The Beautiful Game

Chapter Seven - Lou

How am I supposed to be a surgeon when I can't even hear or speak the word 'penis' without blushing from ear to ear?

I'm a twenty year old virgin who can't say the word penis.

I graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA, glowing references, passed the MCAT and I'm finally testing in the top percent of my class. I'm on track to go to Harvard Medical School, I'd been dreaming of nothing else since I could remember for God's sake.

Yet, I cannot say the word penis.

I thought I'd enjoy the human anatomy course of my upper biology major, but when Professor Simmons had told us we'd been allocated a subject for a ten minute presentation in front of the class and I'd seen 'male anatomy' beside my name, I'd wished the ground would swallow me whole.

I'd stumbled around the word more than I'd like to admit; I'd also struggled with gonads, scrotum, and rectum, but none quite as bad as penis. The chuckles that had vibrated through the room were enough for me to never want to show my face in that class again, and the smirk on Simmons's face had led me to believe he'd done it on purpose.

Professor Simmons is a slightly rotund, grey haired man in his sixties. His jokes are awful, he has a perpetual faint smell of cigars and coffee. And he's singlehandedly the reason I'm still at the university.

Two years ago, I was entering into my sophomore year and everything had been going to plan; my grades were great, as they always were. Ella, Kate, and I had moved into our apartment, relieved to get away from the chaotic dormitories.

Then my Dad, my best friend, got diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.

He was ill for four months, and then he died. My entire world crumbled.

The courteous understanding and compassionate leave from college had seemingly ended, but I was still missing. I missed lectures, and even the ones I attended, I didn't even hear anything; or write anything down. I was absent in both body and mind. Extensions on deadlines only got me so far, and even when I did submit anything, it wasn't good enough. I was failing, I was failing spectacularly. Threatening letters started being sent to the apartment about me getting kicked off the course.

I'd convinced myself that I didn't care. So what? Kick me off. I wasn't good enough anyway; the life of esteemed Dr Lou Richards, graduate of Harvard Medical School was gone. My love of surgery and medicine had turned into distain. Four years of college, four years of medical school, four more years of residency, all seemed ridiculous now. Futile.

They hadn't saved him.

What could I possibly do? He'd died and left me to this big, huge, terrifying world without him in it.

Professor Simmons would not allow it. He hounded me, tutored me, gave me extra reading materials, and let me sit with him on his lunch breaks so that I wasn't alone. He wasn't uncomfortable or careful around me like everyone else had been. He was angry with me. He said he saw something in me, and I was fucking things up, I was fucking my future up, the future that my Dad wanted for me.

I finally started to catch up, time was passing by, and I scraped through sophomore year with a decent grade. Then he decided it was time to pick it up a notch, decent wouldn't be enough. Junior year was my time to excel again. So, I did, I graded top of my class.

Then, I was a senior and the MCAT was coming. It was recommended that if you planned on going to Medical school straight from college, then you should take the MCAT at the beginning of senior year. So, when I got back the test results, confirming that I'd passed the MCAT and was eligible for Harvard Med, the first person I'd wanted to tell wasn't here anymore. But Professor Simmons was a pretty amazing second option, even if he did drive me insane with his teasing.