writethis

Women With Eagerness Pull The Trigger On Men Who Hesitate

(or: Let me go, mommy)

chi chi

How rich it was to suppose, I think, now fades - but from those toned arms, her thin waist, those legs, that black hair as her hand brushed it back... I did my supposin'. And turned the pages of my book while I watched her sleep. And then she was naked calf and thigh muscles above me and smiling pleasantly with a slight apology; apparently some mild guilt for having squeaked the chair that had made the foot of her bed. "I should move this" she confesses. At first I don't understand her mild accent.

"What ( my darling...)?"

"I should...".

"Yes. Did you have a nice sleep?"

Something about "midterms " she's thinking me a student here. She has stepped to the door but pushes. It yields only the noise of closing.

"Sorry" she speaks.

"That's quite o.k."

"Good luck".

"Good bye", I resolve.

A few illusions that I've been dragging around die. Mild corrections are seeping in to replace them. Undoubtedly, new illusions are being born. It does wonders to receive any female stranger's kindness. The first since I have been coming to this campus library.

I like smallish breasts. I like to search them out beneath their shirts and identify a pointing nipple. And every time I think that my natural urge to protect, to care, to love has finally been destroyed and left me bitter, I get smiled at. The next day is an eager return to the scene of my latest redemption.

I find myself self-absorbed in front of what shall be essentially a nondescript female. Being so ridiculously conscious of my self finally reaches the thought that has no reasons to fear, preceding, though I can't say causes, a well rehearsed smile that I smile to myself perhaps relaying an attractive man much absorbed in his work. My initial concern changes into three or four hazy -but watch for the insidious - concerns and sweet momentary I am all and only absorbed in my work. But there she looms, projected over my book, and through my legs; my own bare legs seem to attract me. I get up to leave and a tendon near my ankle snaps a loud snap. Now this happens to me often. And once it starts it is persistent. I walk the corridor snapping. Snap snap snapping. A man in a library who would snap like this must contain some qualities, I compensate. "He comes with a snap". Merde.

Seated near the PQ section, in mid paragraph, every click of heels sounding female is either turning my head or I wonder what I've missed. I have bumbled myself into writing another marketable article for New Homme Magazine and I realise what it is to turn out to be, of course, unfortunately, another idiotic post-Henry Miller rip off. At what grasp shall I fall short of this time? Where will I explain myself to be as I walk the corridors of my urges? Men like me (it's fashionable to think) are living for no further purpose and ceasing to be. We're in our reactionary death throes.

But what the fuck. Who's better off; the man like me who snaps or the man with the unintended tonsure that I can see only from behind, half the ears up, over a wooden partition? It's not the dying of any damn light I rage at, it's the fact that wherever I go someone has already been there. So let's do the reminiscence.

June...um, Joan was a very popular girl, who (let's say) in the sixth grade, after her one year away, was the first person I knew able to cuss with syntactical integrity. Even the boys then only used the forbidden words sparingly and mischievously. Joan imbued them with seminal fruition. We boys hung and tried to out-casual each other. There was something inclusive about it, girls and boys of the same family, cussing together naturally. But her time was short. Within a couple of years, her peers, her classmates, the subalterns of femaleness, had drummed her out. The base dialogue of the peasant media these days is all cult of womanhood, how woman is remaking us all in her image. I'm young enough to have not known a time when you didn't get slapped with it every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the television. One form or another. And it's been drummed into those same girls, who then could not be spanked like we were, or bothered by us under threat of being spanked, kicked us in the shins with impunity. Today's Feminists. Dripping Quioxticists.They believe goddesses in the force of genes. Man, this article is crap.

Meanwhile again, the band is apparently being experienced fully by most of the people around me and my date. Now drink this. Listen to the predictable intermittent applauses. It is important, believe me, an unconstructed thought hanging dangerously off me, threatening to become no part of the total me when I am finished. The next phase begins. It is duller but the music is louder. We speak in sporadic non sequitur banalities. Women on the whole here still greedily protect the market of wait. Will they only become accessible if I utter the right words. But words like an apparition are never there when the lights are on or friends are over. "But I'm more off standish than stand offish." All the women I'm attracted to end up leaving with the band. So I'll go ungirled. They are stick figures in need of truth, across the street and slipping in and out of doorways without me.

So the man who went Snap studies Zen - And the Art of getting Laid.

It was an excuse to be sitting there, in the sun on the library steps. I can see and wish to be seen. I'm not Henry Miller. I'm an effete Henry Miller. The egoism of which I struggle so unproductively is now half way through its thirties and still hasn't figured out what it looks like. I resolved to find the cause in me. And use it. The un-sex. No thought. We all know. No frustration. Time passed. Strange things began to happen. Smiles from attractive girls and looks that turned into nervous look-aways. So

I got on an elevator at floor 2. The beautiful girl already standing on the elevator had a start. "Oh this isn't where I get off", she flushes. I push 5 and notice she'll be arriving at 6. A man enters behind me, pushes 4, the elevator stops. "This isn't where you get off either," I tell her.

"I'm just daydreaming and not thinking about where I'm going."

"Good!"

"Good?"

"Yes. It's an indication of an active mind." She does that up into your eyes look. "Are you having nice thoughts, is the question."

"I am now."

"And what are you thinking?"

It was hard but she got it out, "Um." She bit her thumb. "Where could we go to... um(?)..."

I wasn't about to let her change it to " get some coffee" or somesuch. I said "How about your place?"

"Okay," she breathlessly exhales.

No. This:

An Asian girl. Tall and slender. Me coming out. She coming in.

"Hi."

She came right up to me and played finger up and down the buttons at my chest. I took her and kissed her right there. She couldn't help herself. I could but wouldn't.

Well, many meanwhiles pass in strings of words so close to the graveyard a succubus is emoting over my charred body. It tells me, "Don't worry. The best looking clothed man in the world, the charmingest, and the sexiest in the entire world turns out to have a tiny half of a crown poking out penis."

{"Here he displays a vertiginous para-psychosis. Refulgent blunderings. Creation anxiety caused by a portal hole discovery. A trial metempsychosis possibly. Prognosis for recovery? Doubtful. He is suffering from a dementia of the English language. Suggest infusion of American television." }

Once again meanwhile my purpose is cohesioned. The article is practically writing itself so to speak so I did. Truncated cliches are growing genuine lives of their own as it were I resisted. I'm feeling secure and vital. I forget the existence of editors, the need for acceptance, the existence of libido... I try... I try. Focused again. The Crucible. Denouement. The article is finished. I love it. It sucks.

As I begin to triumphantly walk to the elevator and home, my left ankle snaps! And then Snaps and Snaps! Every step I make resounds loudly in the hall. To avoid people's eyes I pick empty aisles. The noise bounces down the corridors gaining volume. I have to halt. The library ebbs back toward normal-hush. And then I hear a faint, if figment allowance, couple of snaps somewhere in the hall. Then no more. I stand still for at least thirty seconds and then kneel down on my haunches. "Crack." I flex my ankle to try to work it out. Try to walk again. Moving stiff left legged, I limp out of the library with a small snap, possibly over-lookable, about every third step. When I finally reach outside I sit on the library steps in the late sun and dwell on my very attractive face.

Overnight, the terrible spectre my article has become when the love has worn off, and all that is left is it sucks, at least was an excuse to return to the library. I left the house confident but aimless. I thought the day would write itself. I'd be walking to the restroom thinking at least here's one thing I can do right dee dum and almost to the door I'm deflected to the drinking fountain. I can't resist putting my lips to where an accent just was. An attractive Asian girl has just finished her drink. A slight perfume water drink then I watch her turn the corner, walking with straight A's determination. I wish I had that kind of discipline.

The bookshelves near here contain those Great English writers from whom, if I could bring myself to the same state of studiousness as I imagine my drinking fountain partner possesses, I would probably benefit greatly. Here's Jonathan Swift's satire of English society or some shit. Try if I might I can't read a full page of it. I drift into wondering what a Bulwir-Lytton is. I'd pick up one of the damn Bulwir-Lyttons but this is exactly what I'm trying to conquer; this desire to be everywhere without having first been through hell on the pages of Jonathan Swift and loving it. After replacing the portentous book, I turn away. Sure, my ankle snaps. One of those occasional somehow incomplete snaps. I walk-snap into the bathroom. Some guy is taking his time washing his hands. I imply some kind of sports injury by limping around. When he finally leaves I really go at twisting my ankle, trying to work it out. After a loud pop it seems to stop and I cautiously leave the bathroom. As soon as I'm outside it begins again and the area has filled with people. I go back to Jonathan Swift and Bulwer-Lytton and try to manufacture interest. I'm not really a book smeller but I put my nose between the cover and the backing and sniff the glue. My snap is echoing in my brain, but then slowly I realize that instead, coming from a few rows away, is a sort of...well, in my delusive loneliness perhaps, almost a female counterpart to my snap.

It stops. I figure she must be looking at a book. When it doesn't start again within some seconds I begin to question some faith. But there it is again, and she's walking away. I rush around the corner and move up the aisles, the thousands of books piled 8 feet high from the floor, over 5 million titles (they claim), in almost every language and date of publication etc. etc., man building an almost catastrophic to the self exhibition. It begins to vibrate. I reach the place where I think the girl is but no one is here. Elsewhere people are kneeling and stretching and lying and yawning but no one walking. Somehow the snap generally indicates what she looks like. I can't say she's Asian, but she is dark in the hair like that, and petite, and her walk is graceful and unhurried. But then, there are a lot of claims in this library and there are a lot of refutations. And I'll never know all the different word combinations, discover all conveyed. But describing it was my first purpose and started me on this path that has resulted in my being a hack ass magazine article writer. I'm still glad I destroyed all my poems. Like you other hacks out there I have had to take solace in bits and pieces of supposed inspiration. (Albeit my bits and pieces have been larger than some, perhaps most, almost encompassing a whole & original. How many can say that?) "Notice the rhymes / Take note of my times / And the fact I didn't say "metre" / It's closest / Now / To the way it's always naturally flowed from me / The English language / Is like / This." Why do something that you're going to be considered a "lightweight" at? I won't do it. God damn it. I won't! "I'll blow my self out excesses first", I state well-measured, putting the lie to my statement. I fuck the dam shit. I write the sweet potato, the pick me up in any epoch granola.

I had been on my way out but now I'm gonna stick around and see. Move around. Listen. See if anybody fits close to my vision or suggests itself somehow to me. She's probably still on this floor, but sitting now, studying. Or what? Being vaguely bothered by her snap? Fully contemplating her own snap? Hoping to meet a man who loves her snap? Or a man who snaps himself? Should I walk around and purposely snap loudly and proudly? Snap this and snap that. It's oedipal in the BF section, two floors down and one wing over, where I've finally gotten back to work. It's funny how close to mortality true inspiration exists. Burn close to the page. If you're gonna burn your life burn it with a pen. With finally some appropriate re writes in the article complete, I leave. My ankle snaps with disdain.

While I'm moving down a favored aisle in the PS section (my circadian starting off point - the M's, and some L's and N's) my snap is bouncing off the bottom shelf, the snap snaps snapping, I begin to distinguish forms, then damn if it ain't words I can hear in the snap. Yes, my ankle is reading the names on the books I can't see - down there in the toes bleed section! I can hear it plain. Right now it's naming off the damn Nin Diaries. I start to run. The words speed up with me too, becoming unintelligible, and as I get out of PS the talking ends. It's only a snap again, vaguely suggesting. At the lounge section near the elevator I stop and shiver.

I should have heard her coming, but didn't. Then she brushed right past me. The most delicious black haired little wiggle I could ever have constructed myself, and with an unmistakable sweet baby snap coming from her pretty lower extremities. My chest hurts. I almost double over. She steps into the elevator. I'm too weak to act and the door closes. I watch the numbers move downly. I'm released and I rush over and push the button about 8 times. She's mine. No more of this Henry Miller-as-an-impotent-man bullshit. And if I'm going to emulate that son of a bitch I'm coming out now.

Upon reaching the lobby and not seeing her, I head out the door. There she is about half way across a stretch of lawn. And as I draw close I can hear the snapping. She's unknowingly beckoning to me. Interestingly, my snap is silent. She turns to see who it is she feels approaching. "It is I", I think. I almost rise to four toes. She swivels back unconcernedly. My will wavers. I stumble a bit swallowing that gulp of doubt and then touch her arm. She turns in question.

"I snap too" I say.

"What?"

What else to say!? I mean no harm. I come in peace. She's suspended in that momentary, but not unpleasant, ready to be surprised wait.

"My ankle snaps like that too", I tell her. She takes a brief glance downward. Now I've embarrassed her. No, that's not it. This perceived psychic ankle connection is shooting and missing. She's indifferent to it. And it can't go past her that my own gait has been as silent as the grass. She waits for more.

"Yeah, well I thought it was kind of interesting", I shrug.

Believe me, I'd love to have a simple emotion again and not one layered with analysis and on the other hands. But what I mostly am is in a hurry. I'm in a hurry to have already felt all the complexions, already identified the emotion, already expressed it, to be left with only happiness. I'm in a hurry to get off this mound of grass and back into the library. There are so many roads to go down. So many dependent on other's to cooperate fantasies on the way to happiness, and roads of happiness only to be found within myself. And they're all true. And they're all necessary. And presumably they all meet up somewhere right about here. So perhaps it is teleological. There's some comfort in that.

I suddenly sense the muse and I grab the first place to sit. Now in addition to that stupid article, and indeed, more so than that stupid article, I've been writing a novel for the last ____ years. It's written 3rd person and, I let myself believe that this is a master stroke. (I'm too cowardly to attribute a rape to an "I" character), my main beloved character, my hero, is going to (in all its descriptive splendor): "... leaves crunched sinisterly under foot. It had begun to drizzle some so soon the crunch will turn into a slippery mush. David's eyes were transfixed on the street light above, illuminating the slight watering..." Uh... change "watering" to... "rain." Yeah. Forget "watering", I cry out loud. I'm letting my seams show. Never let your seams show. Never never ever. And never change your focus and destroy the illusion. I cross it out. Pointless drivel, damn it! Why couldn't I have been a carpenter? Or a beer drinking, pool playing, television watching laborer mechanic? I'd be much kinesthetically happier. I bet I wouldn't even snap. But alas... "David heard the scream and cautiously moved down the concrete steps and into the urban thicket, one hand on the railing, and saw a large man in a dark jacket leaning over a paralyzed woman. He moved one more slow step to size up the situation and the man shot him a 'what-a-ya gonna do?' look. The poor bloodied woman notices him now also and so he has to act."

This is the point where I throw in the towel. This is it. This is what the mu-u-u-use is telling me. I'll never be a real writer. I think about the word "towel" and realize how strange it is. It sounds griswold and means nothing. Where the hell did it come from? I look at my hand. The calluses once there are missing. My soft hand works exquisite lines. A soft hand - so easy to kiss. It nestles my chin like a mother and wraps around a pen. It would cry around a shovel - or a shawl. I get out of the library as fast as I can go, snapping all the way.

I finally feel fresh purpose so it doesn't even surprise me to find in the dark parking lot a screaming woman with a man on top of her. I grab him. Throw him off. Break his jaw. He runs away limping. The grateful female takes one look at me and runs off screaming. I rush home myself now, with my purpose. I have one last thing to do before I forever hang up my pen. I have to fix my article and get it sent off to Real Men@ magazine. Then start looking for a job. My writing career is over. But I know what I'll do. I'll rape Gloriana Allwet with my pen. I'll rape feminhiss. I'll rape censorship! I begin to write:

Exalted creatures. Great Frontier. The diapason of nature is about and among us. Happiness. When in stalks Gloriana Allwet. Her nose to the ground. She spots something. In that bullhorn voice of hers, she begins to yell. Look! It's a blue rock. Look at it here. It's a blue rock! Do you see it? Yes it is! It's a blue rock! And it's right here. Look! Look!" This was strange enough but now something shocking happens. Some of the originally untroubled by blue rocks, or anything else, walk over to look and begin to also angrily shout. "Yes. Yes. You're right. It is a blue rock!" She then attempts to convince them that they have no right to view blue rocks.

Postscript

Writing career over now, and my new career selling cars underway, I return to the library a few weeks later undisturbed to merely pass some time. I'm sitting at a table letting everything go over my head naturally when I feel a tap on my shoulder. By golly, it's the girl with the ankle snap. She says,

"Hi. I heard you snapping over there, but you didn't notice me."

"Oh. Hi!"

"So. You really do snap."

"Yep."

Her name is Joy and we're being married in June.

PPS

Don't let me meanwhile you

Because I'm so ingoing I know this.

The End