Centuries from now, when historians and anthropologists either laugh at our delicate sensibilities or applaud our commitment to a shared humanity, we\u2019ll finally understand these times. But right now, we don\u2019t know what the fuck is going on.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got this goddamn pecker, man,\u201d Ezra said. \u201cCausing all sorts of problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stood up from the couch and started pouring us whiskeys. As a rule, I\u2019m usually not a fan of conversations that start below the belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo joke,\u201d he continued, \u201cI\u2019m the only man at work. There\u2019s a bullseye over my balls, and it\u2019s blinking like a neon sign at the sleaziest nightclub you could ever imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I poured so much ice into our cocktail glasses a little roar sounded. I told myself I couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t know as well, for years.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cThis 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\u2019ll tell ya: Nothing good.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I walked over and handed him his drink, Ezra cracked a smile as mischievous as a wink. Because he wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cLean in. This is as close to prayer as I come,\u201d he said. \u201cI got nothing Old Testament Babylonian about me anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s a meathead, a frat boy\u2014an oversized adolescent with all the emotional range and sensitivity of a potato.<\/p>\n
But she had never seen him when his heart was broken. His fianc\u00e9e slipped out of his tent the night before his wedding. It was set to take place in the Smokies. To be fair, I wasn\u2019t 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 \u201cWhen Doves Cry.\u201d Whenever he told me this, his eyes rimmed red.<\/p>\n
Ezra continued: \u201cThe women don\u2019t see me as a boss, get it? I\u2019m just some dick.\u201d He leaned back and took a sip from his whiskey. \u201cI feel like the creature from the black lagoon, only slimier.\u201d<\/p>\n
I let the alcohol numb me. I looked at my shoes. \u201cAre you sure? No one should be focused on private parts at work. After all, they\u2019re private.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ezra sighed. \u201cThey wore those \u2018future is female\u2019 t-shirts the other day, smirking behind my back. I wish they knew I was on their side. That\u2019s the Chekhovian tragedy of it all, hoss. I\u2019m pissed too. But we just keep pissing past one another.\u201d He looked at his crotch again. \u201cWhat has this dog tail ever done besides wag in all the wrong directions?\u201d<\/p>\n
I took this as my chance to walk my glass to the sink. \u201cWell, you\u2019re too young to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue.\u201d Ezra sat up and rested his hands on his knees. \u201cCourse, castration is getting pretty fancy these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though I wanted to laugh, the sound I released sounded more like a bark.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need tits,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut I\u2019ve 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.\u201d Then it was Ezra\u2019s turn to laugh.<\/p>\n
Was he joking? Was the weight of his confession so heavy, he suddenly felt light and carefree again? I had no idea.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s not really about mentioning the unmentionable anymore. And the problem is, I\u2019ll never know how serious Ezra was, because a couple of days later, he died in a car accident. Most people, if they\u2019ve stuck around this long, don\u2019t like this part of the story. Some even hate it. Kind of breaks all the rules.<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s my confession: I don\u2019t know what\u2019s right or wrong anymore. I don\u2019t know what trigger warnings do if they\u2019re not about healing. Tell me what to say and I promise I\u2019ll say it. I\u2019ll 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\u2019t afraid to keel over with breathless joy after they\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019t know as well, for years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-matthew-e-kasper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21264"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21773,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21264\/revisions\/21773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}