morning and after I ran towards the sun I threw some of the ashes from the fire pit at him and thanked him for giving me another day. Then I worked all day but somehow it seemed easier and I felt like I was home again, that all the creatures that I encountered were telling they were glad to see me and I felt like I belonged in that place.

That night the embers of my little fire glowed warmly and I felt the warmth come into my body and spread from my head to my toes. I slept comfortably and soundly.

The next day my aunts came for me and when they saw me, one let out a little scream, "ayeee!", because my face was practically black except for the streaks that the tears had made and my hair was wild and stuck up like a badger's or a porcupine. And my hands were covered with dirt and I probably smelled pretty bad too.

Well, they took me home and had me sit in a metal tub that you wash clothes in and they washed my hair, face, hands and body and dressed me in new clothes.

One asked me about my dream and when I told her, she asked, "Do you know what it means?"

And I answered, "Maybe. I think it means I'm a woman now and I need to work hard like that badger to make a home for my children."

"That's right," she said. "You are a woman now. Not a girl anymore. And it's a good thing too because by and by you will have girls of your own just like your mother had you. And you know how to work hard and show respect and gratitude for the creator of this world for all the things that you need to live here. You know those things are all here because you found them, right?"

And I said, "Yes, I found them all. I'm happy to know that I can find them too. I'm happy to be a woman who knows how to do things."

"That's a good thing," she said. And then we all ate some breakfast and talked about woman things like what you do with men and penises and labor and babies and all that kind of stuff.

When the whites get married they usually have a big ceremony in a church. And people expect that they will know what is expected of them from this ceremony but I think sometimes people forget that the boy hasn't become a man or the girl a woman when they marry necessarily. That should come first, but often it doesn't so they have a difficult time learning to live with each other. They are still children and don't want to give that up. That's too bad because often their children suffer from the domestic conflicts that result. And they pass on this bad legacy to their children and few ever really grow up then.

"I see," said the blind man.

The closest I had to right of passage was a new years party my junior year in high school, when I fought four skinheads all by myself. I took the beating of my life that night out on the street, while my friends watched from the safety of the house. I learned that there were going to be times when things would go well, such as the first 10 seconds of the fight or so. And things can also go badly, such as the next fifteen minutes till they finally got tired. In both cases I learned that it was I alone that would be there, and not to expect anyone's help. That's pretty much the story of my life. And the only thing I've ever been prepared for is losing, so when I started to succeed at things, it was really a rude shock.
Now I wonder, if I choose to have children, what will I be able to teach them to prepare them for the world, besides the ideal cam duration (both intake and exhaust) for every compression, bore and stroke variation of GM small block available. Maybe you can publish a book on that in time for me to read it and take credit for it.

You might need to rethink that a little, especially after the oil runs out.

I suppose you could take your sons out somewhere in the desert and beat the hell out of them. Your daughters too maybe. They might get a whole new perspective on life that way although they'd probably end up murdering you in your bed and then claiming they were victims of relentless child abuse. It would probably fly in court too.

So, who knows? The advantage to our way is that women will probably always have kids so you can always have a reason to teach them about that. And if they don't the game's over anyway. Now the boys are something else.

They used to encourage the boys to give any game they shot or snared to the old people. They couldn't give it to their parents or siblings until they were old enough to act like men. That was probably a pretty good incentive.

Now I don't know. I don't think anybody else does either because maybe it's just me but they seem a little less mature that I was expecting. Maybe the sundances or sweats or whatever that are being popularized among many tribes will have an impact on that.

I think I would be terrible role model. So we'll just hope I'm sterile. Or that I don't have a big hand in raising any of my progeny. I think there was a shortage of male modelling for me as a boy. So I just took the military mind frame that my stepfather instilled in me and combined it with my mother's anti-authoritarian streak. It's a terrible combination of violence and anarchy which dominates my sense of masculinity. Maybe I should go get pierce and suspended, although I think that might exacerbate the problem.

Yeah, I think it's probably too late for puberty rites for you. Oh well...

I guess I'll just have to accept that I'm never going to grow up. Peter Pan Syndrome, here I come.

Well, if Peter Pan's going to be your vision in life, I guess we'll just have to live with it. Good thing you're a nice guy.

I was actually refering to the psychological condition, which is unrelated to the actual tale except that people so afflicted are incapable of responding in mature fashion to the trials of daily life. As far as fairy tales and such go, I always thought of myself as Mighty Casey. Except that I never could hit. Always had more HBP's that HR's.