Gerald N. Callahan - Lousy Sex

LOUSY SEX

CREATING SELF

IN AN INFECTIOUS WORLD

gerald n. callahan

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO
Boulder

2013 by Gerald N. Callahan

Published by University Press of Colorado

5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C

Boulder, Colorado 80303

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Callahan, Gerald N., 1946

Lousy sex / Gerald N. Callahan.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-60732-232-0 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-60732-233-7 (ebook)

1. Self. 2. Identity (Psychology) 3. Biological psychiatry. 4. Psychoanalysis. I. Title.

RC489.S43C35 2013

613dc23

2013007245

Design by Daniel Pratt

22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A different version of First Self appeared in Emerging Infectious Diseases 1 (2005). Different versions of Layers of Self, Dreams of the Blind, and The Mysterious Visions of Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck appeared in turnrow magazine under the titles, respectively, Just the Two of Us (2[2] [2003]), Blindsight (6[1] [2009]), and Darwins Dream (4[1] [2005]). Other versions of Self in the Soil appeared in Emerging Infectious Diseases (9 [2003]); and Faith, Madness, and Spontaneous Human Combustion: What Immunology Can Teach Us about Self-Perception (New York: St. Martins, 2003). Portions of Gathering Our Selves originally appeared in turnrow (Vol. 5[1] [2007]); Science and Spirit (14 [2002]: 60); and Infection: The Uninvited Universe (New York: St. Martins, 2006). And another version of The Wizards of I (A Dogs Life) appeared in Many Mountains Moving (Winter 2007).

He certainly hadnt planned to spend his morning wandering around looking for inspirations, as though they might be startled from the shadows like mice. He kicked at a stone and sent it flying across the Via Mercanti. As he walked into Milanos great piazza, pewter-colored clouds rolled in from the mountains to the north and blocked the sun. The landscape fell into a flat brown lake. Leonardo kicked at another stone, missed, and stubbed his toe against the red cobbles. He cursed and hobbled to one of the benches ringing the piazza. Sitting, he lifted his injured foot onto his knee. The wind, mocking him, played in his wild hair. Leonardo cursed again as he reached to push the hair from his face. He stared solemnly at his toe.

For years, this man had studied human anatomy, patiently slicing through skin and muscle, bone and gristle, splitting open eyeballs and undressing the dead in the most intimate of ways. On top of that, he was a meticulous observer. As he worked, nothing escaped his attention, and he laid each of his dissections carefully onto the pages of his notebooksevery tendon, every fascia, each nerve found its way there. He knew human bodies as well as any other living, or likely dead, man.

Just now, none of that helped. The pain in his toe had emptied his mind. The wind from the mountains began working its way into his bones. The piazza smelled of burned oil. Forty-one years old and, on this particular day, nothing to show for it. This was too much to bear. Like the birds scavenging among the cobbles, ideas always found him. His brows bristling with intent, he scanned the world before him.

The spring weather, the smell of fish in the markets, and the solid feel of his feet on the cobbles of the street reminded him life was short. He didnt have time for lapses like this. He continued to rub his foot.

Across from where he sat, a young couple had found their way into a darkened alcove of the partially constructed cathedral. Thinking no one was watching, they fell into an amorous embrace and kissed one another deeply. Hands moved about, cloth rustled, the womans face flushed red.

As Leonardo watched, their embraces grew even bolder and more intimate: a hand dropped between them, a fastening was pushed aside, another.

To his surprise, Leonardo felt a rising in his own loins and a curious sort of embarrassment at his reactions. But he couldnt stop himself from watching the two lovers as their hands found still more heat and their caresses deepened. Finally, as the two bodies collapsed into one, he knew what he would do.

A thing no one had ever attempted before. As the thought uncoiled inside his mind, he smiled, then lowered his injured foot onto the stones of the street and rose from his bench. Like startled birds, the lovers cried out and fluttered, reaching to cover themselves. But now, for Leonardo, the two might as well have been in Genoa. Leonardos mind had taken flight, and even as the wind worked again at his beard and long, thin hair, he continued to smile. With each step, he watched the slow flex and relaxation of the muscles in his thighs.

The nearer he came to his studio, the more excitement he felt. Today, he would begin his most intimate of drawings. It would be unlike anything anyone had done before. He climbed the stairs two at a time.

Inside, amid the smells of preservatives and plaster and brine, Leonardo pushed his other projects from his drawing table, allowing them to drop to the floor. On a clean piece of paper he began to sketcha man cut in half lengthwise. Once he had the mans outline in place, Leonardos hand pulled out the shape of a heavy-breasted woman, and just as he had seen the lovers on the piazza do, he drew the two together at their loins.

Spines and hearts, bones and brains fell onto the page. Muscles took shape and backs stiffened. The last part he knew would be the most difficult, the part where the two became one. He had seen all of the rest, more times than he could recall. But this, the most precious of touches, he had only felt.

That, he thought, will be the most difficult. Penises he could draw, hed seen dozens, even in cross-section. Vaginas the same. But he had never seen this moment like an anatomist, from the inside. It would come, though. He was certain. When at last he reached for it, the image would come.

His left hand fell once again upon the page, his right idly rubbed his thigh. Before him appeared a sight no man or woman had ever seen. The art of it, the science of it, all lay there on the pageredolent. He stood back and smiled at what lay before him. He titled his creation The Copulation.

The morning after, he invited others to see what he had done. This is what he said to them: I expose to men the origin of their first, and perhaps second, reason for existing.

His drawing offered the consummation of a romance begun centuries, perhaps millennia beforethe wedding of art and science symbolized as an intricate union of anatomy, sexuality, and human ardor. A marriage made not in heaven but in the fertile minds of men and women. Inside this one sketch was the ultimate union of two selves, Leonardos own prevarications, sex, art, the roots of Darwin and Lamarck, hope, and lust. It was all there, all at once.