The Weight of The World...

"The woman is the home. That's where she used to be, and that's where she still is. You might ask me, What if a man tries to be part of the home - will the woman let him? I answer yes. Because then he becomes one of the children..." - Marguerite Duras

By Patrick Alcatraz
Editor

WEST FORT WORTH, Texas - It is in the first days after a romantic flirtation that I usually wallow in some sort of self-analysis. It isn't that I want to be critical of my words and my actions toward women; I simply fill a need to wonder away the Big Picture, this Life. If we are here to be human, to live and love, to work and play, to do and have done, then what I do in this regard is normal. I like to send women letters a year after the ending. What I write never explores the reasons for why things died; they are more notes about the state-of-things. How have you been and has your hair grown-out are two sentences. Somewhere in there, I throw in a thing or two about what I'm up to - my work, my play, my hair. Invariably I get a reply, always via the convenient E-mail, which is one of our many resignations to technology and distance. I agree with those who say there is a certain sadness in technology. I do wish I could ride a horse & buggy over to some woman's house and invite her to climb aboard.

There must remain at least one meadow for an afternoon picnic. But, who knows? Perhaps it is as the pop-sociologists say: that yesterday is gone. Is a cup of black coffee our last memory of another lifestyle. Do not think that I am reflecting on a better time. It's just that today's world is a hurry-up exercise in throwing things away - from women to garbage to traditions to culture. I can't remember meeting one Hispanic girl who talked to me in Spanish. Not in this God-abandoned country. And, for sure, not one would choose the horse & buggy over, say, a Lexus or a BMW at date's beginnings.

Sex is the last refuge of the traditionalist, the purist.

That same Hispanic girl would fuck me in the usual way, not one novel move in her body, and not one crazy demand. Even if she approved anal sex, you know she'd throw out some fake moaning and lies that they, for some reason, believe work in the sack, like, "I've never wanted to this before, because it hurts." Of course, with the proper lubricants, it surely cannot hurt as much as they would lead you to believe. That gorgeous slide-in comes as easy as a hot knife through butter. (Excuse me while I smile and take a sip of my coffee; I am so thankful, yes...) It's yet another false pain humans throw at civilization. Most of us reserve those thoughts and utterances for Sunday morning, when a trip to the neighborhood church reportedly is enough to cleanse something. I don't know. I feel cleaner after I bathe and at no other time.

Can there be something I'm not getting? I mean, about life and about relationships. It's not even a vicious world we live in anymore. There is no adjective for this mess. And forget about trying to explain the cheapness with breathing. It's a losing proposition, like smiling in a crowd of clowns.

Yesterday, a girl I met at the coffee shop looked at me, but did not approach. I thought it was strange, seeing that she had been friendly for a good two weeks. I hate mysteries in my life, at least of the human kind, so I walked over and asked about her stand-offishness. She said, coyly, with a look that told of fright and disappointment: "I...Googled your name..."

"And?"

"It said you're married to some woman named Elaine Benitez, a Central American..."

Well, there is an entry to that effect. But it's not true. I said as much, but drew nothing I'd consider progress. Her face had left me, taking a nice ass with it. It was the Ol' Internet Adios - a bitch of a growing hassle for Today's Man...

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