THE HAIR CUT by M. Maines

I have been feeling overwhelmingly happy lately. At eight a.m. on Saturday, after a run, I felt a rush of zestfulness which had been absent in previous weeks. When excitedly debating if I should plant the marigolds first, or perhaps plot the herb garden, but either way, I’ll wear that pretty new dress, I treasured the sensation as a testimony that things are going well.

Within the impulsive sequence of fulfilling my desires, I chose to cut my hair. I biked up to Washington St to get the style I had been lusting of for weeks. A man that hated the cold sculpted my black mane quickly, and with confidence. It was an asymmetrical shape, short on one side, long on the other. There is a small gradient of bangs off to the left. I left feeling beautiful. A man was standing on the corner. He says, “Couldn’t ask for better weather.” I thought he was flattering me.

My friend Torin, who is the most talented within my circle of friends, had the same cut several months before. On her, it looked good, coy, established her as a force to be reckoned with. I like the look on me because it is whimsical and playful. I like it because I am doing something that I want. I also know, immediately, that a line has been drawn in the sand, for my boss will not like it.

That night, in front of the mirror on my dresser, I consider chopping off the long and pretty pieces. I practice posturing my hair just so, hoping that if I kept my head still, she wouldn’t even notice. The easiest thing would be to find the scissors now, but the action seems too sorrowful.

When I entered the building on Monday morning, I see my employer’s eyes registering me; her lips are still. Her position is clear. The mothers took a few days to respond. Julie, who is always wearing tennis shoes and glasses, said it looked like someone forgot to finish the cut, but the one side looked cute. Carry, the most emotional of the moms, said it looked youthful. Teresa, who is moody and formal, said it looked interesting after requesting that I move my head from side to side.

I’ve become insecure. I ask Maddie, a four year old, if it looks funny or if she likes it. Maddie, who is horrified by mistakes, says I should grow it out long because it looks very funny. I’ve been ducking over the children’s waist high mirrors, checking out my own black stripe. When I look at myself, though, I only see something that seems sweet, sensual, perfect to me. I’ll just indulge for this week, I argue to myself.

These young children are saddled with norms in a way that frightens me. I work at a pre-school. There, they all know that long hair is more socially desirable. Iris, who is sly and playful, draws herself with long rapunzel hair, and tells other people she will have long hair again soon.

I can’t imagine myself with long hair, for my hair becomes a wild stallion, a beast, and inside its cage of tangled locks, I am constantly frustrated. It is odd to me how hair becomes this site of female status positioning. I think of the younger populations I know, my social groups at the potlucks, who can acknowledge that this hair cut is relevant, rite of permission and acceptance, but of how limited that acceptance, how finite. My fickleness irritates me. I dislike this weakness of whispering questions to these small humans, of trying to comfort myself.

When I am at home, eating a Popsicle on a hot day at our new kitchen table, I start to think that they are probably correct, my hair cut is unprofessional, or worse, unattractive. But, at this point, the mildly aggressive boundary setting feels like a challenge. I have always considered myself a radical because I like the exhilaration of going against the grain. When my sister had cancer, my mother cut her long silken black locks into a something crude, something short. When my mother died, I wanted to shave my head as a sign of unity, but my father wouldn’t allow it. I could have used my own hand to buzz the strands, but perhaps I’ve always been the sort who paid too much attention to the rules.

THE CZECHS by Alice Jaffee

When I think of the essence of Czech culture, this song comes to mind: “Aproc Bychom Se Netesili.” It’s from Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride.” Full of optimism, joy, playfulness and always a hint of sex in this quite humorous opera.

So I wanted to tell you how I first came, yes, to hate it. I mean the whole opera. It was a weekday. Oh, yes, back when I was ten or so. I heard that we are going to the movies, to the big “Imperato Cinema,” to see a film of “The Bartered Bride.” The enterprising proprietor greeted us royally, counted the eight heads of the Bondy family, then the friends of ours who were always welcome to come -- Max Brettschneider, always, Hilda Eckstein, Erika Grohman and others. Cheaper by the dozen, so to speak. He usually came up with a reasonable price and put us into one of the front rows.

I had made up my mind I was going to sleep this one out. I was tired from extra gym activity. Just so tired. Alas, this one was much too noisy for my plan. Every time I could catch a little snooze – boing! Another loud, loud aria. Mingled with this malaise was the piano teacher’s verdict that I was tone deaf and could not be considered to become a student. To hell with all that classical music. I did like the “Schlaggers,” the popular hits like “Schon ist die Liebe in Haffen” and other schmaltz.

Many, many years later, in Woodstock, in fact, I woke up one morning and decided to listen to Smetana’s opera with unbiased ears. (It would be interesting to know what brought it on.) No one owned a copy of it – so, I went out to order one. It took weeks before it arrived. I loved it, loved it, loved it! – And this aforementioned song (aria) is now almost a mantra of mine. It translates “Why shouldn’t we be happy, since God granted us health!” The right to be happy, joyful, despite adversities, ours or others’. The Czechs really were that way.

One of my father’s tenants in the four-story building we lived in – a family – was a totally Czech family. The man never spoke German. His name was Suchy – which translates simply as “dry.” Dry he was, almost sour in temperament. He was a tax collector to boot!

Mrs. Suchova, on the other hand, made up mightily for all his shortcomings in social graces. In her presence one felt joyful. Her beautiful lips always about to break into a smile, her shiny black hair -- I remember it so well – was pinned back softly over the ears and the bright rhinestone barrettes met in the middle of the back of her head. Her bella donna eyes twinkled at you amid the milk-white skin of her face. She just seemed to enjoy the sexual innuendos that came her way. They surely had a contrasting balancing act. A playful and lusty pat on her backside was enough of a signal to exit.

Before I let them recede into my memory bank, I want to recall the great cleanliness and warmth of their home and the love she had for their son, Prender, who also never learned German. Paradoxically, my kid brother, Ruben, and Prender went to Czech school together. At this time it was deemed better to avoid German schools. Ruben spoke Czech to him.

Some of my favorite people were the peddlers. They would come after the workers left around 6pm. They would come by appointment. Some three or four of them. Buying men’s and women’s socks, women’s silk and wool stockings, men’s elegant white-on-white shawls made of rayon (“baum wolle”). The men just spoke Czech during the great exchange of energy – gusto and goods. My father, Sam Bondy, as all Czech Jews, spoke a condescending Czech – a noblesse oblige gesture. I don’t know if Pappa was aware of it.

When I saw them coming I quickly ensconced myself in a corner of the second floor at the big oak table where the show was about to begin. My mother appeared with the best Meinl coffee, her delectable pastries generously heaped. The precious gold-rimmed china already in place, the ones reserved for fine company. Nobody told me to leave. I endured all the off-color jokes and boasting about sexual conquests in the countryside while selling their wares. I liked the sparkle in their eyes and their joy of being royalty for the day. They praised Pappa to each other: “Faynovy clovek,” “What a refined man.”

Deep down Sam Bondy actually identified with them. Pappa was born into great poverty in the poorest of the poor neighborhoods on the southside of Chicago’s stockyards. His mother of noble Kohn birth in desperation sent her undernourished older son to Catholic parochial school solely because of the hot lunches – mama mia! He liked mingling with working people. He rose above them. His was an Horatio Alger story.

I liked when the peddler clients had made their purchases. They would finally turn to me and say something like, “Little girl, when you grow up and get married, don’t skimp on food. Skimp on other things, but eat healthy. Promise.” They said it to me in broken German. I must say I kept that promise.

Both my mother and father were skilled salespeople. Pappa had this ability I sometimes see on the Home Shopping Network where you can be seduced into feeling privileged to part with your money so gratefully for the honor of being the potential owner of this remarkable “gem” they are so lovingly stroking.

When the colorful men left they had tears in their eyes out of gratitude. Magic, n’est ce pas?

Another Czech personality I fondly remember – alas, her name I no longer remember – was our Czech teacher at school. She was so typically Czech. Darkish blond hair, blue eyes, robust health. She had this ambition to instill in us Germans a love for this Slavic language. There was this play (I think she had authored it) about the circus. She wore eccentric, theatrical skirts and blouses, definitely a thespian, a real Bohemian. I loved her. I remember all those talking circus animals and then there was Ferdinande and Jacobe – hopelessly in love with the same girl. She just could not reach those German schildren. They, alas, felt strangely aloof, subconsciously superior. Well, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

The play never came to be performed, but I had learned my part of the talking horse diligently. I very much suspect she never got much support from the school principal who regarded the Czechs an inferior minority. What an incredible chutzpah that was! Here was this newly established country – democratic to a fault. This Sudeten region was unfortunately a stronghold of a close Hitler ally named Conrad Henlein who delivered the Sudeten Germans to Hitler. Chamberlain’s shortsightedness made the rape possible. German culture was so entrenched. From the Austro-Hungarian empire – Yisgadal veyisgadash.

Deep down I must have identified with the injustice vis a vis the Czechs who were not treated as equals, as I was not by my family.

The saving grace is that the precious city of Prague with all its splendor was saved from destruction. American youths go there now to luxuriate in the coffee houses and find themselves in this sunny land of splendid democracy – Pravda Vitezi – the truth wins.

A CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE by Bennett Neiman

I’ve always been a very friendly, exuberant, positive person. Usually, when I am thrown into a group situation, I am the cheerleader or the MC or some other not-so-invisible role. At various times in my life, I have attempted to tone myself down and be less visible, but usually this quiet state only lasts for a short while. Whatever I am doing—I try to get into it with gusto.

And so, when my wife asked me to attend the Unity Church in Austin, TX with her, I did so quite willingly—even though it was a bit out of my comfort zone—being a very ethnic, unmistakable Jew.

Fortunately, this particular church was very into singing—which was perfect for me, since I love to sing. I took up my hymnal like a regular and very soon was exuberantly singing along with my Christian brethren, in a strong loud voice, as if I had been coming there for years.

Everyone was incredibly friendly at the Unity Church in Austin, Texas. Maybe it was because it was Texas or maybe it was because it was a “New Age” church. But, whatever it was, the people were very friendly and very gracious. They were friendly and gracious in the morning when we arrived. They were friendly and gracious at the place where the minister stopped and told everyone to greet the people around them, and they were friendly and gracious at the hospitality table after the service. That is—everyone but this one tall, very WASPs looking man who was there all the time. Whenever he saw me, he turned and went the other way. I tried to reach out to him, but to no avail. He was always snubbing me and sat as far away from my as possible. Obviously, he knew I was Jewish and he was an anti-semitic, Nazi bastard. So, I stopped trying to win him over and just snubbed him back. After all, this guy was, perhaps, the biggest asshole on the face of the earth, so why should I keep trying?

This went on for weeks and weeks. I told everyone I knew about the sour, anti-semite at the Unity Church. He became the laughing stock at my dinner table on several occasions.

Then on Sunday, the minister must have seen me glaring at him. She came up to me and said, “Bennett, do you have a problem with Ed Johnson?”

“No,” I said, “he has a problem with me. I think he’s anti-semitic.”

She looked amused. “No, I’m sure that is not right. Ed is a very liberal, egalitarian man. He is the head of our interfaith committee that works closely with the area synagogues. I know you are mistaken.”

I was taken back. I was sure he was anti-semitic, Nazi—but maybe I was wrong. But, he still is a very unpleasant fellow—and I told the minister as much. She wouldn’t let it go. She said, “Bennett, please do me and you a favor. Go over to Ed and ask him what’s the problem.”

So, I swallowed my pride and saddled over to the ex-Nazi. I asked if we could have a few private words. He obliged. We stepped aside to where no one else could hear. I told him that I had felt snubbed and disrespected by him and that everyone in the church had been so friendly to me except him and asked him if he had a problem with me.

He paused a minute to collect himself and spoke slowly. “Bennett," he said (I was surprised he even knew my name), when I come to church, it is to put myself in a quiet, meditative state. I love to sink into the quite grace of the beautiful building and the beautiful hymns. It is very disconcerting for me to be anywhere near you in church. You belt out the hymns like they are Broadway musical numbers. You don’t try at all to blend in, but instead, sing as loudly and exuberantly as you can. I hate it. It throws me off. You have a right to sing as you please, so I never said anything—but, I try to get as far away from you as I can—so I can have my own spiritual experience—and not yours. I am sorry I never said anything, but I am a quiet man and I don’t like conflict. I hope you understand.

I was dumbfounded. There was nothing I could say. I thanked him for his honesty. Later, I told my wife I was too ashamed to ever go back to the church again, but she wouldn’t let me off the hook.

For weeks after that, friends would ask me about the anti-semitic Nazi at the Unity Church—hoping to get more funny diatribes—so, the shame continued.

I did go back to the church and got to know Ed better. I stopped singing like I had something to prove and, instead, sang with everyone else. Ed and I eventually became friends. He is a wonderful man.

And I am, perhaps, the biggest asshole on the face of the earth. Actually, it was an important life lesson. Since then, every time I meet someone who pisses me off and seems vile to me—I think about Ed. It usually turns out that the person who pissed me off, really isn’t very nice—but now, I first look for the good—instead of quickly writing someone off. It works a lot better that way. And, oh yes, I sing a lot quieter, too.

THE CITY by Ruth Berg

There is a parking space in front of MOMA...on the south side of 53rd. Jim is clever...he easily backs into the small space. The old Volvo even has a bit of room to maneuver....I’m not sure why Karen and Jim kept the car when they moved back to the city but if you are as clever with parking as Jim, a car is a great convenience. I open the back car door and step out onto the sidewalk. There is a Sabrette street-stand next to the sidewalk. I can smell the onions, the sauerkraut. The aroma tempts me; I haven’t had a Sabrette hot dog in years. Across the street, I can see vendors with make-shift stands selling leather handbags and large swaths of cotton material from Africa. Fifty-Third Street has changed... no longer the pristine street I once knew so well...now alive with vendors and tourist

We walk to Sixth Ave. (Avenue of The Americas...the powers that be tried to change the name during WWII...it remained Sixth) Turning north, we cross 54th St. where I lived with my dog Hambone in a narrow room, cooking on a hot plate. I went to sleep to the sounds of cool jazz vibrating the floor coming up from Jimmy Ryan’s Club below and the club’s neon sign outside my window casting shadow patterns on the ceiling and the rhythmic drum beat from the strip joint across the street as the ladies bumped and grinded.

We continue up Sixth, cross 55th St. There is the Warwick Hotel. There use to be a drugstore tucked in with the hotel. Don and I would meet for coffee there. In her late years, I can see that Old Lady Warwick has fancied herself up...doorman and all. We cross Sixth and continue walking up to 56th St. turn left. I do not recognize anything on this street...for a year I took acting classes in a building on the north side...and across the street was Jerry’s where after class we gathered ( Ina, Barbara, Marty, Tony....Don would join us.) We’d each have a stein of draft beer trying to appear world weary with our cigarettes and sit for hours discussing acting, auditions, agents. One of us would have seen a fellow student in a Broadway show, declare that he/she was the only actor who was believable, who said his one line “ Dinner is served, Madam.” with such conviction that it delegated all others on stage to a role of ham emoters. Tony drove a cab, heavy Brooklyn accent, knew he would be a star. Now when I go to see any DeNiro or Scorsese or Coppulo movies, I search for Tony’s face in the background where the extras are. We all thought opportunity was around the corner: something marvelous was to happen; just turn the corner. I often wonder are there young people still coming into the city with the same dreams, ambitions, the same innocence that we had. I hope there are. How could our futures fail us? Jerry’s is now a sleek glass building.

On the north side of 56th, there is a French restaurant with tables outside. A lone man is seated at one of the tables...inside there appears to be no one. I think of the hole-in-the wall French bakery with three tiny tables where we had breakfast this morning. It is on First Avenue at 110th St. A constant flow of customers...Karen says they sell out 2 hours before noon. I understand why. I had a croissant that when I bit into it I was covered by tissue paper thin flakes of crust. The man sitting here at this restaurant seems embarrassed. Has he already ordered? Who didn’t show up? We walk on. Two doors further is the Thai restaurant; we enter. Howard is seated at a back table. The restaurant is already crowded, tables pushed close together. We maneuver to the back table...I’ve met Howard before....a brief meeting. I know he has been engaged 4 times...different women...but never made it to the altar. I don’t know whether he broke off the engagements or they did. We sit. I think Karen must have said something to Howard about my having pursued the theatre in the past because he immediately begins asking me where I had performed, for whom. In other words, he wants a resume. I am not a particularly secretive person except....this is one of the excepts.. I become vague....I ask him if he had pursued theatre. He says “No but I could have. I was in a High School production of “Our Town” and everyone raved about my performance...I probably would have been quite successful if I had pursued it. Everyone who saw the performance said so”. I ask “Did you enjoy the work?” His face becomes blank. He says “I really was outstanding.”At that moment the waiter appears for our orders. I have a salad with an exotic alien dressing that makes my taste buds dance. After dinner we hurry back to MOMA for the Korean film. Rushing along 6th, breathless and unsteady on my feet, memories from the past, of times when I stepped out with a clipped pace in high heels...3 blocks in less than a ½ minute..

The film is weird...I can not recall the film maker’s name .its gone into a memory box only to reappear another time unexpected. But I can close my eyes and the images of the mist shrouded lake appear, the woman rowing the boat, the man stripping off the sides of a large fish for sushi then throwing the live fish back into the water, its raw sides bleeding, exposed.

DISCONTENT by Grant Way

My discontent seems to be directly related to my impatience, frustration and general none acceptance of how things stand at a certain time. Not that this is the only time I feel discontent, just that these are usually present as well.

Diliala would definitely be a huge memory of discontent. Not that I started out that way. In the beginning we were drinking buddies. She stayed with me at my place in Brooklyn and I stayed with her family in Milano. We had a lot of good times together although they are really hazy. The discontent started when we got married. A decision made over sake in Avenue A Sushi on Avenue A. No surprise there I would Imagine.

It is one of those situations that happened purely from impaired judgment on both of our parts. When two people get together and both make a disclosure that they are an asshole in a relationship it is a sure sign to me today that there will be problems. Then, however, I was completely out of my mind in my alcoholism. In my mind we would get married and have a fairy tale ending. Everything would just work out perfectly. Ah, delusions.

Everything did change, it just got worse. My drinking partner changed. All of a sudden she was nursing her beers, I would end up drinking almost 3 to 1 to her. Then she would tell all our peers look at my drunken asshole husband. Which I played the part of very well. I would get nasty, bitter and paranoid.

A fun drunk I was not. At least not anymore. Fights, miscommunication, expectations from both of us. For so long we had been on the same page, we understood each other. Now it seemed like we were reading two different books. We never resolved anything, it all just lingered and festered. The discontent hurt feelings grew until the alcohol wouldn't even erase the pain.

IT'S MINE, ALL MINE by Sarvananda Bluestone

“Why do you collect erasers?” Mrs. Belisle, the baby sitter, asked me. I was nine.

“Gesell says that I am going through a collecting phase.” That’s what Ma had told me. She was a devout reader of Arnold Gesell. Fact is that I was always collecting.

I have been collecting as long as I can remember. First, and always, it was records and books. I remember carefully handling the twelve inch very breakable 78 RPM records that constituted the “Lonesome Train”. I was four. I had learned to write my first name. Two years later, when my father returned from the War, he taught me how to write my last name. I still have the album, containing four records; with my name carefully and clearly printed on the inside cover. I never broke a record until I was an adult. Then I got careless. The long playing records that supplanted the seventy-eights were unbreakable. I had thirty years to get careless. I put the “Lonesome Train” in a collection of records on the floor and accidentally kicked it. It was thirty-four years after I had received the album.

I needed—I wanted—I craved. These were the feelings connected to collecting. When I was little and heard the fairy tales that had kings in the counting houses counting out their gold I understood what they were doing. I didn’t have gold, but I knew the feeling. It was an old friend.

People were uncertain. They could come and go. They could come back and die. They never stood still. Friends would return every summer to Journey’s End-or not. But I could go over my things—my collections. They always would be there. They were mine for keeps. They were mine forever.

“I wish Ma and I would never die.” It was a mantra that I began I think when I was eight. Daddy was dying. I was sitting on the hill at Tally Ho Music Camp. It was only about eight miles from Journey’s End and we would go to their Sunday concerts. I sat on the hill on a blanket with some of the other kids as the music floated up the hill.

“I wish Ma and I would never die. I wish Ma and I would never die. I wish….

When Daddy died I added my brother, Paul. He was a pest but I did not want to lose him.

“I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die. I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die…”

Then I was nine and soon we moved from our twelve room mansion on the hill in Yorktown Heights—the house with the winding driveway and orchard and four door heated garage with an apartment above it. We moved from Yorktown and my friends and the house where Daddy had died. We moved into a two room apartment on Six West Ninety-Sixth Street in New York City. Ma decided to send me to Walden School, the only private school I ever attended where they let the students do anything they wanted. I spent most of my time running up and down the halls with my two friends, screaming at the top of my lungs.

It was the worst year of my life.

“I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die. I wish Ma, Paul and I would never die…”

It was the year that I went to see Stella Chess, a psychiatrist, who helped me to anchor myself in the swirling world.

One bright spot was that every day after school, I raced down to Woolworth’s. I would think about that every day during school. That was all I looked forward to and learned how to count the minutes until the end of school. I raced down to Woolworth’s and bought a little pad of loose-leaf notebook paper. It was always the same size.

I never got the notebook that the loose-leaf paper went into. And I never made a single mark with pen or pencil upon the blank sheets. I just collected pad after pad after pad. Soon I had collected a little stack of blank paper.

Ralph had come into my life. I hated him at first. Soon I revered him.

“I wish that Ma, Paul, Ralph and I never die. I wish that Ma, Paul, Ralph and I never die.”

When I started to teach my collecting continued. I had my own income. When I was married to Heather I managed to subscribe to seventy-five periodicals. Some of them were quarterly and some of them were weekly. I actually kept up with them and took notes—until the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966. Then I fell behind.

Heather had an ectoptic pregnancy. It came on so suddenly. She almost died. I never realized that I loved her until then.

“I wish that Ma, Paul, Ralph, Heather and I never die…..”

By the time I left Heather and married Marci, later to be Premrup, the periodicals were taking over the house. They spilled out of my study and started to flow down the stairs like some academic version of the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” When my five year old stepson, Jason, went careening down the stairs on some slick periodicals, Marci gave me a choice. “It’s either us or the magazines.” I made a major cut back on my magazines.

By now the list of people had come to include my daughter Julie Anne, later to be Hira. Right after she was born I would tiptoe into the room where her crib was and make sure that the cat, Phoebe, wasn’t sitting on her face. I would bend down and feel the gentle breath coming from that very small mouth.

I don’t think I ever included Marci in my list of people. I know I never included Marci. It was one thing to pretend that I loved her. It was quite another to include her in my prayers. And I never included my stepsons in my silent entreaties. This was one place where I was absolutely true to my fears and my love. I started to shorten my mantra to two letters: OX. I would simply repeat OX, OX, OX. OX.

I don’t remember when I stopped the mantra. I think it was after I had become a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. There was a period where I even had lost my fear of flying. The Master constantly spoke of the fear of death. For a while it began to recede.

The collections continued. With Heather I collected pot. Each purchase was put away in a little plastic box with an appropriate name. I got some grass from Justin Taylor in Vermont and called it “Vermont Justice”. The names were creative and the collection grew. When I went to grow some of my own from the seeds, I sprouted almost a hundred different plants. Not one of them survived except for a feeble little plant that was so weak I wasn’t even sure it was marijuana.

By the time I left to go to Rajneeshpuram in 1981 I had amassed three hundred cartons of books and records. That was my last major move. Before I left for the Ranch I had divested myself of all but my collection of poetry which I sent to Oregon before me.

“OX. OX.OX. OX’

When Ma died one of the greatest fears of my life had come to pass.

I still collected. I have collected books, software, tarot decks, crystals.

“OX. OX. OX. OX.”

I constantly fear for my daughter and my grand daughter. When she bought a Mini-Cooper I freaked out—internally. When she tells me that she is going to ride her bike to school with Lucy on the back, I swallow my fear. I no longer repeat the mantra. I stopped that long ago. I just worry and hope. At least now I can do Reiki. But I still collect. There is sureness there.

LANDSCAPE by Daniel Marshall

I’ve always liked women. I mean, of course I like women sexually; but besides that I’ve usually found women more interesting to be with than men—there are distinctions!

Today, I’m standing at the elevator, and there are already two men there waiting. This one, who’s tall and dark, like Wilt Chamberlain but not so tall, and missing his upper front teeth brings me into the conversation, which I think is very sweet and courteous of him. I catch the drift of it—like the two of them have been speaking Creole or Jamaican, and he’s bringing it down to me.

He’s apologetic. “You see,” he says, “we’re talking about strip clubs, and he don’t want to say that he was there, because you’re here.”

And the other interjects, “I think everyone’s got sexual thoughts!” I look at him, and he says it again. “I think everyone’s got sexual thoughts!”

“Absolutely!” I say. And they both look very relieved about me. “I mean, you’ve read the Gospels—the Bible, right?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” They’re in familiar territory, nodding vigorously; and I say, “It’s always interested me how forgiving Jesus is of sexual sins—even the woman caught in adultery. Now, adultery is a pretty terrible thing, because someone gets hurt!” Vigorous nods. “Yet, He just forgives her easily; but the Pharisees He has no use for. They’re actually killing people, greedy, with their righteousness! Hot-blooded sins He forgives easily; but cold-blooded ones He detests! We’re supposed to deal with sex reasonably; but if we don’t … [I think what word I want to say. They’re chuckling, “Ha, ha!”] …, it’s forgivable.”

I didn’t mean that greed isn’t forgivable—like “the sin against the Holy Spirit”, and what that is! Oh, well, it’ll have to do; it’s out there.

The younger one can hardly contain himself: “Sex is necessary,” he blurts, “so there can be people!”

That was more interesting than most talks with men, but what I mean is, I like women sexually—that is, some women, if they’re into it, but besides that I just like being with them more than men. With women, it’s more getting into each other, grooving together.

With men …; I mean, take my brothers—they argue. We’re Irish and shy; and that’s how we show love! Men want to argue, or say nothing, or talk about sports, or fucking women. Yuck! Women are more subtle.

Except, women talk I can’t stand! I really can’t! When the women in my family get together … they’re off here, off there. My linear male mind wants to scream! “Stick to the point! Who is that person, and that one; and I don’t care anyway! And if you can’t remember his aunt’s maiden name, drop it, please, and just keep on with the story!”

Is there something wrong with me for preferring women’s company? Maybe I should get more men friends. I melt when women smile. My male counselor has a beautiful smile every time—like a Cheshire cat. He was a monk twenty years ago and just walked away. I used to wonder whether he was homosexual. I don’t think so; but it doesn’t matter to me. I love him very much.