Zombie Hef from beyond the grave
grabs my old junk and yanks
Zombie Hef promises me nubile 20-year-old beauties but
one touch and they crumble into dust and gore
Zombie Hef points his dead pipe at me and leers over the babble of voices shouting “Pig”, “Harasser”, “Creepy Old Guy”, then winks out of his empty eye-ball, says:
“Sex sells, and everybody’s buying! From Hollywood to Deadwood Money, fame, power—the top guy gets the top women
same as forever—best to be upfront about it.”
I try to reason with the Zombie:
But what about the innocent, the honest, striving young women assaulted by the clumsy, entitled, powerful men in charge?
“Lonely old men cry for the youth they lost, think young women are hiding it in their vaginas
Rich & Powerful old men wave their flaccid reality, expect young women to make them virile
—that’s just the way of the wicked world—honest men don’t need to force themselves, plenty of women will volunteer
their bodies for payola.”
Because of you, Zombie Hef, I’ve been split in two about sex
and I want what I can’t have. The old playboy smirked:
“Men race ahead of death, cock first
genetically wired to seed fertile ground
men will pay, will work long hours, line up to give money for the illusion of satisfaction, for the women on porn channels opening their flower for the world to see, the glossy centerfold version of women that doesn’t exist…
Men pay escorts, street-walkers, and semi-pros and are
led by their vaporous cocks through life after life…”
But what of the satisfied long-married men? The men of morals?
“Who? Never heard of ’em…ha! just kidding! Yeah, sure, they exist—those who have tamed the Trouser Snake, subdued the Cyclops or come to terms with the Bald Bishop, those who meditate in caves, who have grown children, a loving wife and now just want peace and quiet—such men are bad for business,
Sex for sale is what I’m talking about!”
Then Zombie Hef sighed, the sound like wind through a mobile of spinal columns.
I said: boys grow up objectifying women because that’s what you and porn taught. Women suffer because of you…
“Ha! If parents can’t teach their kids how to treat others that’s not my lookout, is it?”
Zombie Hef, face gnawed on by the savage teeth of Time picked idly at what was once his upper lip—unrepentant and fucking women his granddaughter’s age right up to the end.
Seeing my expression, he said:
“Look, all men secretly wanted to be me.”
A zombie’s laugh is truly horrible. Not exactly scary but all that coughing and dry phlegm with no place to go…
“Are all men equal? I think not… Some men, otherwise happily married, resent women for tempting them. Some men, miserably single resent women for tempting them. See the common thread?
Eve tempted Adam… ‘her outfit was so revealing I lost control’… ‘she flirted with me so I thought it was ok to touch her’…
‘she did this, she did that’…
Resentments everywhere. It’s human nature to resent what you’ll never have. You can’t blame men for being confused.”
Ah, I countered, but we can and should blame men for their behavior. Women don’t “make” men act inappropriately. Women aren’t victims, Men are perpetrators. Men do the violence, the harassing, the purchasing of women…
Zombie Hef paused in reflection. I even thought a dusty streak of tear might make its way down his moldering face.
I asked if he had any regrets.
“I always think of Frank’s song,” and here the undead one croaked: “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention…” And then, suddenly half-yelled half-rattled: “…but I did it myyyyyyyyyyy-way” like Sidney Vicious himself, from the grave.
I shuddered. What’s that old Chinese saying: It’s a curse to be born in “interesting times.” Well, that’s how I felt right about then. Zombie Hef was starting to snarl the wet muffled sound of hunger unmet. His one milky eye gleamed in the light of recognition: old as I was, I was still meat to him.
And to his bunnies…
From around the corner they came, shuffling hordes of them, hungry even when alive from crazed diets, fishnet stockings with femur and hip bones poking through, big breasts now sagging grey skin bags, some had silicone implants dangling from chest hollows, dyed blond hair streaked with gore and grime, bunny ears bobbed on fleshless skulls, soft tissue vaginas were empty holes, and entrails trailed some like gruesome tails…
And they all saw me at once.
–Peter Marti
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