“Let me in!” she demanded. “I want to see my son! What have you done to my son? Let me in!”
“Might as well letting her in,” Dr. Kilembrio told the nurse with a shrug.
She started up the steps, then stopped and turned around to address the doctor. “Shouldn’t I make some calls first?” she asked. “It would be better to do it before she’s in here. It won’t sound right to have her screaming in the background.”
“Calling? What is the calling? Who?”
“Associated Press, UP, Reuters, the other wire services. Also The New York Times, Der Spiegel, all the important papers. And the Scientific American, the .4.M.A. Journal, the other major medical publications. Your accomplishment is important to the whole world, Doctor. You can’t hide your light under a bushel.”
“The bushwah I’m not lighting just yet, Miss Carridge.”
“Let me in! I demand to see my child! I demand to see my Pennington!” The pounding on the door grew louder.
“I’m learning from all the heart switchers,” Dr. Kilembrio continued. “Is not smart to swap the organs one-two-three and announcing to the world, hey looka me! And then the organ goes pffhhtt! and the switch surgeon is left with egg on his scalpel. Three-four phumphs with the valentine transplants before up they’re coming with a Blaiberg. So publishing prematurely, I’m not.”
“Have you killed him? Have you killed my Pennington? Is he all right? It’s a mother’s right to know!”
“You mean you’re still afraid the body will reject the brain, Doctor?” Miss Carridge asked.
“Let me in!”
“No.” Dr. Kilembrio was thoughtful. “What I’m fearing is that the brain is rejecting the body.”
“A mother’s place is with her child!”
“Have you detected symptoms of that, Doctor?”
“Is seeming to me the female brain is not so euphoric with the male equipping as I’m liking. Is displaying a reluctance not conducive to not rejecting. Psychologically, I‘m worrying. Who could say how neurotic a body is feeling when the brain is rejecting it? Could be more traumatic than a mama or a papa even.”
“Let me in, you fiends! What have you done to my Pennington?”
“I see what you mean, Doctor.”
“Good. So we’re waiting before blabbing about my miracle surgery. You understanding, Miss Carridge?” The nurse nodded. “Then letting the mumsy in now before she’s breaking down the door,” Dr. Kilembrio instructed.
Miss Carridge mounted the stairs and opened the door. Squat and buxom though she was, Mrs. Potter was the epitome of jet-propelled motherhood hurtling into the cellar. It would have been difficult to say whether she most resembled a tigress defending its cub, or a piranha bent on gobbling up its young.
“Where is my Pennington?” Mrs. Potter demanded. “What have you done with my child?”
“She should only know,” Miss Carridge murmured.
Dr. Kilembrio shot his nurse a stern warning look. “Your boy is all right,” he assured the distraught mom. “Right now he is in the johnny making with the shpritz.”
“You mean P. P. is pee-peeing?” Mrs. Potter asked.
“Is tinkling, yes. But what are you calling him?”
“P. P. It’s a nickname. We used to call him that when he was a baby. They’re his initials. For Pennington Percival Potter. Only we shortened them. I mean, we didn’t want to call him P. P. P. because it was too unwieldy. It didn’t seem right hanging out the window when he was playing with the other boys and yelling ‘P. P- P-, if you don’t come up right now, you’re gonna get it!’ So I’d just yell ‘P. P. now!’ And that’s the way it stayed. Two Ps. It seemed less formal.”
“Right about now I’ll bet he’d settle for one,” Miss Carridge muttered.
“Problems it’s giving him, no?” Dr. Kilenibrio mused. “With his peer group is what I’m meaning. As an adolescent, being called P. P. is making for very complex inferiority feelings.”
“You’re so right, Doctor.” Mrs. Potter sighed. I thought it was cute, but Pennington threw tantrums When I called him P. P. So we had to find another nickname for him.”
“Plop-Plop!” Miss Carridge snapped her fingers. “Right?”
“Certainly not!” Mrs. Potter was indignant. “What of insensitive mother do you think I am? No, what we started calling him then was Penny-—short for Pennington, you know-—and the name stuck. That’s what we call him today. Penny.”
“The lowest monetary denomination,” Dr. Kilembrio pointed out. “Is not doing much for his self-image-ing. One stinking cent.”
“I brought him up to always use a deodorant!” Mrs. Potter protested. “Penny never offends!”
“Did you say ‘Penny’?” Miss Carridge asked.
“That’s correct.”
“Doctor.” Miss Carridge addressed Kilembrio. “That was the first name of the young lady who became so— umm—overheated before. Penny. Isn’t that a coincidence?”
“Is a most fortunate coincidence, Nurse. Is the kind from coincidence is solving the identity problem. Avoiding confusion any more than is already there from the switching. Most fortunate. Psychologically considering -”
The doctor was interrupted by the emergence of Penny from the lavatory. Tears of frustration streamed down both cheeks. “It’s no good! I can’t get the hang of it! Every time I start my aim is off and I have to stop or else get it all over the walls and ceiling.”
“Our aim is to keep this place clean; your aim will help,” Miss Carridge chided.
Mrs. Potter grasped the situation immediately. She also grasped the cause.
“What are you doing?” Penny was outraged.
“Don’t worry, my child.” Mrs. Potter stroked soothingly. “The shock of what you’ve been through has doubtless made you forget everything I taught you as a little boy. But it’s all right. Don’t be embarrassed. I’ll hold it for you while you tinkle.”
“Better maybe I should be holding,” Dr. Kilembrio suggested. “Since we’re both being male—”
“No!” Penny was shocked at the idea.
“Why not?” the doctor asked.
“You’re a man! That’s why! Just because you’re a man! I‘ve never gone to the bathroom with a man before and I don’t intend to start now!”
“But now you’re a masculine yourself,” the doctor pointed out.
“I don’t care!” Penny was half-hysterical.
“He wants his mommy to hold him.” Mrs. Potter’s eyes shone with motherly zeal. “Just like when he was a baby, I was the only one he’d let put him on the potty. He wants his mommy.” She led Penny by the appendage toward the lavatory. “Come along, Mama’s little darling,” she cooed. “Mama will show you how.”
“Well, nobody could accuse her of too early toilet training,” Miss Carridge observed.
Thus began Penny’s first experience with the waste eliminations of manhood. Thus Penny began to learn what it would be like to be a male in what was increasingly becoming a woman’s world. Thus Mom-ism took over Penny’s education to the facts of masculine life.
“Mama will hold it and show you how, and soon you’ll be able to do it all by yourself,” Mrs. Potter crooned. “And what is more,” she added, “you’ll be a man, my son …"
CHAPTER FIVE
Today l am a man...
It was the first, overwhelming thought Penny had upon awakening the next morning in the bed of Pennington P. Potter. Yes, the awakening marked the beginning of Penny’s first day as a man. But what did it mean? What did it mean to be a man?
Do you find it hard getting up in the morning?
It was a phrase the boys used and the girls tittered over when Penny was an adolescent. Back then Penny hadn’t really understood what it meant. Even after Penny grew up the meaning was still hazy.