Things in the dark.
My merry band of misfits, or more accurately, Dolly’s merry band of misfits, because he had largely taken over the leadership position, was now entering the high country. Highway 395 intersected with Highway 50 at Carson City, Nevada and that’s where we turned west.
Carson City turned out to be like a lot of other medium-sized towns in the apocalypse, mostly abandoned, though we saw signs of recent human activity we saw no humans, which suited us just fine.
Dolly thought the Dreadfuls were hanging back to heighten our fear of eventual contact, which worked marvelously on me.
It scared the crap out of me, knowing those crazies were back there, just waiting for the right time to attack us and do all sorts of weird shit to us. Stuffy joined me in our fear culture club because he’d been part of what he called a “bad guy lite” group and then saw what the heavies in the world of bad guyness could do. He mentioned to me, in confidence, that if they showed up he would most likely live up to his name.
Tiki with his, justifiable but ever more annoying, fear of being eaten, had taken to following Stuffy around like a dog, having decided that the safest place for him would be in back of someone who looked tastier than he did, a viable strategy in the world we lived in.
Por was a mystery. She did not exhibit any signs of concern about what was coming for us.
“Aren’t you afraid of those people?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Is that all you’re going to give me?”
“There you go again.” She said.
“What?”
“You haven’t asked anyone else if they were afraid.”
“That’s not true. I talked to Stuffy about it.”
“Did you ask him if he was afraid?”
“Not in so many words.”
“I didn’t think so. We’re going to need some ground rules.”
“What kind of ground rules?”
“I can tell by the tone of your voice that you’re still harboring some antiquated ideas about male/female relationships. So we’ll need some rules to, hopefully, encourage you to start thinking in broader terms about the roles we’re playing in this environment.”
“I’m not harboring anything.”
“Before the collapse, how long had it been since you had a woman friend?”
“I had lots of women friends.”
“Did you attempt to defend them when needed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have an equal number of male friends?”
“I did.”
“Did you attempt to defend them when it was needed?”
“They were guys. They didn’t need to be defended.”
“So all your guy friends were capable, by virtue of them being guys, of defending themselves.”
“Not all of them.”
“But all of your women friends needed to be defended? Do you see where I’m going with this? Those are the antiquated ideas I’m talking about. You dragged that shit with you into the apocalypse.”
“I think you’re being a little unfair.”
“Look, we’ve talked about this, but you seem to be a little slow, so I’ll lay it out for you as plainly as I can. I’ll try not use big words, and I’ll speak slowly so you can grasp the ideas.”
“That’s uncalled for.”
“Au contraire, it is so called for. I think you should probably repeat after me to see if that helps short circuit your old-world conditioning. I’ll maybe present these as ideas rather than rules, so you won’t get all butthurt. Idea number one, women never needed you to protect them. Idea number two, women have always been stronger and more capable than you could possibly imagine. Idea number three, and this is more of a strongly worded suggestion than a rule or idea, get your shit together pussy, and think twice before coming to me with your pretend concern again, or I’ll kick your ass.”
She turned and walked away, leaving me standing there with my mouth hanging open. I’m not sure if anyone reading this has ever been humiliated on this level, if not, it’s fucking brutal. It’s like someone hollowed out your insides with a hot ice cream scooper. You’re burning with embarrassment at the same time as you feel completely empty. It’s tough love at it’s most basic level, not softened, or sugar-coated, or given with any sense of empathy or compassion, just the cold, hard, unvarnished truth about what a dick you are. Even with this attack on who I am, I noticed way back in the lizard brain part of me a tinge of resentment at her for talking to me that way, and then a little voice saying that’s exactly the point you dickswab. You just won’t let go of it and here you thought you had become all enlightened and shit.
I will now, and for the foreseeable future feel like a kid who is forced by his parents or the evil nuns in grade school to stand in front of the class and admit to wetting the bed.
I looked up and noticed that I had fallen behind the group, and I picked up the pace a little to catch up. I so needed that mai tai now.
Getting hit in the head with a rock is a lot different than I thought it would be, even though I hadn’t spent a lot of time trying to imagine what getting hit in the head with a rock would feel like, it’s an initial explosion of pain, followed by, and I shit you not, seeing stars, the secondary effect is being conscious of all your body parts giving up and abdicating their responsibility to provide support, then the pain that goes through your whole system as you strike the ground with way more force than the structure was designed to endure, and then blackness, with the final conscious thought being, what the fuck?
Thank you Michael🙏
Can't wait for part 37!