Parking Lot Blonde

Sweet little blonde. She’s so pretty it makes me want to chew my arm off. She’s so gorgeous it makes me want to grind my teeth. She’s so beautiful it makes me want to drive a school bus full of children top speed into the Grand Canyon.

Get out of your little Mini Cooper and walk past me on the parking lot without so much as making eye contact. Professional woman. With your white blouse and your brown skirt that hugs your thighs.

It’s not your fault. But one glance at you and I already hate you to the core of my soul.

The avoiding eye contact thing stings. I understand why you do it. But understanding why you do it only makes it sting more. Makes me want to grab you by the shoulders and shout, “You bitch, I’m just as human as you are!”

And worse. So much worse, just from one look at you.

What’s the point of you existing if I can’t fuck you whenever I want?

God, I hope your boss makes you eat so much shit. I’d make you eat so much shit. I hope you drive home every night crying because work feels like hell. I hope you get pregnant on a drunken night out and have to make an agonizing choice between keeping it and focusing on your career. I hope no matter what choice you make, for the rest of your life you’ll be haunted by the thought it was the wrong choice.

Won’t even make eye contact. Like I’m some kind of defective. Like you think you’re better than me.

And the reason it upsets me so much is that I think you’re better than me.

… shit.

I didn’t expect that thought.

I had it all planned out, too. What I was going to write about. Wanting to fuck you and never talk to you again. Wanting to lay my head on your chest and let out the tears because I’d like to feel safe enough around you not to have to put on some bullshit act. Wanting to drive you out to the edge of town, rape you and murder you, then store your body in my freezer where I would cook you up and eat you like a steak.

Then I wanted to talk about how it’s not just you, it’s every woman I’m attracted to that makes me feel all these things.

But this takes the wind out of my sails. I really think you’re better than me. And all the rest was blowing smoke to hide it from myself.

Fuck…

I can’t be angry now. Probably will be later, but right now it seems like a big act. Where to go from here…

Well, a few years back there was a show called Two and a Half Men, starring Charlie Sheen. I was probably in high school at the time, and I was watching it in the living room with my mother. Which was a little unusual because neither one of us watched the show that much, and even when we did we didn’t watch it together.

Anyway, there was a “hilarious scene” where Charlie Sheen — who’s character in the show was also named Charlie, a curious little fact that’s probably revealing as to the nature of the typical American sitcom — is lying in his bead between two gorgeous women. A blonde and a brunette, likely, although my memory’s fuzzy. Probably the scene involved Charlie’s dweeby brother discovering the trio in bed together and being scandalized while Charlie says something that makes him look cool and the two women remain silent because the network would have to pay them more if they had any lines.

But to get to the point: a commercial break comes on. My mother turns to me and says, “You do know real women don’t look like that, don’t you?”

I was stunned. I mean, they were some uncommonly fine-looking women, but nothing you couldn’t equal at a trip to the mall or local swimming pool. Plenty of real women looked that good.

Who knows why she said it? Maybe she felt threatened in some way.

I don’t know and I don’t care to ask.

But what I heard through her words — growing up in our family was a graduate course in subtext — was, “Geof, real women don’t look like that, for you.”

You don’t deserve a woman you’re attracted to. You don’t deserve to get anything you want. You really only exist to please me.

And what was I supposed to do? I was her good boy.

I nodded and said, “Yes.”

It would be a bit much to attribute a deep-seated feeling of inferiority to a single event. But that one sticks out in my memory.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to walk past a beautiful blonde without feeling like she’s erasing my existence if she doesn’t make eye contact.