Little Details

“I think it looks like a penis.”

“Really? I was thinking rocket ship.”

“No, definitely penis.”

Thirteen minutes of staring at the thing, and this was all we had managed to conclude. Not why it was there, what purpose it might serve, or who the hell had erected it. I took a sip of my coffee, handed it off to the roommate I’d dragged out for research purposes and straddled the cement construction.

“How ‘bout now?” I said, reaching over the top to get fingers under the edges of its cap. “Think I could ride it to the moon?”

“Your kind of ‘ride to the moon’?” she asked, swirling my coffee and smirking. “Definitely wouldn’t be the rocket ship.”

It had taken two and a half years for me to stop and examine the greyish lump I’d passed on my way to and from class – alright, fine, it’s hard for a gutter-brained girl not to notice a vaguely phallic statue side-lining her daily bike route, but this was the first time I’d gone out of my way to look.

“Man, I didn’t even know this thing was here,” she said, handing the coffee back as I slipped off of what could have been a wing or ball – depending – and took a step onto the patch of dust around it. We were smack-dab in the middle of campus, buildings in four directions and five steps from a coffee shop, examining a three-foot-high, concrete block. No wonder it got about as much attention as the gumball under the fridge.

We split up the structure; she looking for plaques on the flat, triangular outcrops, me kicking at the dust around the base, knocking over a metal box that revealed nothing but a ground tap. So I tried another method of inspection, leaned in – nose to the cement – and took a whiff.

“Maybe it’s a fire-hydrant. Like, for dogs or first-years.”

“What kind of fire-hydrant has wings?”

“Naw, you’re right,” I said, clambering back on top of the statue, thinking maybe I’d find an answer from atop the cap. From my square-foot perch I instead discovered that not only did it still look like a penis from above, but affirmed that it was about as useful as a seven-year-old’s Saturday afternoon Lego tower. The sloped cement pieces jutting out from each side could not possibly be sat on, be stepped on, hold coffee mugs or grow flowers. Not that the surface which I was standing on was good for much else, either.

I finished the dregs of my cold coffee and turned to further examine the surroundings of the cement lump. It was thrusting out from a tiny dirt patch set between a paved square and a field, home to two sixty-foot totem poles, complete with plaques and recognition.

“You know, it’s gotta be a penis. Like, a faculty joke.”

“So you’re, uh, coming to a conclusion, eh?”

“Ha-ha; funny joke,” I said, chucking my empty coffee mug at her. “But seriously, dude. What the fucking else would it be?”

I tried to ask a few questions later, maybe get a few answers, but nobody knew what I was even talking about. I campaigned the square around the statue, interrogating bewildered students – most of whom could hardly find it when I pointed to it with my notebook – and a few of the nearby coffee-shop staff.

“Oh, that grey-thingy? Yeah, that’s been there for a while, I guess,” offered one such employee, holding a stack of coffee filters. “So d’you want the African or Light Roast?”

I ended up camped out on top of the thing, waiting for a member of the grounds crew to come by and eating rice crackers until I saw one raking leaves between the totem poles. I ran up to him, introducing myself with cheese dust fingers, and asked him if he could tell me what exactly the statue was.

“I’m not actually sure,” he said slowly. “Why don’t you check the library?”

But even the librarians failed me. Cocking eyebrows and pointing me in the direction of university databases, not one of them knew about the little structure on the other side of the grounds. I found not a picture, article nor a mention of a small, concrete rocket ship anywhere on campus.

“It’s a bit too odd-shaped for a penis, anyways,” my roommate said, tilting her head to the side and eyeing the concrete chunk I was still on top of. “There is way too much ball for that length. Completely disproportionate.”

Spoken Sex

Earlier that evening I’d thought that straddling him would somehow quash his desire to speak with me in broken Spanish. But no, the fact that his English was better and my German outweighed both made no difference to him; by the time we got to my apartment he’d convinced himself that the best method of communication would be the language he was worst at. So he continued by yelling “si, guapa, si!” thinking that I’d either be unable to hear his thick accent or that I’d admire his drunken efforts to practice Spanish with an English speaker.

I let him get away with a couple kisses the next time I ran into him, but spent the better part of the evening introducing him as my perrito tonto (or stupid puppy) while he grinned and nodded, proving my point. I hadn’t even thought about his intellect or linguistic skills the first time around. He could have spoken Mandarin for all it mattered, and I still would have taken the idiot home. There had been something about the way he’d swaggered, the way he’d grabbed my waist that had me wanting to humour his Spanish all night long – at least, until I got bored of it. It’s not like it made a difference what language he had chosen to digress my love of mushrooms in, anyway.

Having spent most of my adult life hitting on English speakers, I never fully realized just how easy it is to get the message across; though, it’s not like a “come-hither” look can really get lost in translation. One evening I didn’t even speak to the guy until we’d stepped outside together after more than a few sideways glances and an over-the-crowd cheers.
“You don’t speak English. Español? Aucun français? Aber Deutsch?” Ja doch, but he knew just enough to get me bee-lining it past the last couple bars in the opposite direction.

A Moroccan boxer eventually talked me home, making me dry off after a shower before he threw me into bed and checking Africa off my To-Do list of continents. A couple weeks later, while I lay on his covers, drunk and pointing out that my Spanish was probably better than his, he grinned and told me he didn’t speak any anyways. Then, of course, he proceeded to admit that his favourite part of sleeping with me was the way I’d mumble in English, imitating what I presume was supposed to be my very own “Oh God.” And there I was thinking it was my dashing good looks that had gotten me laid.

I could have been saying “green country cheese!” for all it mattered; I was female, naked and lying in his bed. Not that sex was ever a conversation-based past-time anyhow; why should I care if I can’t discuss the possibility of the ice caps melting while humping in the back seat of a car? After all, it’s almost sexier when the only thing you understand is what you’re both after.