Good Man At War

Just say 'Yes Dear' and all will be tranquil.

“Misogyny” week concludes with a short story. Written on Polish trains, sometime in 2008.

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When I think I’ll do fine to avoid another surrender, the silent demons reproach my hubris with a forced bite of the sour pill.

Globus hystericus. Monumentus distractus. It can’t be swallowed.

Let it rest beneath the tongue.

It does and melts like a cocoa bean with a pinch of parsley.

All things become clear and I notice the rain through the bay windows. I can focus on each dollop that traces down the middle and glistens from the mango glow of the street lamp beyond the arbor row.

The shoulders go limp into my usual slouch, the habituated posture of a skittish puppy. I adjust them upwards and back toward the chair’s support.

No more captivity. No more surrenders.

The boob husband, boyfriend, partner. Relegated in status and power to whimpering dog shoved into the last cage of the kennel of the self-gelded.

Plagiarized by the advertising industry and refashioned for wifey amusement to appeal the consumer deciders.

Ha! Look honey, that’s you in the dishwasher commercial. Totally useless.

Three generations of men beaten and kicked to the ground without so much as a teeth-snarling bark.

I watch the rain streak down with incandescent fury like a sea of racing squid tentacles. I follow one closely as it stutters through liquid congestion collecting friends and velocity along its path into the darkness below.

The familiar smell of Eau de toilette Rosée kills the race. She is not sorry she is late. It was not her fault. I have to focus everything on her now. I can’t fake it, she’ll know. I must be a good man and listen to everything she says, nodding in agreement like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

She chides me for not taking her coat and scarf, and sliding her chair out. When I did in the past she scolded me for violating her independence as a strong and capable woman.

I’m in a foul mood she claims, why can’t I be happy for once?