IX

Skinks shed their tails. Not all the time of course. It's not, so far as I know, the common ending of drunken evenings among skinks, although it might be. Not being aware of what skinks drink, it's impossible to tell. But if a predator is chasing them, they let the tails drop off, abandon them wriggling in the background. This seems like a nifty trick. I wonder sometimes how much easier it would be if humans had access to this mechanism. Apart from redefining such English phrasing as “giving somebody a hand” or “losing one's head” it seems that sometimes it would be a useful thing to leave parts of the body in the site of danger and escape to regrow them another day. It would be good for broken hearts, of course, but even for that strange person who tries to grab you on the subway or as a way to have a bit of fun with a clingy child. And how freeing. One doesn't realize how much limbs weigh. I once dislocated a shoulder and couldn't stand. The extra pounds were a mystery to the brain: hidden yet ever-present.

I once convinced a girl in high school that men's penises could be removed. I suggested that it was often an inconvenience that we left them in the bathroom. She doubted me, but was not sure. She later asked a classmate who, not in on the gag but sensing one afoot, concurred without blinking that yes, this was true. She seemed, according to what he told me later, appalled and frightened. As if a boy might one day leave one hidden in her room. I don't know whether her ignorance can be blamed on her parents or the school sex education curriculum, but I look back upon it with some sadness.

She later discovered the truth. I never found out to whom she had to go to get things straight.