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Okay.
I’ve got my heart started. One week into driving my
new car: NW Portland, yuppie shithead woman makes an abrupt
left turn from the right lane of a two-lane one way street,
directly in front of me. And behold, the new car stops on
a dime. The old car would have plowed into her driver’s
side door and sent her to the hospital. She smiles and waves
from the driveway of the condo she just pulled into. I curse
in vain. My point? The only thing worse than a woman driver
is the woman who’s driving you nuts—with desire
or her demands.
Ah,
the good old bad old days, can you remember when women used
to cower in fear, trembling behind the wheel when they,
inevitably, made some typically abstract driving maneuver.
If I had just done the same thing, I wouldn’t be sitting
there laughing my fool head off. But that’s because
I’m expected to apologize for being born: an American
white male. At least now I know how well my Japanese anti-lock
brakes work.
But
let’s back-up. Haven’t men brought this raging
ridicule upon themselves? When you stereotype a gender,
you can’t blame them for living down to it. What better
response than the divine comedy of absurd laughter. I.E.,
I’m just doing what you expect out of me. So, quit
your bitching, pal.
In
the 70s, we became the sensitive male and stood behind our
women—burning their bras and marching for equal rights.
Alan Alda was our hero. And let me tell you: being sensitive
worked for getting a lot of pussy. Till it quit working.
Women wanted us to have our own feelings, not borrow theirs.
So in the 80s, we resurrected the macho man. Rambo was our
hero. Joseph Campbell took us on the OPB journey to find
“Iron John.” And we alienated women, who said,
“Please, not those feelings.” In the 90s we abandoned
our feelings for our new God, Greed, as we understood him.
Greed is close cousins with power, property and prestige.
Women wanted us, so far as they could further their own
ends. We abandoned all heroes for capital gains. Drove a
stake through the heart of Iron John. Competition severed
us from our buddies. And then we were discarded by women--just
using us to climb the ladders: social, financial, sexual,
workplace etc. The most toys didn’t win. Even Bill
Gates couldn’t have his way forever; facing anti-trust
suits armed with a flotilla of silk-suits-attorneys, he
still lost. The King Is Dead. Long Live the Queen.
Women
are acting more like us--in our prick-liest daze. And getting
away with it, just like we did. And we hate them for succeeding
at the game we invented. Hypocrites that we are. Alienation
rules the day, and those lonely nights. Because she got
the car, the kids, the house and the support of your so-called
mutual friends. And she’s already dating again. While
you got, well, the hot lead enema.
So,
my hat’s off to that woman driver, who dove across
my lane of traffic to pull into her condo. Laughing. In
the rear-view receding, I saw her, inexplicably, back-out
of the condo driveway into the street. I guess she changed
her mind, forgot something at the store. Who knows. The
point is: She can. And I’m stronger for it. Know my
reflexes, stopping time. Know that I can wait. Get out of
her way. And some day, all the arrogant mistakes that I/we—the
white American male—have made, could catch up with
her, too. Next time I slam on my brakes for a woman driver,
I’ll just laugh. What else can I do? Grace is knowing
it’s not your turn anymore. You already had yours.
It’s her turn, finally, completely. Let’s see
what you’ve got; where do you want to go today? Children
get mad because they have to wait, or they lost their turn.
Not men.
There’s
nothing left to prove. I can drive and cook better
than any woman I know. So what. It’s tough to face
how the tables have turned: women need men a lot less than
men need women these days. A woman doesn’t even need
a man to conceive anymore. Just his sperm. It’s tough
to swallow: you’re not needed, no longer necessary.
You’re window dressing from another time in a retro
store.
At
the core of this new invisibility is a dawning freedom,
boundless, exhilarating. There’s a new frontier; without
the responsibilities once shackled to women or society,
man is free to evolve into (serial killer or saint, you
decide)?
“I’m
going to be taking your table away soon,” the twenty-something
female corporate coffee worker announces in all deadly seriousness.
“Whatever.”
As
if I need her table to rest or create my ideas upon. Nice
try. I’ll write myself on the sky, where she’ll
never see it. Too busy down here hustling after everything
that I once had. Let me tell you; it’s hardly worth
it.
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