A World Of Satisfaction

“Oh, hell, those people!” Mike snapped when somebody mentioned a couple of the supervisors at work. “Far as I'm concerned, somebody just needs to rip their fuckin' heads off and shit down their goddamn necks. Maybe then they'd wake up!”

“Jesus, that's gross,” Don said, though he was clearly amused by the idea and by the ferocity with which Mike expressed it.

“I don't care,” Mike drawled, “and I don't give a rat's ass! He was grinning and snarling at the same time, apparently enjoying his diatribe. “It'd improve their goddamn dispositions, if you ask me. I know it'd give me a world of satisfaction to see it!”

Over in the corner Jason, had been listening quietly as usual and now he cracked up.

“Jesus, I can't believe the stuff you're liable to say, Mike!”

Mike Patterson was the major domo, the prima donna, the loudest voice, among the boys at the shop. His style was intelligent, high-flown, imaginative, yet thoroughly gut-bucket vulgar and nasty. He could talk informatively for hours about his home computer and all his new programs, then turn around and praise to the skies some poorly-drawn crude cartoon from Hustler Magazine, usually one having something to do with excrement or women with the most immense exaggerated genitalia, preferably being penetrated by male organs the size of a man’s leg.

“Look at this guy!” Mike would chortle, shoving the magazine in somebody's face all the while so they could get a good look. “Just look at him, willya!” He was leaning back comfortably in his chair and snickering, pointing to the cartoon character whose penis had grown as large as he was.

“Well, he might be able to fuck the whole world now,” Red shrugged, “but the boy sure can't fuck any women.”

“Why's that?” Mike grinned. “Oh, hell, sure, he can, there's plenty of these skags around here with cunts big enough for one a those,” he smirked, exploding with laughter, yet seeming to speak with thorough conviction.

Red grinned back slightly, not wanting to show how dumbfounded or offended he was by the remark. He'd heard guys talking like this all his life, but he'd never understood it very well. Sometimes it seemed to go beyond the meanness of a joke. He wondered if Mike really believed all that moronic, humorless, and hateful stuff or if he talked like that because he hated women?

Maybe his momma dropped him on his head when he was little, Red thought.

Or could it have perhaps gone beyond that for men like Mike, that it somehow expressed how little respect Mike had for anyone, for life itself. It bothered him, but he knew better than to say anything about it. He knew he didn't have to say anything about it, so he always tried not to, yet sometimes Mike would read his thoughts.

“You can try to act like you're above it,” Mike grinned, but face it; men have got to have their revenge against women, and this is about the only civilized way there is.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Every man feels it, but not every man needs to go out and act it all out. These porno stories and cartoons act it out for most of us. I figure porn keeps the number of axe-wielding sex murderers down in the dozens instead of up in the thousands. Just my theory, of course.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Red muttered. “Just a theory, I mean.”

“Except, of course, I seem to recall you saying a couple of times how hundreds, maybe thousands, of women owe you gratitude for not following your initial momentary impulse to just jump on 'em and fuck 'em!”

“I have said something like that,” Red said with chagrin. “I don't know if we're talking about the same thing or not. I wouldn't actually say that to a woman.”

“Well, I don't drag 'em over here and force their heads down in these gut-bucket nasty Hustler magazines, either,” Mike snapped. “You think you're better than me when you're only a little more insistently polite about your language and your images than I am. A lot of this stuff is all the same stuff, I say.”

“Maybe. God, I hope not, though,” Red sighed.


THE END

4th draft: 02/08/07
©1990 Ronald C. Southern