what fun it is to be a woman

this last one was a turkish bastard. the one before was an israeli bastard. the turk was a blonde-haired blue-eyed anti-semite (“my boss is a greedy man. a jew, you know what i mean?”). the israeli was a blonde-haired blue-eyed jew.

the turk
a real sweetheart. european kisses at the turnstile. an aryan 6’4’’ stance with banker shoes, just spit-shined black. we meet on the greyhound. he makes a calm wasp-line for the empty seat besides me. i grimace through headphone barricades and there is no eye contact for three hours. when i ask him to please move so i can go to the bathroom he rolls his eyes. i am vaguely interested, slightly irritated, and far from intrigued. i am quick in the bathroom, barely pissing, barely touching the toilet seat, barely wiping my ass because there isn’t any toilet paper. i smile this time, make a verbal apology, shimmy awkwardly over to my seat. he never seems to move his body far enough out of the way. perhaps he has not yet mastered the art of maneuvering those huge gangly body parts.

i bring my bag back up to my lap. i am vulnerable. i need the bag for protection and he can tell. he stares at me sidelong. no one seems to realize how far my peripheral vision extends. i can see all the way around my head in 360 degrees and i turn. direct. what the fuck do you want. comments, sprinkled here and there. please acknowledge that sneeze with me. oh, look, we just went over a bump. look at me and we can laugh about it. together. together forever.

he asks where i am from. and i answer. and he asks and i answer. and the next thing i know i am putting my headphones away. and i am laughing. and i am flirting. in fact, i am trying to be what he wants me to be; witty, interested, available, flirtatious, sexual, educated, funny, american. you name it and i make it so. he is calling my phone to make sure the number is not a fake. my phone rings and he smiles. he is embarrassed to stand up i am afraid. his hands casually placed in either pocket, draping the fabric, jangling the change. oh where oh where is your pocket watch mr. banker man. he waits for me to get off the bus. we have a date for the following friday. he will be standing outside in the cold waiting for me in front of an authentic turkish restaurant.

the israeli
a fucking prick if ever i’ve seen one. we both must have been three or four sheets to the wind because i barely remember anything until we are at my gate. he has walked me home. i think he followed me off of the train and down the street. i think he could tell i was drunk. which means i was more drunk than him. and he stepped up next to me, both of us in full stride, and he said hello. and he said he lived in my neighborhood, in fact we are very close neighbors, and i, drunker than usual but still being my typical self, responded rather vivaciously, grinning and flirting and being the great potential that he wants so badly for me to be. an exciting thing that seemed to just come out of no where on a dead-end night like tonight, bars closed, no luck, friends gone home, and your cold bachelor pad awaiting you, it awaits you still, but it is different now, because you have seen a girl with sparkling blue eyes and you had a conversation with that girl that flowed just like butter. you said knock knock and she said who’s there, and tonight, even though you will sleep alone, you will have something to look forward to, something to dream about, someone to pine after, a crush to keep you going until that magical three day waiting period is up and you can give that number a call. i can’t fucking believe i gave that prick my number, but more than anything -- i can’t believe he kissed my hand at the gate:

kiss my hand at the gate because you are a balding middle-aged man, prematurely so at the age of thirty, lonely, much too familiar with the curve of your own penis, much too blasé to attract anyone interesting, lost in a city that moves far too quickly for your backed-up thoughts and much too slowly for your ego, misplaced, away from country and language and a place to hang your hat and practice your patriarchal, sheet rolling, dinner eating, tobacco spitting ways. fuck you. fuck you and your swollen overused cock. i hope it shrivels up and turns black here in the u.s.