[My very close friend, Randy posts about once a week and I’d like to provide not just a link, but a sample of something he wrote the other day and graciously forwarded to me. This will probably go up on Death of a Writer sometime in mid-spring.]
Bad City stands at a Foster Avenue bar in Portland, a hipster bar where half of the women are homely, well-educated African American girls who are being courted and worshipped by narrow-shouldered, skinny-jeans bug men. Two gay business men discuss their trade against the wall, at a table, hands folded before them, the feminine one raising his voice in pained angst often. The two handsome young bartenders have girlfriends waiting for them to get off at the bar.
A tall masculine man, among the top 10% of physical specimens in this region according to the caustic eye of Bad City, twerp of manly appraisals who might once have been a manager of gladiators in an earlier iteration, enters with a woman nearly as tall and an average non-descript man. The men discuss business at a table as the woman spends her time standing by the tall man as he sits on the high stool and making cider and whiskey runs to the bar. She is a pleasingly fit and athletic and still feminine specimen. Her hair is a natural blonde, not as light as it must once have been and her face has a long Nordic appeal. Bad City avoids a second appraisal and turns away to view the fight footage on the TV screen.
“Do you have an eye?”
“Yes I do, miss. I wear this to manage eye seizures, especially against lateral light like a low winter sun or interior lighting like this. This is actually my good eye.”
“I ask, not to be rude, but because my mother lost an eye.”
“These patches can be had in a two-pack at a pharmacy for around five bucks.”
“Oh, she’s dead. My mother died.”
The woman hesitates and fidgets.
“You’re a striking man. I apologize for being rude.”
“Oh, for an old twerp, any chance to speak to a tall young blonde is a boon. It’s either the patch or sunglasses at night. So I chose the patch as less creepy.”
“No, you are not creepy. You’re cool.”
[The woman walks away and returns perhaps a half-hour later and extends her hand, a strong elvish maniple halfway between grace and haste.]
“I’m Hellen. My husband over there is Dean. You are?”
“Randy, Randy Bracken.”
“Nice to meet you, Randy. How tall do you think I am?”
“You are six-one.”
She stands a bit taller and opens her eyes so wide that they become beautiful rather than just pretty. “No one has ever guessed that before—that’s amazing.”
“I was a lousy boxer as a young man so I developed the ability to calibrate the severity of my next beating through astute observation.”
“My husband, Dean, over there, he’s six- four.”
“I have always understood that a tall woman needed a tall man, especially if she was to wear heels.”
“Yes, its nice to be able to wear heels. Would you like a drink, Randy?”
“I already have one, thanks. You’re very gracious.”
“Dean and I have been together for sixteen years now. Isn’t that great?”
“That is impressive. I only made it seventeen before I got fired. But it was dead at fourteen years in. So you all are doin’ good, beating the odds.”
“Dean’s a contractor and we have a good life. We are very compatible. May I ask how old you are?”
“Fifty-seven, I think.”
“Oh, you look good. I’m thirty-seven. Dean doesn’t want to have children.”
Bam, just like that, bitch? the elder runt thinks to himself.
Bad City says nothing to comfort the Nordic womb in distress.
“Can I ask you, have you had children?”
“Yes, and grandchildren. I love kids. But it seems like most men of our race do not. I hardly know a white man in his twenties or thirties who has or is willing to have children. It is not unusual. It is the norm.”
Hellen fidgets and hesitates and blurts in a half-whisper, “I know, I know—its terrible! Would you have more children if you could? I mean if a young, still-fertile woman who really had a—I’m so sorry. I’ve gotta get back with the drinks. Dean is very good to me but he doesn’t want to have children with me.”
Sometime later as the bartender looks to Bad City with an expression of apology as Hellen returns to say goodnight, the tall Nordic who will never know the birth of her babe, placed a hand on the greasy duster that covered the old runt’s shoulder and said, “Thanks for speaking with me, Randy. Dean and I are leaving. Hope to see you around.”
“Goodnight, Hellen. Nice meeting you.”
The three figures huddled out the door against the cold breeze that swept down from distant Mount Hood, Hellen’s furtive form seeking the sterile shelter of Dean’s wide sweep of shoulder as they walked into the uncaring night.
Read more of Randy Bracken’s work at:
Nice work. I loved the line after he guessed the Nord's age. Sheer genius.
Randy is regarded as something of a genius in certain small circles.
Arуan men don't want children because one noose is enough. Marrying is a bad enough legal enslavement, but at least it's compensated by sex. To add children reduces the value of the sex, at least squares the enslavement, and typically accomplishes nothing more than adding insult to injury by seeing one's own children become creatures of the System and one's enemy, instead of merely one's kin, race and country doing so.
Denied the right to a patriachal legacy, the only reasonable response is to fight to the death. Calculate thy lifespan and avenge thyself sevenfold.
My plan for techno liberation of individual from institution is working. Textmind has its first students.
Randy will surely appreciate the one noose is enough.