The soldier and I talking…

‘I’ve never hit a woman, P. Not once. Came close though. Came damned close once.”

“What happened?”

“Oh this lesbian… I hate working with women, P. I can’t do it. And thank God I have almost never had to. I’d rather work with men, but anyway I did work with this lesbian once and she thought she was going to push me around.”

“She thought that?”

“She did think that. She was this big boxy girl. Mean. She was a mean girl, big and boxy and I guess she thought she was going to bully me or something. I’m not sure what she was thinking but whatever it was, she was out of her mind. And she was giving me shit and I was putting up with it for awhile seeing as she was a woman. Because you know I don’t fight women. So I looked the other way for awhile. I ignored her. But then she got all cocky I guess because she decided she could push me.”

“She pushed you? Actually pushed you, like put her hands on you?”

“She did. She pushed and she pushed me hard and it surprised me too because people don’t usually push me. It just doesn’t happened and when it did I said, listen here. I don’t like being pushed. I don’t like it at all. And I have a policy not to hit women. But you better not push me because I don’t like it… you’re pissing me off.”

“What did she do?”

“Pushed me again.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, P. She sure as hell did. And I told her again. I warned her. I said, I told you I don’t hit women but if you’re going to act like a man and push me around, then I am going to treat you like a man and if I do that you’re going to be sorry.”

“That do it?”

“No.”

“She pushed you again?”

Yep.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah, she pushed me again. Matter of fact she put both her hands on my chest and pushed me back as hard as she could. She wasn’t messing around, P. She wanted to fight me.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well right then, I decided I’d had enough. And I’d warned her if she acted like a man what I was going to do so I did it.”

“Did what?”

“Oh, I just put her in this kind of hold really fast. I did it in about one second so it shocked her. And the way I had her… well it was clear to her that she was in trouble and then I just held her like that for a few seconds.”

“What did she do?”

“Oh, I let her go and she started crying and stuff. So she was crying and blah, blah, whine. I’d have never laid a hand on her but I told her not to act like a man and she just insisted. Who is she anyway? What gives her the right to think she can push me around like that?”

“Can’t imagine. Insanity?”

“Well anyway, after that she never pushed me again. Matter of fact she avoided me like the plague. I don’t think she ever let herself be in a room with me again and soon after that I shipped out, thank God. Back to the land of men. I know there are men who can work with women and some of them even like it but I’m not one of them. I want to work with men only. Women are just too hard to figure out. Men are simple. I want to work work with men and relax with women and I don’t really care to mix the two.”

Pictured – Mars and Venus United by Love, Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588, Oil on canvas, 205,7 x 161 cm, c. 1570, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York