Jay Fox - THE WALLS

“I’ve got to live a little less prodigiously until this Friday.”

“ Prodigiously ?”

“What?”

“Fucking prodigiously ? Are you serious?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you really have to throw that one out there?”

“You do know what it means, right?” Aberdeen asks.

“Of course I know what it fucking means.”

“Then why are you berating him?”

“Whatever,” he sulks.

“We can cover you,” Aberdeen says sympathetically.

“Totally, man. We’ve all been there before.”

“Really? I mean, it’s not like I have to drink tonight.”

“To enjoy this band you do,” Tomas counters between two shallow burps.

“And, well, we do kind of owe you.” Tomas and Lindsay both look to Aberdeen with curiosity. “We never did apologize for that fake Coprolalia from the other night.”

“Oh. That.” Tomas is quiet for a moment. “And I guess I did kind of ditch you the other night. Well…I guess other night s .”

Aberdeen looks to him. “What other—”

“Boots.”

Aberdeen nods uneasily. “But about the other, other night. We just needed you to come out because—”

“Did you guys need, like, a ride or something?” Lindsay asks.

“Wingman,” I respond.

“I think she dug you, man. And she seemed like your type, too.” He pauses. “Fuck man, for all the shit you’ve said about that Connie girl…you know, it really seemed like that Jane chick was right up your alley.”

“I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend until the following morning,” Aberdeen explains. “Neither one of us did.”

“I think she totally dug you, though.”

“You two are incorrigible,” Lindsay proclaims. Tomas rolls his eyes. “I’m going to the washroom.”

“Seriously, though; she was totally fucking into you.”

“She was a little put off by the incident at the end of the night, though.”

“The incident? There wasn’t a fucking incident.”

“You didn’t offer her a ride.” Tomas opens his mouth, but Aberdeen quickly puts a cap on his predictable wit. “A cab ride.”

“I was going the opposite way.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, man.”

“Plus it seemed intrusive.” I pause. “Maybe presumptuous is a better word.”

“Presumptuous my ass.”

“You can’t abandon a woman.”

“You two are serious? You’re really going to reprimand me for this?”

“You just can't do that, man. I don't care if she has a fucking boyfriend — who's two states away, might I add. I don't care if she's not interested in fucking you. If you're the last person that she knows in a bar or at a party, you are responsible for her.” He parses out each syllable like a postman. “This is not because women are weak, mind you.”

“Are you trying to mollify a feminist somewhere?”

“ Mollify !” Tomas howls. “You have to love this fucking guy!”

“He's just letting you know that you have certain obligations. You should listen to him.”

“And feminism has nothing to fucking do with it, dig. Set your spite, your fucking resentment, aside and cognosize where you live.” Cognosize? “This is the real world, man. And in the real world women have a serious chance of being fucking raped if they're out on their own. If there's so much as another chick out with her,” he shrugs, “then the situation isn't as percacious.” Huh? “But if she's alone, you gotta man up, man. Call it a double-standard if you will, but it's the imperativious thing to do, dig.”

“This is the world in which we live. Brooklyn may be safer than it used to be, but there are still some dangerous people floating around.”

“I'm loving this little lesson on chivalry, but—”

“Chivalry!” Tomas scoffs. “This isn't about fucking chivalry, man; this is about preventing some serious shit from going down. Look, if you want to profess some type of Dworkinite bullshit, then be my fucking guest; but don't try to tell me that men and women interact in this world the same fucking way. Sometimes women need to be protected, man. More importantly, sometimes they need to be fucking fucked.” He notices a look from Aberdeen, myself, and at least two innocent bystanders. “Yes, broads want to be fucked, dig. Believe it or not. Believe it or fucking not,” with hands waving in a kind of boogieman impression. “They don't just want to make love; sometimes they want to be fucked: penetrated, groped, fucking ravaged, fucking fucked,” with exuberant pelvic thrust. “They want that shit, man. They want to feel that shit in their diaphragms.”

“Tomas,” I begin.

“Yeah, I know. You're going to throw me some line about the majesty of love and all that other bullshit. But I'm not looking for love, man. I am looking for sex. And I've got it fucking easy, man. I know that I exploit what I have going for me. But to say that I'm doing it because of some type of misogyny is bullshit. I am not defiling chicks by fucking them — because the vagina is not sacred. It's nothing more than the inverse of my cock. And that's it. It holds no mystical value, dig? It holds a mysterious value for men because, guess what, men don't have fucking pussies (several looks). Men wrote the myths because only men were writing. And guess what? They didn't understand the vagina — or women for that matter. It, the vagina, the pussy, the bearded-clam, the darkness at the end of the tunnel, doesn't require reverence. It doesn't even deserve respect because it's just a fucking orifice. Women deserve respect, just as every fucking person deserves respect. And they'll get it from me. Every person in the world has my reverence until they give me a reason to feel differently. But the vagina is just fucking flesh and blood—”

“—Among other things,” Aberdeen adds coolly.

“—And that's fucking it. And this is not to say that I don't love vagina, man. I love vagina more than any man or fucking dyke in here (even more looks). But to ask me to see a woman as anything other than my equal is asking me to support fucking chauvinism. It's not reverse-chauvinism, like some asshole Reaganite might say; it is chauvinism. Look it up in the fucking dictionary: An unjustifiable belief in the superiority of a cause or a viewpoint or a belief. That's your pal Dworkin, dig? No justification. The vagina deserves to be fucking worshiped because it is a vagina, because she has one. Fuck that, man. I don't revere my dick. So fuck all that bullshit. Fuck it just as much as fucking male chauvinism. My dick is a piece of flesh that I love, but I don't ask other people to fucking love it. Well,” he pauses, “That's not entirely true.” It's suddenly as though he's awaiting a laugh track. “But you see my point, right? You see, we're no different than them when it really comes down to it. Yeah, we're different because of brain chemistry and hormones and other physionomical shit, but that's it. That's what separates us. Women are just as good as men, and women are just as evil as men — there just haven't been enough women in power to reveal that cruelty knows no gender. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a universal. It's a fucking fact about human nature.”

“Are we done here?” Aberdeen asks.

Tomas halts, sucks on a molar, looks as though he is going to say something, and then clears his throat. “Yeah, I'm fucking done.”

I feel my ribs jingle along with Barazov's erratic drumming. SG becomes audible: “What the fuck, man?”

Aberdeen yawns. “You shouldn't have provoked him by mentioning Dworkin. He really hates her — especially the arguments she put forth in Intercourse .”

“I didn't even mention her!”

“Maybe it was implied.”