Red Riding Hood

Ever wanted to be someone else, or something else? Some other person, of a different nationality, another sex, age, profession? To possess a different body, face, mind? To live in some other country, another climate, in some other time, the future or the past, in some parallel universe, or dwell inside a computer, be part of some virtual reality ? Or simply have other friends, mates, partners and colleagues? To be changed and altered for good or just for a short period, a day, a week, a couple of hours? To be able to return to your usual personality any time you wish.

I'd like to start out with this well-known short poem by Gelett Burgess, the Purple Cow:

“I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!”

When I first heard these lines in my childhood, I wondered why the author didn't want to be a purple cow. It's not that I wanted to be a purple cow myself, but I saw nothing bad in becoming one, not for good, but, say, for a day. Why not? Not a bad idea at all, so it seemed to me. Well, one may say I had a deviant way of thinking, and as Sigmund Freud told us, all our deviations have their origins in our childhood.

Yeah, I was quite an imaginative kid, but what, or rather who, I really wanted to be in those days might be a bit surprising to you.

Can you guess? No idea? Well, it also implies a certain color, not purple but red. Well, it's sort of coming out for me, don't laugh, though embarrassing it may sound, however, I'm doing it now - I wanted to be Red Riding Hood. Yeah, that's true.

The name itself, by the way, implies no gender. It's gender neutral. Red Riding Hood. It's not like Jane, Mary, John or Peter. Anyone wearing some red colored hood can be called Red Hood. Or Green Hood, if it be a hood of green. However, as we all know, to all intents and purposes Red Riding Hood is a girl.

Well, being an imaginative kid, I even wrote a play about Red Riding Hood, which I wanted to be performed on stage at school, and of course I meant to play the lead role, that is Red Riding Hood. Dorothy Parker, an American poet, once said - Scratch an Actor and You’ll Find an Actress.

Was I a transgender kid? Who knows? Maybe yes, and maybe not, I don't know, like as not. You'd better ask my shrink. Yeah, when my parents happened to read the play, they got really concerned about my mental health and took me to a shrink. You may guess my play never got staged at school. Anyway, with the help of my younger sister I managed to have several rehearsals at home.

I assigned my sister to play the main antagonist of the play - Bloody Pirate. My sister was very glad to do it, because she always wanted to be a pirate. Not a girl pirate, mind you, but a boy pirate. Some weird siblings we were, I and sis. She wishing to be a pirate, and I a Red Riding Hood, though my parents never took her to a shrink. I think it was unfair. In sibling rivalry I was on the losing end. I told my shrink that my sister wanted to be a pirate, plus wanted to pee standing upright, and that my parents didn't care about it a whit, while my wish to be Red Riding Hood was met with hostility. The analyst told me something about Freud and Penis Envy, and that if I were Red Riding Hood, I should have that sort of envy too, like my sister did. Mentally I sent my shrink to hell.

Well, remember Dorothy Parker? The very girl who said that stuff about scratching an actor. I'd like to recite two stanzas from one of her poems, the stanzas that perfectly describe my sister's feelings at those days.

“Oh, I should like to ride the seas,
A roaring buccaneer;
A cutlass banging at my knees,
A dirk behind my ear.
And when my captives' chains would clank
I'd howl with glee and drink,
And then fling out the quivering plank
And watch the beggars sink.

I'd like to straddle gory decks,
And dig in laden sands,
And know the feel of throbbing necks
Between my knotted hands.
Oh, I should like to strut and curse
Among my blackguard crew....
But I am writing little verse,
As little ladies do.”

Unfortunately, there are no poems about a boy wanting to be Red Riding Hood.

Oh, I should like to wear a hood,
A cloak of red, a colorful dress,
Et cetera, et cetera, et cet.

Well, back to my play. The main storyline was an attempt by Bloody Pirate to kidnap Red Riding Hood. But in my case Miss Hood was not some sissy girl, as you might think. I was strongly influenced by Revolting Rhymes, a series of poems for children by Roald Dahl. In two of those poems Red Riding Hood is a violent sharpshooter, who happens to shoot down two wolves and one little pig. Not a sissy girl at all. Okay, here are the lines describing her killing the first wolf.

“The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head,
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.”

Then wolf number two, listen:

“Once more the maiden's eyelid flickers.
She draws the pistol from her knickers.
Once more she hits the vital spot,
And kills him with a single shot.”

A pistol in the knickers? It's children's poetry, mind you. A gun in Red Hood's panties. Penis envy again? Doctor Freud, can you just calm down a bit?

Anyway, according to the plot of my play, I was to shoot down my offender, that is Bloody Pirate, that is my sister, the same way Red Riding Hood did in those Revolting Rhymes. Tragic enough.

You may ask, why was this play written by me? Why didn't my sister happen to write it? Why me, not her?

Here comes Voltaire, a French writer and philosopher, who, when asked why no woman had ever written ‘a tolerable tragedy', said: The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.

Hmm, male chauvinistic by all means. Well, so you see my sis had penis envy enough to play the part of Bloody Pirate, and I had testicles enough to write up this tragic masterpiece.

Well, while rehearsing this climax scene with my sister, I put my toy gun down in my underwear.

"Die Bloody Pirate," I cried out, but unfortunately I wasn't quick on the draw, for when I tried to pull the gun out with one swift motion of my hand, it got stuck down there. I started fumbling in my pants, and then my sister, whether to help me get that damn thing out, or to disarm her foe, well, she couldn't think of anything better than to kick me hard in the crotch. No harm was done to my plastic gun, I tell you, but her foot got me right in the balls. Bloody Pirate, indeed.

You can picture my reaction. In no time at all I was on the floor, writhing in pain and moaning "my balls, my balls".

Instead of showing any pity, my sister told me I couldn't do that, she meant I couldn't moan about my poor balls, because I was Red Riding Hood, and Hood was by all means a girl. Red Riding Hood possessed no balls.

Mr Freud, do you hear me? Penis envy you say? Dr Freud, I want you to listen to one more short poem. I found this one also on the internet and it was written by Randy Johnson. Okay here we go:

“When I wouldn't buy my teenage daughter a brand new car, she kicked me in the
crotch.
From now on I'm not taking my eyes off my testicles, I'm keeping a twenty-four
hour watch.
It feels like my balls have been smashed by a brick.
I'd give a million bucks if my daughter had balls to kick.”

Speaking of me at that moment, it wasn't that I wished my sister had balls to kick, though she was supposed to be a boy pirate. To hell with her Penis Envy and such like. The problem was that I wasn't a Red Riding Hood indeed, that was the thing that embarrassed me. Okay, you may call it Red Hood envy. I must confess, well, it's my coming out. I wanted to be a real Red Riding Hood, not a make-believe one. And I couldn't. Because I had tesicles, those funny paired organs. Well, as I told before, according to Voltaire, I had balls enough to invent that story about being Red Riding Hood, but when scratched, no actress could be found within me. Red Hood envy. Just think of all those long talks with my psychoanalyst that followed afterwards…

Anyway, soon at school I got interested in the history of Ancient Greece and their myths and legends, and as a result my next play was not long to come.

And who do you think was the main character this time? Helen of Troy. And who was supposed to play that part? You bet. Well, I'm going to tell you about it some other time and for now the thing I'd like to tell you:

Never be afraid, or ashamed of being a purple cow. Or a bluish one. I'd like to finish up with one more short poem. This one is by Louis Bogan, an American poet.

“Of white and tawny, black as ink,
Yellow, and undefined, and pink,
And piebald, there are droves, I think.

Buff kine in herd, gray whales in pod,
Brown woodchucks, colored like the sod,
All creatures from the hand of God.

And many of a hellish hue;
But, for some reason hard to view,
Earth's bluish animals are few.”