To the Last Man I Slept with and All the Jerks Just Like Him by Gwendolyn Zepeda Read Free Book Online

it does) and, as long as you stay out of my way, I’ll make him a better man than you even know how to be.
    You wanna know the bravest thing about me? It’s that even though I know how you are—how all your type is— how you, in the name of bravery, will hit me, rape me, degrade me, clitorectomize me, and make sure I get paid less than you. . . . Even though I know all that, I’m still brave enough to go outside. I’m so brave, I go out every day and talk to you, listen to you, buy from you, date you, work with you, dance with you, marry you, care for you, defend you, and put up with your bullshit.
    Not anymore, though. Hell no. This is the end of the line. I’m not putting up with your weakness anymore. I don’t need you. I never respected you. I’ve learned my lesson and now I hate you.
    You’re a coward.
    Get away from me.

Aunt Rosie
    F or years I believed what they said about Aunt Rosie and repeated it mindlessly to myself and others, like something you mutter in church. “He treats her that way because she lets him. I wouldn’t let no man do that to me.” I laughed at my uncle’s jokes and let him kiss me on the cheek. I shook my head along with the others when he yelled at Aunt Rosie and she scurried to bring him another beer.
    He continued to yell at her and call her names while I grew up, moved away, and got a man of my own. My uncle yelled and forced my aunt to scurry at his will until, full of tumors and Budweiser, he exploded. She cried hardest at the funeral. Her strength, it seemed, had lain in holding out until he died.
    If I had problems of my own, my strength would have been secrecy. No matter what happened, no one would ever say that I let it happen. No one would say that I deserved what I got. If I had problems, I would be strong, taking it like a man—or, like a woman, actually—keeping up the front with no whining. I would have taken it until I was filled with anger, fear, and poor self-esteem, and then—right before I exploded—I would have escaped and gone back home.
    When I got back home, I saw that Aunt Rosie had changed. Now she laughed. She wore small tiny clothes in blazing colors, drove fast in a pick-up, and danced all night long. She had fun times with men. Very fun times with lots of men.
    I only saw her for bright flashes at a time. The phone would ring and, if she weren’t pressed for time, she’d pick it up and murmur the quick, sweet lies I’ve heard murmured to me so many times. “Yeah, baby. You know I do. Yeah, I’ll be there. Uh huh, me too.”
    The rest of our family told me that she had fun with men every single weekend and sometimes even in public, too. I smiled. They told me again, explaining it more slowly this time so that I would know to snicker, instead, or to roll my eyes. But then I only sighed.
    I don’t point out to my family members that they’re full of shit because the last time I did, everyone uncomfortably joked that my uncle was there, floating around that house, listening. His own daughters said so. They said they heard his angry rumblings at night. But I wasn’t scared that he would fly up and slap my face. I figured the very most he could do was knock over a cheap vase whenever he got a well-deserved eyeful of Aunt Rosie exercising her basic rights as an human being in America.
    “I don’t care if you hear me, Uncle Joe! You know you treated her wrong!” I called floor-ward. Everyone quivered. But Uncle Joe couldn’t deny my words, so he didn’t say anything at all.
    However, since that day, I no longer push the subject. If I did, I’d have to back up my arguments with examples from my own life. And that always leads to them telling me, “If you were having problems, you should have told us. We would have . . .”
    They would have helped me, they claim. They would have stopped it. They would have kicked my husband’s ass.
    They say that stuff and then I very clearly imagine/remember them (her own daughters included) saying, “He