I entered The Raven Inn, crowded but for the seat next to the poker screen that Big Ron had saved for me, a bartender and barmaid behind the narrow, rectangular bar, serving the mostly middle aged patrons, a third of whom were women.

I had the lap top, but thought it was time to go back to freer form and hand notes as Ron was the center of attention and having a good time, not seeming to notice. We would take the project into its final stage at this meeting. He refused my offer to buy and ran his own tab with the bartender as he continued to speak with a Vietnam combat veteran, an army man. Ron had memorized what little his father had told him of the war. When discovering that Ron’s father had been a marine and had done two tours, the older man said, “God bless him for fighting for what he believed in.”

Ron responded, “Oh, he didn’t believe in it at all. He reenlisted out of loyalty to those he served with. His impression of the entire government, that all it does is tax the working man and send him off to die in the rich man’s war, was strengthened by the experience, if anything.”

The veteran came over and shook Ron’s hand and asked him to speak to his father for him and left.

The conversation then turned to emasculated Alt Right types who Ron had read online once again, complaining about “women, running the show,”

Ron then confided in me about something that happened when he was delivering pizzas, that this one particular married couple had an unbalanced relationship, in which the wife constantly put the husband down in front of him as he delivered their food and “ruled the roost, but when I was at the door she couldn’t keep her hands off me, even called in orders when he wasn’t home to put the make on me. She didn’t give him any because he took her abuse. But me, she wanted me to abuse her all day long. I didn’t go there. Not only was she a college-educated person—which pretty much means by definition, that she’s a person of bad character—but she was built like a hipster woman. I was getting a lot of lovin’ back then—you know, the entire idea of working a second job delivering pizzas so I wouldn’t mess around with a bunch of women and have that hurt my chances of getting back with the wife, pretty much crashed and burned on contact with all that needy pussy at the door…”

“But even if I would have been going through a dry spell, I wouldn’t fuck her, with…his dick!”

Ron goes on to pontificate, “Look, what is the matter with the world is that women want a man whose going to take charge and throw that skirt up, but are afraid to admit it or ask for it, or somehow brainwashed into thinking they don’t want it, and these young guys have all been brainwashed into thinking woman only want what they say they want. Like in Sweden where those thousands of Swedish men marched in solidarity for their women who had been raped by Muslim immigrants by wearing skirts! The Muslims ought to rape them too!”

We spoke of a number of things and 15-minutes later the young lady returns and sits across from me, eying Ron and questioning the barmaid about him. The barmaid confided in me later that the lady wanted to know if Ron was married, to which the barmaid responded she did not know and that Ron and was not wearing a ring and that perhaps she should just drop something next to Ron and bend over seductively to pick it up.

Instead, the woman walked over to us, apologized to me for interrupting and began questioning Ron about his extensive tattoos. He immediately said, “Oh, my wife did all this work. I was her practice.”

She shuddered in humiliation and clutched her hands, but soldiered on in face-saving fashion by extending the discussion into tattoos and tattooing, then gracefully apologized to me, returned to her seat, melted down stiffly as she finished her drink and soon walked woodenly away into her unfulfilling night.

Later in the evening, while discussing training, I told Ron that I had a pair of gloves for him to use but, “a whole bunch of guys have been sweating in them for the past ten years.”

He retorted, “You mean like some of the women I’ve been with?”

We laughed and spoke of many wicked things.

The previous week, Mescaline Franklin, Ron and I were at the Shamrock. This was an all white bar which is now predominantly black at night due to the mixed race sports bar now catering to younger black men and their antics and the old fellows and decent black girls heading up the street to drink with working white people, even as the long time patrons who have moved and no longer drive back into the city in the wake of the riots dwindle.

Then came the Pearl Divers. Just as white society has women who trawl the bottom for black men and are called mud sharks, black society has their pearl divers, shopping Caucasian man rain, for that white daddy pearl necklace. Three black women, not dressed in standard slut uniform, but wearing jeans or jean shorts and flowered blouses, ignored the other men and sat next to us, each alternately casting their eyes of desire upon their chosen target. The little one sat close to Mescaline, who turned his back on her. The shapely one kept stealing glances at Big Ron, towering over us. The big mamma jamma, coming in at 320 athletic pounds, flashed big, “Oh, White Daddy I’m your chocolate drop,” eyes at me, letting me know that she had intuited that I was a certified heavy Chevy” service mechanic. I smiled back indulgently and the other two ignored them as I hid myself behind Big Ron, safe from her ebony embrace.

The point is, women will approach us more often than not when we are socializing with men in the old way, not worshiping TV sports stars and arguing over records, not trying to make time with women, but simply talking about, working, fighting, reading and making your way in the world.

Sensible women don’t want a man whose first priority is women.

Sensible women don’t want a man who squabbles like a woman.

Sensible women don’t want a man who is a spectator to life, when she’d rather be a spectator to his life.