At the long party an older man reached across our generational divide with a rolex-adorned wrist
and started speaking to me like we had met before. I meet a lot of bald white guys at these sorts
of work parties and assumed we had met before. He wanted me to be docile, muzzle my
snapping jaw, perform the lie of interest. I wanted to go to the bathroom, get another glass of
wine. Throughout the evening he would approach me many more times and even try to reach up
my skirt in the demure way that is unprovable but unmistaken. The bald man will escalate his
reactions, unclasp whatever faulty mechanism was holding his true brutality from plain sight and
start throwing punches. I will be protected by six site operations employees and my husband.
They descend like a flock of crows, pecking deeper and deeper into the exposed fresh villain. All
of these men have jobs to lose, families to care for, and bodies they must live in after this is done.
I realize that all of these men, some of whom don’t even know my name, protected me from
violation with their own soma walls. I am moved to tears by this ancient act of refuge. My friend
thinks I am crying because the bald man called me a ‘lanky fuckface’ and I don’t know how to
explain that I am crying because there are good people left in the world. I am crying off my
mascara and Raheem is finding me a tissue and Tyrell is nursing a bloody knuckle and Enzo is
getting a beer thrown over his head and a bystander on a bike is filming this act of barbaric
devotion. When you work in the service industry you are made comfortable with reduction
through constant repetition. You are a cog in the process of someone’s ability to acquire what
they want and you feel every day the trimming of your personhood, hedged constantly by
malignant fancy. You become familiar with unimportant rage. How do I explain that I am crying
because I am watching wrath unkink with pleasure? This potent violence was in defense of me,
today, and I am aware of how much they liked it. How do I explain that still, I am afraid of men
and their vexes? I am scared of how men enjoy their might, even the good ones. Even after all of
this. When the fighting depletes, I make a round of apologies for causing such a scene. Shawn
says ‘a fuckface never apologizes’ and we clink massive pours of whiskey.
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