Sexually Transmitted Bugs

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash

Sexually Transmitted Bugs.

I dodged a bullet from the gun I pointed at my own head. Heroin addiction didn’t kill me. I dodged bullets from that bullet by using a needle exchange. Harm reduction is crucial to prevent the spread of disease. It saves more than just the user’s lives.

When I got myself into recovery, just to be sure, they tested me for Hepatitis, AIDS, etc. I wasn’t nervous about anything turning up but I was nervous my caregivers thought I lived a dangerous lifestyle in general. I was careful with sexual partners, but I didn’t want my caregivers, whom I liked very much, wondering if I had an STD. Is that vanity? To worry someone might suspect I had Christmas coming out of my willy? Christmas colors post climate change? I’ve never had anything that required penicillin and I don’t have herpes. The only thing that came close was neither viral, bacterial nor fungal.

I had just moved to NYC and was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a roommate. Nick. We called him Nickbone. I knew him from high school. He earned the nickname ‘Nickbone’ in college from having been a swordsman. A swordsman with a nudge and a wink, if you know what I mean.

Nickbone and I went to a party in SoHo one night and met a beautiful Russian young woman named Julia. She lived with her mother in the same building as the party. Julia was stunning and exotic, especially to a kid fresh from the Jersey suburbs like me. She looked a little like Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot. Maybe Nadya on a bad day, which she doesn’t have, but somewhere in the ballpark. Julia had dark, straight hair, perpetually pursed, full lips and medium brown eyes. She was a little standoffish. She was a painter. She always had that cliché, tortured look on her face. She didn’t ignore me when I spoke to her and she didn’t smile. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I was new to New York, single, and this Russian stunner was talking to me, even if she was a bit dour. She was an artist.

I don’t remember my “rap” that persuaded Julia to my apartment. I don’t remember how I got Julia to my apartment. I don’t remember what the sex was like. I’m sure I was grateful. The trauma that came later must have erased those memories. I was excited to have what I assumed was a girlfriend. I called her way too soon the next week.

“I had a great time Saturday. We should do something next weekend.” That’s my rap.

“No.”

“Uh, are you busy? You’re busy. We can do it another time.”

“No.”

“No, what, you’re busy?” Not getting it, are you, Christopher.

“No.”

“No, what?” Does no mean no in Russian?

“I just don’t want to.”

“Oh, what, you mean never?” Still not getting it, but warmer.

“Yeah. Never,” She sounded distant, bored but matter of fact. She might just as easily have been telling me she kept the TV on for background noise or that she didn’t have a favorite number or that all rocks are things. But I was starting to get it. I pretended it was OK. I needed to convince her I could do better.

“So, did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Ha, she keeps saying no. She’s funny.

“What’s wrong? Are you watching TV?”

“No.”

“Well, think about it. I’ll call you next week. I mean, it seemed like we had fun. I don’t understand why you keep saying…”

“If you really must know, I just wanted to have sex with someone. You’re really cute and I wanted to have sex with someone really cute. It’s nothing personal. I just wanted a cute guy to have sex with.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“Very. I said it, didn’t I?” Yes, you did.

This I didn’t understand. She thought I was cute, wanted to have sex with me, but never wanted to see me again. What the hell did I do wrong? I guess I should have appreciated her candor. But I was naïve. I wanted to be loved. I tried to play it cool.

“Oh. Well I guess that’s cool. I really had a nice time.”

“I didn’t.” I’m cute though, right? Really cute? You said that.

“I had a good time. You didn’t have fun?”

“No.”

“It seemed like you did.” It did?

Then Julia got a bit snarky, “I didn’t have a good time. You didn’t notice? You should really pay attention to other people. You should notice other people. You might see how they’re feeling.” Ouch. I won’t be talking to Julia again.

I apologized and said goodbye. Then I remembered something she said at the party that could explain her curtness. She’d been in a long, romantic relationship with a man more than twenty years her senior. He had just dumped her. Was she talking to him? Was she saying to me what she wanted to say to him? “You should really pay attention to other people”? Was I really that clueless? She had shown me one of her paintings then was irritated when she had to explain it to me. She said, “if you need to have it explained to you why should I bother showing you?” And that was before she fucked me. The painting was of her, looking out a window down at him, as he passed by on the street without looking up or noticing her. I don’t know, they both looked like stick figures to me.

A couple of days later, Nickbone and I were working on the Upper East Side, getting ready to go home when my crotch started itching. Just a one-alarm itch but on the subway it got worse. By the time we got home it was five-alarm. “It really itches down there,” I told Nickbone.

Nick, the swordsman, realized immediately what was going on. He diagnosed me as having crabs. A true swordsman after all. Nick doubled over laughing. “You got crabs!” he said. You got crabs: as in I didn’t have crabs, I got them.

His laughter kind of made having crabs better, not fun, but better. How could he be certain? We didn’t discuss where I’d gotten them. Where did I get them?

“Crabs? How the fuck do you know?” I demanded as he kept laughing. I mean, really, how could he know?

“It’s just your pubes, right? What else could it be? You said they’re not on your head. You only get crabs on your nuts. Get a magnifying glass.” There are crabs that only hang out on your nuts? Lice with a penchant for smegma? Who the fuck thought that up?

“A magnifying glass? Fuck off.”

“To see the bugs!”

Oh, to see the bugs! Nick was emerging as an expert. I should be grateful. He was right. It was a specific species of louse. Pthirus pubis. Pubic lice, better known as crabs. They only itch down there. Swordsman. They’re typically acquired during sex. For me, that narrowed it down to one.

I found a magnifying glass and brought it to the bathroom to inspect my pubes. I saw what looked like tiny, dark gray boogers clinging to my pubic hair. I pulled one off with my fingernails to examine it with the magnifying glass. It was round, grayish brown with little spikes sticking out. Suddenly, two of the spikes moved. They came slowly together, then back apart. You could almost hear the “squeeeeeeeeek” the little critter made. I felt like it wanted to tell me something. Maybe ‘pomoshch!’ That’s “help!” in Russian. Definitely crabs. Welcome to New York, Christopher.

I asked the expert swordsman, “Now what do I do?”

Nick could barely keep it together. He said, “you have to get some Ripffft…HA!”

“What!? Rip? What the fuck is Rip?”

“RID! Not Rip, RID! R-I-D, RID. It’s got a little stop sign on the box! You have to get-RID-of your crabs!” Peals of laughter.

It really did have a little stop sign on the box when I found it. It still does. Master swordsman, indeed! I had to rush out. It was late and things would be closing. At Rite Aid, I went straight back to the pharmacy counter for help. I had no idea where to look. The pharmacist was an older Hasidic man. Without regard for my privacy or my embarrassment, and with exactly the accent you would expect, he shouted at me:

“What did you say? RID? You mean for crabs? Have you got crabs?” Why, yes I do.

Why did he immediately ask if I had crabs? One look and he assumed I had crabs? It’s for head lice too, pal. Why couldn’t I have head lice? Should I say something? I didn’t say anything.

“It’s right here. Hurry up. We’re closing.” But then he got quiet and serious. “Do you know what to do? To get rid of your crabs?” He sounded sympathetic. Like he cared that I got RID of my crabs. Been there, have you? I think I’d like your tribe.

“I think I can figure it out, thanks,” I mumbled. How fucking hard could it be?

Either there were no witnesses at Rite Aid to identify me or I’ve blacked them out. Had there been others, I knew not to look at them. If you don’t look at them, you can’t see them. If you can’t see them, you can’t identify them. If you can’t identify them, they can’t identify you.

As I walked to the front of the store to pay, the lights went off from the back of the store to the front. I walked along with them as they shut off, one by one in sequence, accompanied by the finality of the clunking sound contactors make as their circuits are slapped open and off.

Nickbone was still laughing when I got home. He’d turned every light in the apartment on. It was blinding. Did the swordsman have a purpose? Did he want to be sure not to miss anything? Was it for the benefit of nosy neighbors?

“Why all the lights? Are you getting ready to operate? What the fuck?” I asked him.

The Swordsman said, “Just read the box.”

I followed the RID instructions: apply to pubic hair, let sit for however long you let it sit, then use the little, white pubic lice comb to remove all the dead, gray boogers. Repeat, if necessary, rinse per normal. How lovely that the comb they give you is bright white. You can really see all the dead, gray boogers against it. Like you spilled pepper all over your pubic hair and now you’re combing it out. Simple as that and it’s over. The comb worked great. I worried they might be elsewhere in the apartment but they weren’t. Even if they were, they only like smegma. They’d find their way home. I’ve heard horror stories about bed bugs. I’ll take my smegma lovin’ dark gray boogers over that shit any day.

You’d think the humiliation would end there. It didn’t. I had one more humiliation to suffer. The one that wiped my memory of anything fun.

What’s a gentleman obligated to do in this situation? When he’s had, not a sexually transmitted disease per se, but near enough? Now that the young buck was all grown up, living in the Big City? You guessed it. Contact all recent partners. All one of them. I was obligated to call Julia, tell her she probably had crabs, and tell her that I gave them to her. Probably. I can’t remember if the swordsman advised me here. Almost certainly not, as a true swordsman would have advised me correctly: it should not be done. Because now, I had to pick up the phone and call Julia, the woman to whom I was just an object, a mere plaything. Julia, who “didn’t have a good time”, which I was too self-absorbed to realize, had to be told she probably had crabs. Because I had crabs. She did say I was cute though. Maybe she’s changed her mind, but I still had to tell her. How do you tell someone, with whom you’ve been intimate just once, that you combed a bunch of little dead, gray boogers out of your pubic hair, so be prepared? “Hi, Julia? I know you basically told me you never want to see me again, but I just called to say, surprise! I have crabs! You know, just in case you get them and were wondering which scumbag gave them to you? Well, I’m that scumbag! Surprised? Otherwise, how are things? How’s your mom? Are you still painting stick figures?”

The call was brief. I told her I was sorry, but I thought she should know I had crabs. She said she didn’t have them and didn’t know what I was talking about. I assume she knew what I meant by crabs. She just didn’t have them, never had them and definitely wouldn’t let me know if she ever did. I didn’t assume she was being honest. I told her I was sorry, again, and hung up. Who knows, maybe she had them and didn’t know yet. Maybe she had them and knew she gave them to me. Maybe she meant to give them to me and she was glad about it. Maybe she didn’t have them and never would. Can you be immune to crabs? I told Nickbone what I had done.

“Whatcha reckon? Chivalrous, right?”

“I don’t like it.” Fuck. I knew I should have consulted The Swordsman.

“What, all of it? What don’t you like?”

“You got them at the gym. That sleazy basement gym.” The swordsman was right. I bet there are crabs crawling all over that place and they all speak Russian. No matter where I got them, part of me hoped Julia did get crabs. At least we were both honest with each other.