It wasn't whimsical nor was it fallacious. The hour was indeed somewhere between falling asleep and waking to a dull day where one almost man laid with his head plumped on the hard-cushioned corner of the discolored couch facing a chattering box legs spreading to his farthest reach and perhaps even beyond coming so close to making contact with the slightly older almost man who sat on the end mumbling about the angers of the gaming life.
Neither knew why they stayed up to the untimely hour on the weekends they spent their very different lives together and this was so because they never questioned it. It was natural. Without disturbance and quaint. Peaceful. Their conversations opposed the apparent atmosphere of the situation more often dwindling into arguments over if abortion should be legal and other social humdrum. This ordinary night would be no different, you were warned. And it is in fact ordinary.
The television transitioned from a story neither cared much for to one that concerned one of them. “I hate them, I could tear apart every last freakin’ one of them,” Antonio said.
“Huh?” He said without a glance away from his handheld.
“TV,” he responded pointing knowing the glow shined only brightly enough to reveal their cloaked faces.
Shutting his handheld whilst scratching his head he scotched his eyes and subsequently rose to read the headline as images of photos of a melancholy woman fluttered by and mouthed, “WOMAN (NAME NONDISCLOSED) ACCUSES HUSBAND OF RAPE THE WEEK OF 4/2.” His response was an expedited breath in which he rolled his eyes then continued to play his game.
“Seriously, I want to kill them, and I know it’s wrong, but they fuck up our society and ruin everything for everyone,” Antonio grunted furiously. The sound of footsteps could be heard distantly from the back of the house. “All of them should be arrested, right Kyle?”
“Yep.” The sound of smashing echoed in Antonio’s mind.
“It just pissed me off is all and it makes me so angry… I’d kill them. I would.”
“I bet you would,” Kyle responded.
“If I ever encountered one I’d need someone to hold me back. I’d end them. I’m of the opinion that if you commit that crime you lose the right to life, as a concept.” He said calmly with his hands flailing about like a balloon man then hitting himself. Antonio placed his damaged hand to the forefront of his eyes and stared at it as much as possible with droopy eyes.
Kyle settled his shoulders into a comfortable position and breathed until facing what he thought of as his friend. “Would you end me?”
“Yes,” he said swiftly, “if you were convicted and escaped the law, I suppose I’d have no choice.” A swallowing guttural pain emerged having realized what he said, and he anticipated how Kyle would respond. He was even sweating and turned his head to avoid eye contact and perched his left arm on his chin feeling his growing hairs.
“What if I was falsely accused, huh? And they were going to send me away and I had to escape, and I decided to rely on my friend and he then turns around and stabs me in the back, literally! Would you then?”
Antonio’s composed face slowly rotated, and his eyes rose to great heights. “Which scenario?”
“What?” Kyle hissed.
“You said a scenario where I did kill you then asked what I would do. But you initially started in the scenario where you were falsely accused which presumably, I wouldn’t kill you which makes two different scenarios and I don’t know which one you’re asking about.” The guttural feeling squeezed and reached to his groin.
“Would you kill me if I was falsely accused?” He said trying oh so very hard to stay calm.
“That’s a ridiculous question. In this scenario do I know that you were falsely accused? If I didn’t, I would have no reason to suspect otherwise and if I did of course I wouldn’t because… wait for it… you wouldn’t be a rapist.” He blew a laugh of condescension and twiddled his figures in his hair scratching the back of his neck.
Kyle’s eyelids were half closed and waxing. “Fine. What if all the evidence was pointing to me and I was convicted, and I could talk to you and I telled you---
“You telled me?”
“I told you that they were wrong and that you had to believe me in that scenario would you kill me?”
“If you were on the run and I was convinced? Yes. Unless someone was there to stop me.”
Kyle’s frustrations remained in his tone. “What would convince you? How would you even know that I did?”
Antonio felt less defensive and dropped his psychological mechanism. “Why are you concerned about being accused of rape?” His tone became mocking. “Kyle, did someone say no to you?”
His body became rigid and stern and he forced attention on himself. “No Tony. I did not rape anyone. Why would you say something like that? I just know that there are some women who accuse men for whatever fucked up reason.”
Antonio abruptly arrived at a sitting stance and planted his sock covered feet onto the hardwood. “And what reasons are those?” He said concealing his anger.
“You know like what everyone wants. Money, glory, power. The whole lot. Just on the chance that I’m one of the victims of a vindictive woman or even man I don’t want to be killed because you don’t believe me. Is that all right with you?”
Tony’s eyelids were fully waxed, and he inhaled every atom of oxygen in the room. Contemplation over how he could convince Kyle that he was right over the subject that had yet to be fully addressed perplexed him. Coordinately he slipped a beat of antagonism out of his puffy lips. “Out of all the men to be accused of rape why do you an innocent man think you’ll be selected? Why such a worry for something most likely to never happen? I’m under the impression that if you don’t rape you won’t be accused of rape.”
Kyle swirled his head opening his mouth to a gape and then shut. “If you’re under that impression are you saying all men accused are in fact guilty? That’s what it appears to me you’re saying.”
“No—”
“Then what are you saying? Please, inform us.”
“I’m staying out of this,” the youngest of the three men spoke as he walked out of one of the two doorless exits. They waited until the room door shut to continue.
“Kyle, it’s obvious.”
“Then I must be so stupid to be missing it.”
“That wasn’t the end of my sentence. It’s obvious to me that our gender feels like we have some righteous power over women. Not all of us, obviously. We as a society have decided that rape is wrong and punishable. You believe rape is wrong, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And we’d all say that, because it’s the right thing to say. But it’s my experience that when it happens, we just love to brush it under the rug and say that the woman is lying. And you know why? Because it’s easier. Liars are everywhere and we accept that. Most of us are liars ourselves. So when a woman or even man comes along claiming that they were raped we can call them a liar and then we don’t have to deal with it. ‘Oh she’s just lying because he’s rich.’ ‘It’s all about glory for them.’ ‘She doesn’t want to admit she lost her virginity willingly.’ It’s heard all the fucking time. And now in the modern-day women are finally willing to bring it up at a major cost. It’s a sacrifice they make and then people like you invalidate everything they’re fighting for. You say, ‘It’s all SJW bullcrap. The feminazis strike again.’ If they bring it up it could prevent the next rape. And you the general… you are allowing it to continue.”
Kyle felt hurt. His feelings told him he was being accused of the very act. He really felt like rape was wrong and now he was being lectured about something he already knows. “We’re done talking about this.”
“Like always. Right when I make my point you shut me down like none of it mattered. What about her?” He struck his finger at the TV. “Do you think she seeks ‘glory’? What fucking glory is there to admit you were forced into sex? What fucking glory is it to say a man hurt you and made you possibly orgasm against your will? Huh? To bruise you and violate you on the deepest level? Do you have any idea, at all? Or did your father tell you women like being raped? Do you have any conceivable notice of how it feels to then after all of that to tell someone? To tell someone what a man did to you and then AND then them tell it’s a lie? That you made it up?” Antonio was now standing and hadn’t the slightest idea how long his legs were cramping. His words wet and his eyes wetter he gulped. He fell silent for a little while and fell to the couch breathing heavily.
The news moved on. Both went to ignoring the words spoken. When they unclogged their fuzzy heads the sounds of crying became louder. Soon the familiar voice of one who they share an unequal relationship arrived. “You gotta be kidding me. I told you to be quiet you woke the girls up, Kyle. Not to mention me.”
“But I—but I…”
“It was me,” Antonio stood addressing his step-mother he saw two to three times a month. “Sorry, I got angry and was screaming at Kyle. I completely forgot what time it was. I should go to bed earlier. I can help get them back to sleep. I’ll get them some water. Again, so sorry. I’ll be better.”
She had an expression that Antonio knew very well, and it said, “Oh, now I feel bad because I thought it was Kyle and it was you. And I like you and feel like I don’t have the authority to be mad at you because you’re not my son. But regardless I am still mad but I don’t want you to know I am.” In the closest thing to reality she said, “Oh, thanks. You gotta keep it down though.”
“OK,” he responded heading to the kitchen.
An hour later the girls and the step mom had managed to fall back to sleep and Antonio returned to the room to find the TV off and Kyle gone. In bed, he thought. The decision was to sleep on the couch instead of the room where his sibling and step-sibling were to avoid waking them, and so they wouldn’t hear him cry.
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