There's a Penis on My Backpack

By Ijeoma Oluo | November 30, 2013 | 8:25pm

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There’s a penis on my backpack. A real one. I need to go to
school but there’s this large, black penis lazily resting on my backpack
and
really don’t know what to do. I am 12, kneeled down in front of this
penis like I’m examining a strange leaf or perhaps a weird mushroom. I
hesitantly reach for my pink backpack underneath, grimace, pull back and
shake
my head. “Ugh,” I think to myself as I stare at the 22 year old naked
male
attached to the penis, “This guy ruins EVERYTHING.”

Charles had already ruined the evening before, at dinner. We
had been throwing insults back and forth around the table and it all ended with
Charles triumphantly announcing that he had taken a shit and wiped his ass with
one of my favorite shirts, but he would never tell me which one. I tried to
leave the table to storm off to my room but Charles said it was bad manners to
leave before everyone else, so I had to stay.

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But after all that had transpired that night, everyone was
still fully dressed when I had gone to bed. I didn’t really know what had
happened to leave me in my current predicament but the beer cans at the base of
the couch were a good clue. “Who does
this??” I thought to myself as I looked at this unconscious, naked man. I
started to walk back towards my mom’s room. “Mom.” I said flatly, with as much
judgement as I could put into my young voice, “Charles is naked on the couch on
my backpack.” But my mom was sound asleep, and the snoring from her sleep apnea
drowned out my voice. I thought of shaking her awake and dragging her out to
see for herself the person she had let into our lives, but I knew deep down that
I wouldn’t enjoy how sad she’d be.

I walked back into the livingroom, quietly picked up the
phone, and walked into the kitchen to call Darnesha.

“Darnesha,” I whispered.

“What,” she said groggily. It was still a little too early
to be heading out.

“Charles is asleep naked on the couch – on my backpack.”

“I’ll be right over.”

She hung up the
phone.

Within 5 minutes my neighbor and best friend was at my door,
barely able to contain her excitement at our new adventure. Her eyes slid over
to the right and she spied the naked Charles, “oooh….look at that.” She rushed
in unzipped her backpack and pulled out a camera.

“What are you doing? You’ll wake him up!” I whispered
frantically.

Darnesha was far more savvy than me. She wore eyeliner and knew how to gel her hair in a way that looked both pretty and dangerous. She
knew what she was doing. “No, he’s passed out, look” and she calmly poked him
hard in the thigh. He twitched his leg a little and stayed fast asleep. She got
about a foot away from his penis, intently snapping pictures with her little
35mm camera. Then she backed up to get some full body shots. She laughed a
little and shook her head.

“Loser.”

I laughed a little and then started to cry a bit. “Darnesha,
I hate him so much. He makes me want to run away.” I was choking on my words.
He ruined everything, my mom, my dinner, my clothes – my whole childhood. And
here I was, just trying to go to school, the one place where I was safe and
somewhat happy, and he was ruining that too.

Darnesha said quickly, “Hey, it’s ok, look.” And she quickly
yanked the backpack out from under him and handed it to me. He snorted in his
sleep and turned to his side.

I didn’t even want to touch my bag. I took it gingerly by
the shoulder straps. My little brother came out of his room dressed for school. “Hey,
what’s going on?” he asked.

“Shh!!” I said, “Go — go to the bus now.” I didn’t want him
to see this. He quickly ran out the door, confused.

I set my jaw in anger. Kids shouldn’t be seeing this, I
thought. I looked down at Charles again, sleeping so peacefully.

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my Washington State
History textbook. I aimed for his good eye and threw it as hard as I could. It
hit its mark with a hard thud and then bounced onto the floor.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” He jolted up, disoriented. He reached for
his eye and I rushed over and grabbed the textbook off the floor and with one
quick swing hit him again. The contact of the corner of the textbook with his
eyebrow reverberated through my arm.

“Fuck!” He yelled and started to get up.

“Run!” I said quickly.

“Loser,” Darnesha said again as we ran out the door.

We didn’t stop running until we reached the bus stop at the
top of the apartment complex. I looked around, he hadn’t followed us.

“Man, that was so awesome! Damn!” Darnesha laughed. She was
wide-eyed, amazed.

I laughed at myself, still in a bit of shock. “It was,
wasn’t it?” I laughed some more. Then I smiled the biggest smile I’d had all
year. I replayed the vision of Charles clutching his eye, naked and hurting and
stupid. “God, what a loser, ” I said, and I got on the bus.

Ijeoma Oluo is a single mom in the Seattle area who blogs about politics, crafts, parenting, books, and music.

This post originally appeared on her Her Honest Life. Republished with permission.

Image via singpentinkhappy/Shutterstock.