Centuries from now, when historians and anthropologists either laugh at our delicate sensibilities or applaud our commitment to a shared humanity, we’ll finally understand these times. But right now, we don’t know what the fuck is going on.
Two years ago, for instance, when I was with my friend Ezra in his apartment, he started staring at the crotch of his jeans, the little yellow stitching like the lights on an airport runway at night.
“I got this goddamn pecker, man,” Ezra said. “Causing all sorts of problems.”
I stood up from the couch and started pouring us whiskeys. As a rule, I’m usually not a fan of conversations that start below the belt.
“No joke,” he continued, “I’m the only man at work. There’s a bullseye over my balls, and it’s blinking like a neon sign at the sleaziest nightclub you could ever imagine.”
I poured so much ice into our cocktail glasses a little roar sounded. I told myself I couldn’t really hear what my friend was saying. Plausible deniability and I were old acquaintances. The only one I was closer with was my dear pal cognitive dissonance. I had been apologising for the people I knew to the people I didn’t know as well, for years.
Like a dog, Ezra rolled onto his back. He cupped his junk. He extended his middle finger so that it dangled in a rough pantomime of a penis. “This is the rudest gesture in the western world, hoss. Maybe the eastern too. Think about that. What does it say about the future of our kind? I’ll tell ya: Nothing good.”
When I walked over and handed him his drink, Ezra cracked a smile as mischievous as a wink. Because he wasn’t really the winking kind. Ezra was more the kind whose small talk included discursive gender conversations about ancient civilizations, with his dong cited as empirical evidence.
“Lean in. This is as close to prayer as I come,” he said. “I got nothing Old Testament Babylonian about me anymore.”
I always thought his Tennessee twang was a ruse, a way to forgive himself for leaving his small rural existence behind after he got his MBA and moved to New York. That was where we met. The difference was, I was an Uber driver, whereas he worked in mergers and acquisitions. My girlfriend back then would remind me: he’s a meathead, a frat boy—an oversized adolescent with all the emotional range and sensitivity of a potato.
But she had never seen him when his heart was broken. His fiancée slipped out of his tent the night before his wedding. It was set to take place in the Smokies. To be fair, I wasn’t there either, but from the way he talked about it, I could imagine him running around the campsite the next morning, shaking people by the shoulders for answers, kicking his cummerbund in the dirt, coughing and cursing. For weeks afterwards, he said the only thing that made him feel better was listening to “When Doves Cry.” Whenever he told me this, his eyes rimmed red.
Ezra continued: “The women don’t see me as a boss, get it? I’m just some dick.” He leaned back and took a sip from his whiskey. “I feel like the creature from the black lagoon, only slimier.”
I let the alcohol numb me. I looked at my shoes. “Are you sure? No one should be focused on private parts at work. After all, they’re private.”
Ezra sighed. “They wore those ‘future is female’ t-shirts the other day, smirking behind my back. I wish they knew I was on their side. That’s the Chekhovian tragedy of it all, hoss. I’m pissed too. But we just keep pissing past one another.” He looked at his crotch again. “What has this dog tail ever done besides wag in all the wrong directions?”
I took this as my chance to walk my glass to the sink. “Well, you’re too young to retire.”
“True.” Ezra sat up and rested his hands on his knees. “Course, castration is getting pretty fancy these days.”
Though I wanted to laugh, the sound I released sounded more like a bark.
“I don’t need tits,” he continued, “but I’ve given up on romance, children. All I want is a workplace where gender is not an issue. I want peace and civility between my legs.” Then it was Ezra’s turn to laugh.
Was he joking? Was the weight of his confession so heavy, he suddenly felt light and carefree again? I had no idea.
Sometimes when I get to this part, people chuckle at the absurdity. Sometimes they grimace. Sometimes they cringe. At the first suggestion of a prick as a protagonist, in fact, some people get so upset they walk right out of the room. All I know is, as the storyteller, it’s not really about mentioning the unmentionable anymore. And the problem is, I’ll never know how serious Ezra was, because a couple of days later, he died in a car accident. Most people, if they’ve stuck around this long, don’t like this part of the story. Some even hate it. Kind of breaks all the rules.
So here’s my confession: I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. I don’t know what trigger warnings do if they’re not about healing. Tell me what to say and I promise I’ll say it. I’ll find those perfect little words that can sparkle in your hands like jewels, leave you feeling nothing but bliss and contentment. You just have to find me someone who still shouts earnestly about justice, who isn’t afraid to keel over with breathless joy after they’ve heard something funny, find them, and ask them for forgiveness on my behalf when I say the name of the driver who killed my friend was Peter.
