Phallic Effigies

There was something marvelous about what she did. It was almost a breakthrough, how sexuality wasn’t such a thing, that an erect penis was just that, no more than an effective device in a situation comedy, like wide eyes or a gaping mouth. It was funny, the way he sat there with it sticking up. It was funnier how she grabbed it to let him know that he was accepted. But then it was something else when he did the same, the roommate, putting it in his mouth. I mean, I thought it was surprising but funny too. Most people did not. It was a scandal. Phallic EffigiesThere was screaming and yelling. People went into the street. I watched for a moment and then went alongside and then ahead of the crowd, only just. They were coming out of the side streets across the wide boulevards, all of them down to the old freeway. The concrete posts stood like an obliterated forest. That’s where they were, whatever those things were called, effigies, I guess, standing above us like Easter Island heads. Phallic EffigiesIt really looked like they would talk. But there were just too many people, most of them still screaming, and I lost interest and went back to the hotel. It was better going the other way. And they were still there. His penis was the same.