The Sovereigns
I wake from a death slumber in a dark room. It was a black, dreamless sleep. The kind where you wake up not feeling rested in the slightest. I'm wearing every item of clothing from last night including my shoes. I walk outside to see Will tranquilly reading in the living room with the composure of an elderly Buddhist monk, but unlike a monk in orange robes, Will is stark naked. “How is he reading?” I think. In the condition I’m in, I’m practically illiterate. Will isn’t reading the newspaper either, he’s deep in some classic novel. It’s different.
Although there is ample room on the sofa next to him, I walk out of my way to sit in a separate chair nearby. Will, of course, does not address the fact that he is wearing nothing. His red pubic hair stares at me menacingly.
“Well, I feel like Satan fucked my eye.” I wheezed as if I had just smoked a carton of cigarettes.
Will laughs and puts his book down, “Yea, that was a fun night. I feel OK.”
I refrain from addressing Will’s nudity and we casually talk for ten minutes until we hear a bedroom door open. Vince enters the living room naked and sits down next to Will on the sofa. Their bare legs nearly touch. I am struck with a deep melancholy for the sofa.
“Morning gents.” Vince politely states.
The sight of two penises breaks my refrain and I address the situation, “Is this happening right now!? Am I the only one not naked? Not only am I not naked, I'm wearing everything from last night.”
As if he read it from an encyclopedia, Vince says, “There’s nothing wrong with heterosexual friends being naked around each other. Don’t be a faggot.”
I don’t know if it was my latent homosexuality or need to conform, but I slipped my shoes off, undid my belt, and began undressing. It seemed proper at the moment. I was simply following decorum and I soon found myself in my birthday suit. Just three, male, friends, genitals exposed and talking casually in the living room. Nothing wrong with that.
Vince clears the phlegm from his throat and swallows, “Teddy Roosevelt is on his horse right now.”
“Teddy Roosevelt? What the fuck are you talking about?” I questioned.
“Teddy Roosevelt is my penis. When he’s on his horse, it means I have an erection. You know, his nickname was the Bull-Moose---”
“---Yes, I knew that. He’s my favorite president, well, was my favorite president. Why is your dick named after him?” I demand, “And more importantly, why do you have an erection? It’s just Will and I here.”
“Calm down. I have an erection because it’s the morning, not because of you assholes, and two: It’s always been named Theodore Roosevelt. I’m a little surprised you didn’t know this. Sometimes Julia will wake up, grab the shaft of my penis, kiss the head of it and say, ‘Good morning, Teddy.’”
“No, I didn’t know that! Why would I know that!?” I look to Will for support, “Will, did you know that? Who the fuck names their dick after our president?”
Will matter-of-factly responds, “Mine’s name is Napoleon because he’s small and has a hat.”
I look over at Will’s uncircumcised penis. It looks like one of those small, greyish-white, German sausages. I think they call them weisswurst. And, he’s right, he does have a lot of extra foreskin. Anyway, the name “Napoleon” is fitting. I then glance towards Vince’s penis to see if I can understand the Theodore Roosevelt connection. Teddy is a little larger than Napoleon and has a smaller hat. I’m dismayed but quite impressed with their choices of historical world leaders. Why am I analyzing this nonsense?
I snap out of it, “Your dicks are horrible to look at. How do you trick your women into sticking those things in their mouths? Why the fuck didn’t your parents get you assholes circumcised?”
“Because we’re not Jewish.” Vince states.
“So the fuck what!? I'm not Jewish, but my parents still had the decency to get me trimmed.”
“That’s weird that your parents did that since you’re not a fucking Jew.” Vince adjusts his tone and clarifies, “Sorry. Jew. That came out antisemitic.”
“Dude, most of my friends are circumcised and they aren’t Jewish.” I return.
“Look Stephen, Christians don’t get circumcised. That’s like the biggest difference between them and Jews.”
“I thought it was a belief in Jesus, but I might be wrong. I never knew the Spanish inquisition was based on foreskin. Must have missed all this in Catholic school.”
I'm not making any headway. They think my handsome, trimmed penis looks weird. I think theirs look like an octopus tentacle. We’re practically arguing religion at this point.
Will notices our standoff, wisely directs the conversation back to the original topic, and genuinely asks, “So who are you going to pick?”
He put me on the spot. Fuck. I don’t know.
Will keenly notices my worry and comforts me, “It’s OK. Take your time.” He leans forward and gently pats my bare knee.
Historical figures race through my mind, “Thomas Jefferson? No, he had sex with his slaves. Hitler! Jesus, no! Not Hitler! Jesus!?” Feeling cornered and running out of imaginary time I blurt out, “Otto von Bismarck!”
Vince and Will nod and look at each other approvingly. They seem thoroughly impressed. I picked a strong leader that, oddly enough, also made sense when referring to a penis. Nobody wants to name their penis “Gandhi” or “Pol Pot.” You want your penis to be named after someone dangerous yet refined. However, looking back, I should have respected my Italian roots and said, “Roberto Mussolini.”
We abruptly pause our profound conversation to the sound of movement coming from Will’s room. Ashley has awakened.
Slightly panicked, Will yells, “Ashley! Do not come out here! WE ARE NAKED!”
Although muffled from being in another room, we hear the nervous confusion in her voice as Ashley asks, “Why are you all naked?”
Will shouts, “That’s not important right now. The fact is: We are. Please don’t come out of the room.”
There is a slight pause. Then, anxiously, “OK.”
Ashley stays in her room like a punished child. She must be terrified. Why are three grown men sitting in the living room naked? How long have they been doing this? How long is she supposed to stay trapped in her room? Worse off, we make no haste in wrapping up our intellectual discussion, On Penises and Corresponding World Leaders. We take our time. Fielding each other’s nonsense and crude attempts to make the other laugh. We are no different than our 4th-grade selves. Sure, we’re slightly more educated and have more empirical knowledge, but we never emotionally developed. Maturation is a fallacy. Our minds are frozen.
