“That’s why I cut you just to heal you.”

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Since I’m unemployable, I do odds and ends jobs.

 

Thus, I find myself working manual labor for a military attorney in some extremely rural town in Oklahoma.

 

He’s a great guy.

 

We get along.

 

And he’s one of the few that doesn’t look at me like a total fuck-up, degenerate (what with my long hair and Motörhead facial topiary).

 

Smart man.

 

That one thing, if nothing else, brings him a windfall.

 

 

 

See, he’s 44 and dating a 20 year old.

 

Thus, it comes to pass that I – an overweight, former (well, mostly former) drunk, writer – sitting in his deceased mother’s recliner, walk him through how to handle her.

 

Don’t let her drag you into drama, I say.

 

Let her sweat your absence.

 

If you doubt whether or not you should respond to a message:

 

Always choose silence. 

 

 

 

I give the aforementioned directions between bites of mass-produced cherry pie and sips of 2% milk.

 

All the while, the 20 year old ingenue that looked at me as though she got whiff of dog shit when she met me—

 

Begs for his attention and binds herself to him with ever stronger ties. 

 

 

 

See, one of the hardest things for “Nice Guys” to understand is this:

 

Healthy women like to suffer.

 

[DON’T CONFLATE SUFFERING WITH ABUSE.]

 

It’s a feature; not a bug.

 

If they didn’t, humanity would’ve died out, long ago.

 

[Birthing, being what it is, and kids being pains while breast-feeding, and all.

 

Chalk yet another one up for the Book of Genesis.]

 

 

 

Brother, it’s no coincidence that “cutting” and women’s lib ended up on the same commuter train into town.

 

If you won’t hurt them, someone else else will.

 

And if no-one else will (boyfriend, dad, et al)—

 

They’ll fucking do it themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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