Most people enter the world of body modification willingly and of there own accord, and for the most part the same is true with me. I made a conscious choice to enter the world of body mods almost 8 years ago, but my first "mod if you would call it that came about quiet differently, it was unexpected, unwanted and the result of a very sad and scary situation. As time has gone by though, I have accepted it, and even embraced it, it is now a part of who I am, as much as my tattoos and piercing...it is part of me, but that was not always the case, what follows really is more of the story of how I have come to look at this scar as a mod, and how I think each and every scar we get over our lives are as much a mod as any piece of art or piercing or branding or cutting is they are the little unexpected mods that help express the things we have gone through.
At A Glance Author Shamus Greenman Contact Shamus [email protected] IAM Shamus Greenman When Ten years ago or more For as long as I could remember I wanted to be a cop....it was more than just that childhood phase where you want to be a cop or fireman or astronaut, this was the result of a very deep and personal experience that really defined my life for a long long time.
When I was nine my Father passed away, it was December 27th 1977, it was a Wednesday night, Charlie's Angels was on TV to this day I still hate that show. My Dad had had a heart attack the year I was born, he lived a life ripe for it, he had a high stress job, he smoked, he drank, he ate fatty foods, in the end he killed himself. I remember waking to the sound of my Mom yelling my Dads name, begging him to wake up....there was this awful sound coming from him...and in a heart beat the house was filled with paramedics and cops........
My Dad was loaded into the Ambulance and they screamed down a one way street in the opposite direction, my Mom and I in the back of a cruiser following and I could see at the two intersections we had to cross, police cars blocking the way so the ambulance carrying my Dad could get through...I was in awe that the police had such power, and would use it to help my Dad. Anyway, those events changed my life and my outlook and lead me to become a cop. On October 27th 1989 I graduated the Federal Police Training Academy in Canada, I was a sworn member of one of Canada's most elite police forces...I was going to make a difference.
I went through many different assignments, but the proudest moment was when I made the ERT, or SWAT team. This would be the event that would lead to my life changing direction completely.
As part of the standard procedure for our department we were deployed any time a major event took place involving hostages.....in this case a domestic situation where the husband was holding his wife and two children hostage. He had boarded himself in the kitchen of their apartment and after several hours no longer answered the phone....he was know to be violent and unpredictable and at the 10th hour of the situation we were deployed to enter the apartment in a dynamic entry and "neutralize" the threat....in other words use what ever force was need to end the stand off and ensure that the hostages were safe.
To be honest, it was uneventful by the time we had entered he was passed out on the floor drunk, his wife and kids were huddled in a closet waiting to see what happened he was arrested without incident...that was far from the end though.
We had him in handcuffs and were leading him out the door, me on one side, my partner on the other when his son, who was small for his age came running up to us, immediately I was flashed back to my childhood and I felt for this boy in ways no one else could I told him it would be ok and not to worry...suddenly I felt him punch be in the leg, he looked at me and said " I hate you...I hope you die" I was hurt more by those words then by what he had just done.
My partner looked at me, and then a look of total terror crossed his face...."Jim, are you alright"...sure it was just a punch, no big deal...."look down"....as I looked down I saw the handle of one of those little pairing knives you get at Wal-Mart...you know three for a buck a sick yellow handle sticking out from my groin and a dark stain spreading across my lap and I was oddly amazed, there was no real pain to speak of, thank god for adrenaline, just this distant feeling .suddenly hands were hold me, I was being laid down, I could hear the OFFICER DOWN call going out...I had just been stabbed.
I vaguely remember the paramedics as they cut away my pants, they had already given me something for the pain it seems, thought still there was none, I asked "is it still there?" and then drifted off into unconsciousness.
I awoke in the hospital several hours later to a pain I can not even begin to describe, other than to say....imagine being a stuffed bear....now imagine your stuffing popping out as your stitching rips open I had gone through surgery to repair a cut to the length of my penis roughly 5 inched in length cutting fairly deep in some areas deep enough to require quite a few stitches to close, I was sedated, a catheter was inserted...sadly they forgot to ensure that I would not have any erections, and trust me, the feeling of an erection when you have fresh stitches and a catheter in your penis is not really a pleasant one.......in fact it hurt like hell!!!! I woke up screaming, my partner had spent the night with me, as did several other members of the department, all came rushing in to see what had happened.....there was a rush to get the nurse in, a small portly Scottish woman who lifted the sheet to see the ravages of my ripped and erect penis bleeding and twitching, her immediate reactio n was to say "now that shouldn't be"...really? No #$%* kidding!!!
About a week later I was released from the hospital....a lot of tests were done to ensure that there was no nerve damage and that everything should return to a normal functionality. In other words, could I still feel, could I still get and maintain an erection.
The first look I got at the extent of the damage was three days after the actual stabbing, while they were changing the dressing all I could see was this long line down the underside of the shaft, sort of like a road on a map...there was a lot of swelling and such, and all I could think of was that I was damaged ruined ugly.
Ironically it was around this time that I was doing research into body modification and the reasoning behind it as part of my continued training at the Canadian Police college I simply could not believe all people who chose to become pierced and tattooed were members of biker gangs or satanic cults the overwhelming thought of most police officers at the time and this research or education would have a dramatic effect on how I would heal the psychological scars.
The overwhelming feeling of being ruined, of being "damaged goods" slowly passed as I learned more and more about the history of body modification and how it had the power to affect positive changes in peoples lives.
There were still, and continue to be shocked looks the first time someone sees the scar, or the usual reaction upon hearing the story of "does it work", to which I reply yea, pretty damn well as a matter of fact, care to see?
It's been 10 years since this happened...my first, but no longer un-welcomed mod. The effects of it still linger with me, I have a scar down the middle of my penis and I wear it proudly. For me, this unintended mod represents the strength to meet challenges unexpected...it represents survival and rebirth, it represents my commitment to people to keeping them safe, it represents what I could have lost because I believe in keeping the peace...it is in it's own way a tribute to dreams filled and lived, and the changes they effect on our lives.
I wanted to be a cop more than anything, and I was lucky enough to live that dream, I left the force happy with what I was able to accomplish while there. To this day, and until the end of my days I will wear and carry with me the memories of that part of my life.And isn't that part of what mods are about? The completion of self? The marking of a passage in your life in a permanent and artistic way?
As the time has passed I look at it less as a scar and more as, well another piece of the puzzle put in place. Something I doubt I would have willingly undertaken, but obviously something that was meant to be a part of me.
Oddly enough now, I look at people differently, I look at scars differently.....I look at them as another form of body modification that almost everyone experiences to some degree. They are not ugly or rude...they are not evil or bite...they simply exists to show us how our lives have been lived, and the effects that living our own unique life has had on us...much as a piercing or tattoo does, only these are gifts we receive from a higher power, they are lesions in life.
I'm glad I have mine.