Odyssey In A Teacup Read Online Free Page B

Lilliputian.
    The book also talked about how a baby grows in the uterus, which it likened to a balloon with a little opening at the bottom, and how, when the baby’s fully-grown, it pushes headfirst through the opening to the outside. Vagina didn’t rate a mention. It was called the tunnel between the balloon’s opening and the outside. I also don’t recall seeing the words vulva, penis or testicles. But compared to winkie and wee-wee, which is what Maxi heard at home, and Vette’s mum’s diddly-doo and noonie, fawkey and pawpaw sounded authentic to the four of us (and as Ralph and I were kin, Norma referred to them the same way that Sylvia did). I found out the truth a year later from a girl I shared a hospital room with when I had my appendix out. I quizzed Sylvia when she took me home.
    ‘How did you come up with the names fawkey and pawpaw?’
    She bristled uncomfortably. ‘My mother called them that.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘ Oeuf! Does it matter? Pest! Ask her.’ Sound advice if only the woman hadn’t been dead for the last twenty years. And so, I was left to speculate.
    It took me a few years of speculation, a lot more information about sex, and much discussion with Ralph, Maxi and Vette about this to come up with a plausible explanation. It may well have been that my grandmother, Ruby went to the local market one day, saw a cross-sectioned pawpaw in amongst the fruit display and thought, oui, il resemble un peu à la papaye (yep, it looks a bit like a pawpaw). This presumes that Ruby actually checked out her own pawpaw. She probably then stopped eating the fruit because she suddenly realised it was a wee bit too close to home. And since the apple doesn’t fall far from tree, if Sylvia’s puritanical mindset and her tendency to manipulate are an indication of her upbringing, then it’s a safe bet that Ruby would have knowingly served pawpaw to her own husband (my grandfather, Jacob). Her accompanying thoughts? Voici le cunnilingus tu continue à vouloir effectuer sur moi, mon chéri (here's the cunnilingus you keep wanting to perform on me, darling). This might be a bit of a stretch because back then, a bloke would be more predisposed to plunging and thrusting than diving in headfirst. Still, eating pawpaw was probably the closest thing to sex Jacob was going to get.
    I imagine the seeds of fawkey go back a lot further.
    At the beginning of my fourth year in high school, I was learning about ancient Greece in history class. Greek mythology was a very large component of this because my teacher had a passion for it. His name was Zero Kosta ... poor bastard. For me, it was bad enough being a mistake, but this man must have truly felt like he was worth nothing from the get-go. Suddenly, my name didn’t seem so bad.
    I think Mr Kosta had first-hand knowledge of ancient times because he looked like he was raised from the crypt. He was cadaverous. Painfully thin, he had sunken cheeks in a narrow, ashen face, greyish teeth, and his hands were gnarled and shook a lot. But he was a mine of information and probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever had because he made the subject interesting . And although history in general wasn’t my favourite course, I devoured the classic tales. They fascinated me. Maybe it was because my existence felt like a Greek tragedy. But as Mr Kosta told us, our lives were just ancient myths cloaked in the modern attire of defences and pretences (the ancients didn’t give a crap what the neighbours thought).
    Mr Zero Kosta was worth plenty to me. He had a highly developed sense of humour (with a name and looks like that, you’d have to). I regarded him as my mentor. Life, he said, is a tragi comedy . This perspective kind of explained the idiocy I had to deal with daily; it made it tolerable. And I think the ancient part of my brain was plump and full like Mr Kosta’s because I was also attracted to the origin of things.
    As for the origin of fawkey as a pet name for penis, in ancient