Jonathan Anthony Williamston Dunwith-Cable III was probably the most hetero guy you could ever hope to meet. Biddies? He’s bagged ‘em all. Cash? He’s never strapped. Jonathan A.W. Dunwith-Cable III knows he’s disarmingly attractive and often spends a good fifteen minutes each evening shooting finger guns in the mirror and repeating words of affirmation like, “Hey, congrats. You did a really good job looking amazing today.”
So it’s really no surprise that Jonathan Dunwith-Cable III, at seven o’clock on the dot in his drop top, cruisin the streets, considered it his right; no, his honor; nay, his duty to give a low whistle or a call of encouragement to every passing skirt, set of heels, thick thighs, and crop top, that he saw waiting on the corner for a bus, walking with a friend, eating from a bag of potato chips, or generally just minding their own business.
Some of Jonathan Dunwith-Cable’s favorite words of affirmation to pass on were:
“Damn ,baby, where are you headed? Want a ride?”
“Those legs are good enough to eat.”
“Nice bedroom eyes, sweetheart!”
“As long as I have a face, you’ve got a place to sit!”
And so on, and so forth. It didn’t matter how few women he actually picked up with these tactics. At the end of the day he knew they liked it. He knew, behind the quick, silent glance away, the frowning smile and the eyes hidden by sunglasses, the headphones and the blank stare (“the bitch face,” he liked to call it), he knew that they felt properly affirmed, for he was Jonathon D-C, the most hetero guy in the world, and biddies loved to be loved.
One day, Jonathan C’s drop top was in the shop for its annual checkup, so he took the Orange Line subway to work, where he spent his days rewarding his coworkers with a fist bump for successfully managing other people’s assets in monetary denominations so high that the average plebe couldn’t even conceive of it. But Jonathan could. He was super hetero. He had stacks on stacks on stacks.
Usually he didn’t like being surrounded by weirdos and strangers and the general malcontents (unless those malcontents were chicks with voluptuous bottoms), and subways were full of old dudes, kids in strollers, and bag ladies, but not tonight.
He slid into an open seat next to a brown-skinned honey with billions of tiny braids framing her face. She had a silver necklace that fell across her bosom.
Jonny drooled with appreciation (internally, of course).
“Excuse me,” he said once.
“Excuse me,” he said again.
“Excuse me, miss,” he continued, “that’s a beautiful shirt.”
The young woman, who’d been staring out the window at the subway tunnel’s graffitied walls so hard she nearly strained her eyes, hummed a simple thanks.
“Pleasure’s all mine. Really, for it is a pleasure to sit next to such a–” Jon looked her body up and down, elevator style, while he searched for the right word, “beautiful piece of chocolate in the morning.”
The young woman didn’t respond. Or perhaps the silence was her response.
He continued. “I mean, it really warms me up. You’re so…mmph. I hope your boyfriend keeps you on a tight leash.” Jon laughed at his joke.
The young woman pulled a pair of earbuds from her messenger bag and plugged them into her phone. She put the other ends in her ears. Jonathan knew this move, this was a classic bitch face precursor.
Jonathan took out his custom-made gold-backed iPhone 7, so new that it had hardly been invented yet.
“Hey,” came a voice from over his shoulder.
“Hey, excuse me, man,” it continued
Jonathan turned to face a clean-shaven, strong-jawed, young man.
Objectively, the man was quite nice to look at, but Jonathan was so strikingly hetero that the thought never crossed his mind.
“Sup, dude?” asked Jonathan, just a bit annoyed. He didn’t like to be pestered on the subway.
“Hey,” the man smiled wide. “I noticed you as soon as you got on,” he said.
Jonathan frowned, unamused. The subway made a stop at 45th and the brown-skinned honey hurried off. Jonathan turned his attention to the tunnel walls.
“I mean, damn. The way you wear those pants, boy, how do you have space for your junk in there?” The man laughed, “Haha, I guess you don’t really.” He wiggled his eyebrows, sexually.
Jonathan glared at his reflection in the subway car’s window.
“Hey, baby,” the man tapped Jonathan insistently on the shoulder.
“Hey!” Jonathan whipped around, “Look man, don’t touch me! I’m not…I’m not like that. Okay?”
The man frowned, confused.
“Look, dude, I’m not like, a hater or anything, but I’m not gay. I don’t like dudes. I like chicks, okay?” Jonathan had let his voice rise without meaning and now half the subway car was studiously pretending they hadn’t heard anything.
“Jonathan,” the man said, leaning in and dropping his voice, “don’t you know what this is?”
“What?” said Jonathan. How did this man know his name? What did he mean?
The man laughed. “Just take a look around.”
Jonathan looked. He looked far down the car behind him. He looked to the front, where he could see through the glass door to the cars ahead. All around him there were men holding hands with other men. Women with their arms around the shoulders of other women. One old bag lady wearing a rainbow flag t-shirt kissed another old bag lady with a David Bowie button affixed to the front of her largest bag. Next to them, two dudes cooed at a baby in a stroller.
“This is your worst nightmare, Jonathan,” the man said behind him, his voice still low, “Everyone is gay.”
Jonathan, eyes wide in horror, jaw dropped in an O of surprise, turned back to the man who knew his name.
“You shouldn’t leave your mouth like that,” the man warned, “there’s nothing more desirable to a man like myself than a heterosexual male.”
Jon bolted for the closed car doors, banging his fists against them, screaming for help. How did they know!?How could the gods of fame, wealth, and heterosexual good fortune abandon him like this!
“You can’t run, Jon!” shouted the man, “We’ll be at every corner checking out your butt! Every time you wear a suit, we’ll ask about the size of your penis! We’ll pretend to be interested in your hair just to cop a feel of your shoulders! You can’t escape us! This is your destiny!”
The subway sped past stop after stop as a mass of homosexuality ran after Jonathan Anthony Williamston Dunwith-Cable III, the most hetero guy you could ever hope to meet.
At least, he was.
Tags: hetero dudes, tayarisha poe
“At least, he was.”
Ummm. I hope there’s another way to interpret this than the way that I am interpreting it right now.
Absolutely beautiful.
I wanted to like this because street harassers piss me the fuck off, and I DO NOT want to be mean to anyone who writes here because I have written stuff here, but I’m not really sure where the writer was trying to go with this? Like, the part where he’s a jerk is a bit too real and then it seems like we’re supposed to be like, haha, gay people are totally going to harass this dude, and something about it just doesn’t sit right? I don’t knoooow you guys.
I had a little of the same feeling, but to me it read like it was making fun of a particular type of macho hetero dude’s homophobia and fear of being hit on by gay guys or coming into contact with any kind of “gayness,” lest they themselves somehow become gay. And underlining the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of this attitude being held by a guy who regularly harasses women in the very way he himself fears being harassed. The gay man on the train to me was like an exaggerated version of the predatory gay stereotype that this type of homophobic straight guy is afraid of and imagines every gay man to be.
I get where you’re coming from, though – it’s a fine line between satire and actually playing into those kinds of stereotypes, and it did feel a little to me like, “oh, you’re gonna harass women? well now the gay dudes will hit on you and make YOU afraid and uncomfortable! Justice!” which, yeah. So I share your ambivalence about this.
I enjoyed a lot of it, I think it was really just the very end that I can’t 100% figure out why it’s rubbing me the wrong way… I think after “One old bag lady wearing a rainbow flag t-shirt kissed another old bag lady with a David Bowie button affixed to the front of her largest bag. Next to them, two dudes cooed at a baby in a stroller.” which I loved and thought was hilarious, I think I thought it was going to go somewhere else, like a sort of Omega Straight Man where it’s his hell because he’s the only straight dude on Earth and so he’ll never get any, but instead the “predatory” gay dude just came off a little too close to existing bad stereotypes maybe?
That was my concern, and I was loving it till then! And I don’t want to be too critical of a writer here because oh god, how scared was I when I got published here? SO SCARED.
But I feel like I can raise my concern about that in a way that isn’t horrid and cruel and pile-on-ish.
So yes. The gay-man harrassing thing read less (to me) as a satire of hypocritical ‘gay predator’ fear and more as an actual gay predator. A hard line to walk, for sure.
The rest was bloody excellent though.
yes, all of this. and her other story that was posted right after this one? 100% amazing.
ahh. Tayarisha, we love you! You are a great writer! And I think the vast majority of this story is great and we all have wished *something* bad would happen to a street harasser so I feel you on that aspect for sure.
hahaha thanks! i thought some of these things while writing, didn’t think others, so it’s great to hear feedback about where some marks hit and where others missed! i think of this like a twilight zone episode where all the worst stereotypes were used to portray the fears of an equally stereotypical protagonist, but i will say no more! meaning is in the hands of the reader and whatnot.
Oh I think you definitely hit the Twilight Zone feel! I almost made that reference actually, because it reminded me of that one where the guy finally has all the time to read and then his glasses get broken.
I also liked this: “custom-made gold-backed iPhone 7, so new that it had hardly been invented yet.”
I will never get tired of flipping the script on street harassers, and I think Tayarisha’s intention was to skewer Jon-boy (loved the many variations on his name, by the way) and hetero-man-culture’s horror of any sexual agency that isn’t their own, but the punchline, for me, played a little close to some too-widely-held beliefs about gay men.
i like what everyone is saying, because i like seeing different interpretations of things especially when they differ from my own!
All aboard the Homo Train, y’all! Once you get on, you never get off! (wait…)
LOL i laughed the entire time
I thought this was this at first http://www.readability.com/read?url=http://chrisb… like, a fictionalized version of it? But…
i didn’t even know that was a thing! my life is better now that i know though
Ah, thank you for responding! The trailing “but…” was kind of a “IS it a fictionalized version of that thing??” because even after the twist ending (well, twist in my mind, because of what I thought it was based off of), I wasn’t sure. And yeah, my life was definitely better when I first learned that a real person did this 🙂 I did like this, by the way!
That was my concern, and I was loving it till then! And I don't want to be too critical of a writer here because oh god, how scared was I when I got published here? SO SCARED.
But I feel like I can raise my concern about that in a way that isn't horrid and cruel and pile-on-ish.
So yes. The gay-man harrassing thing read less (to me) as a satire of hypocritical 'gay predator' fear and more as an actual gay predator. A hard line to walk, for sure.
The rest was bloody excellent though.
This delights me a moderate amount. Particularly the 15 minutes of finger-guns.
I really appreciate the Usher reference in the second paragraph. VERY MUCH.
straight men’s homophobia is the fear gay men will treat you like you treat women GIRL I GOT YOU