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By Matt Briggs My cousin’s nuts started to swell after we returned from a late summer camp with my father. We slept in a tent in the mountains and my cousin, Frankie, left his underwear outside overnight and I told him not to put them back on. He had no idea what kind of bug might get into his shorts overnight, but like a doofus he had only packed one pair of underwear and so he slept in his swimming trunks during the night and then in the morning, he put his underpants in the hot air of the camp fire. A pair of underpants, grayish and stained in the heavily used regions between the legs was not something we wanted to see while eating our morning oatmeal. "We don't want to have to look at your at your stinky briefs," my father said, and Frankie put them back on. "They’re making my nuts cold," he said. We broke down camp and began to hike further into the mountains, around this big lake, and finally at the end of the day we were way into the back country. Aside from the trail, the only sign that there were people on the earth was the scratches of contrails in the sky, and of course the three of us. Frankie started itching at the lake and by the time we got to the camp, he couldn't wear his briefs anymore. My father gave him some lotion and that helped a little. He just wore his shorts and Frankie said it didn’t itch anymore. But from his frequent trips behind the bushes, I could tell he was still scratching. At that camp, my dad and I went fishing and Frankie just hung out at the camp, doing his homework. He brought his homework out into the forest with us. I don't know what that was about. When we got back, we didn't think about it anymore. Every now and then I noticed he was scratching down there, and I didn't say anything. If he needed to scratch, scratch, that's how I thought about it. We got back to the car and drove home and he was still scratching. I said something then because it is one thing to be all scratchy out in the wilderness and another thing to be scratchy in public. And the car was practically public. "Man," I said. "Why are you scratching?" "Because it itches," he said. He jumped out of the car, and it had started then: the swelling. He couldn't go to school the next week because something had happened to his ball sack. It had started to grow, and by Monday morning was the size of a softball. By the end of the week it was like a volleyball. His mother took him to the doctor. The doctor said his balls were full of fluid. They tried to drain his balls with a needle. They stuck it right in. Frankie said they sprayed his nuts with something to numb them but it still must have hurt. When I asked him, Frankie just said, "Well--" and made a face. After that first visit, they grew to the size of a medicine ball. The whole family was over at Frankie's house and we couldn't say, like, what’s wrong with him? We were all worried about Frankie, but we also made sure to wash our hands a whole lot because no one wanted to get what he had. I for one didn’t use the bathroom in his house. He sat in his room and was fine except for this blanket that was over him and this shape between his legs. That shape was his ball sack. "So what is wrong?" I asked him from the door. "Did they get inflamed from scratching?" "Leave me alone," Frankie said. "Does it hurt?" "No. It doesn't hurt but it still itches and I can't scratch it. Mom says if I do, they might pop." "So what is it?" "Elephantiasis," he said. "What?" "Elephantitis of the Nuts. But is really just Elephantiasis." I didn't have anything to say to that. I felt bad for him. I'd been out in those woods, too. It could have been me, just as much as him. That weekend it got bad. He called me and said that he thought he might die. They said it was infected, too, and that if it burst, "I'll bleed to death in seconds." He said. "I'll bleed to death from burst balls." Frankie started to cry. He had called me because I'd been there the whole time. Because it could have been me as much as him. I said, "Hang in their Frankie. The doctors know what they are doing." They had given him some medication and drained his ball sack and then gradually the swelling went down and then finally we were all at Frankie's house and he was walking around in a pair of jeans and seemed just fine. He shook his head. "I can't go back to school, you know," he said. Everyone knew. "They'll get over it," I said. "They'll just be jealous because their balls are all normal sized." He didn't though. He didn't go back. He enrolled at the community college and finished that way. He just didn't go back to school. Once your balls get the size of your head, I suppose you are an adult. If you would like to link to this story, please use this link. | ||
