In The Gray Twilight (eBook)

Brad Haas (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
304 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-9719-4 (ISBN)

Infos

Jeff Drescher is a young, white man in search of his manhood. He is racially disaffected and blames his problem with women on blacks. It doesn't help that his boss is a white supremacist who would like to make Jeff into one, as well.

Brad Haas is a Navy veteran who currently lives with his mother in New Braunfels, Texas. He earned his English degree from Texas State University, where he minored in History.

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Jeff Drescher was bullied from a young age, by his father and peers. Jeff's destroyed ego leads him to become a fragile adult, too fragile to be a man around women. The older he gets, the more this problem plagues him. Regarding his sensuality, he comes to a crossroads as to whether he is going to do the manly (hard) thing, in the form of approaching women and dating them (be aggressive); or the unmanly (easy) thing, in the form of masturbation, using a sex doll and other forms of stimulation, like stolen panties. Ultimately, the challenge to become a man the right way is too much for him, as the pull of porn proves to be too strong, and he settles for the unmanly way of masturbation. He soon rationalizes masturbation as his new form of religion, seeing it as a spiritual thing and himself as a beautiful boy, like Jesus. He concludes that manhood is slavery and boyhood is freedom. His single, barren lifestyle, devoid of the feminine element leads him to be accused of homosexuality; worried those around him think he might become a serial killer or remain a weird, gutless wonder; and live as a poor timid spirit who lives in the gray twilight, a male who never makes it as a man.

Textauszug

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The next week at work on a Tuesday, after a three-day weekend, the whistle blew, sounding the alarm for lunch time and sending several workers including Gus out into the yard where a grill had been fired up about half an hour ago. In the cool Autumn air was the zeitgeist of a new America being born, as the nation stood on the precipice of having the first black president ever to take office if things went right later on in the evening after the polls closed. Conversation usually eddied around sports or even Hollywood gossip, but on this day, it was all politics, and an all-out war in the arena of ideas. Gus now wanted everyone to hear what he had to say about Obama, and how much of a threat to the essence of America this black man was becoming. Gus had always tried to blow off some stress during lunch time by rounding up his boys as he called them and preaching politics to them, sometimes getting into heated discussions, as some clearly had not shared his political beliefs. Gus sat at a picnic table and talked to several other white guys who were like his protégés, soaking up his words like they were some kind of gospel.

Gus poured barbecue sauce on his burger then put a bun on top. “We need a man at the helm of the ship not a god dam monkey.”

This got him a few cheers from the boys.

“It’s the red white and blue not the red black and blue.”

Some more cheers.

“It’s called the White house, not the black house.”

More cheers.

Nearby at another picnic table sat Ethan, a young black man in his early twenties, who was reading through a newspaper, consumed by the news of Obama, his new hero and idol, staring at a picture of Obama visiting a foreign country, when he suddenly became distracted and alarmed. The heated and vitriolic rhetoric of Gus made Ethan’s ears perk up and glance over at the table of redneck good ole boys who were getting louder by the minute, so much so that Ethan took out his smart phone and set it to the camera function and began to record Gus while pretending to read the newspaper.

“We need a white man at the helm you know what I’m sayin? Just the way it’s always been, the American way, not the African-American way, excuse me, nigger way.” This sent the other white guys into hysterics, whistling and hollering like a kind of war party.

Ethan had almost lost his appetite as he was now plunged into an almost state of paralysis, a numb state, surreal state, as if what he was hearing wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening, not now, not in this day, not in 2008, the dawning of the age of Obama, the first nonwhite president ever, as well as the first black president, the Jackie Robinson of major league politics. “Obama’s gonna win!” Ethan screamed. It had just come over him, so caught up in his hero worship was he that he didn’t realize he was no longer thinking to himself but talking out loud, screaming out loud. And his scream and what he screamed did not go unnoticed by the picnic table next to him.

Gus raised the volume of his voice a little more so that the niglet could hear him. “If it aint broke don’t fix it, you know what I’m sayin? But hell, if by some freak accident that chimp gets in then it will really be broke, that’s for god dam sure, there goes the neighborhood, shit would start fallin apart if that chimp got in, by god I just know it.”

Ethan kept sitting all alone at the nearby table continuing to record every syllable. “Obama’s gonna win,” Ethan said, continuing to stare at the picture of Obama. He was the only black man in the group. The rest were mostly white and Hispanic. Even the boss was white, a fact which gave Ethan some discomfort as he listened to the raucous laughter coming from the nearby picnic table full of good ole boys who continued to bash Obama.

Gus turned to face Ethan. “Honest to Christ boy, if your chimpanzee ever got in, I reckon I shall be leavin this mongrel country goddam it, but I don’t want to leave it cause I love it so much, so I’d have to settle for somethin else, like burn my social security card. That’s it, tellya what boy, if that monkey of yours gets in I give you my word as a Southern gentleman of honor that I will burn my social security card right here, right in front of you, the boys, and everyone else. Now, if my boy wins, you have to quit this job and take your black ass out of here for good.” More laughter. “Shake on it?”

Ethan stood up. “Obama’s gonna win. And you gonna be seein this black ass for a long time, this black ass aint goin nowhere.” Ethan put his hand out and shook Gus’s hand.

“Alright then, it’s settled. I also promise to never mention politics again, won’t get up on my soapbox or nothin if your boy wins, cause I don’t think he’s gonna win, the American people aint gonna take a community agitator over a decorated Vietnam War hero, prisoner of war, got the hell beat out of him, what the hell has Obama ever done for our country? No, I got faith in the American people. You best start packin your bags boy, cause you about to be movin out.”

Almost not able to take Gus’s bravado anymore, Ethan was about to get up and move when he decided to wait it out just a little longer and see just how far they would go, what they would say. He was already going to report them to his boss, who liked to think that racism did not exist among his system of subordinates, his team. Ethan glanced toward the picnic table again just to get another look and this time locked eyes with one of the more onery boys.

Gus raised his voice louder than ever as he kept his eyes on Ethan and then stared into the lens of Ethan’s smart phone camera. “I’m not gonna live on the planet of the apes. This aint Africa, this is America by god, and God bless America. Land of the free and home of the brave.” Gus spit his chewing tobacco at the lens of the smart phone.

A little later in the day, Gus filed out of the bleachers with the others, many of whom he had known for decades at this job where he had worked, never dreaming it would turn out how it was turning out: against white people. For that is what it had all sounded like and amounted to Gus, listening to his boss Wendall speak about how racism of any kind would not be tolerated, how white skin was this country’s original sin and how any whiff or scent of racism would not be forgiven but would be dealt with harshly, but especially if it was done by whites. The message was about how change was coming to the company very soon now that Obama was most likely going to become president, how the combination of diversity and equity was the new norm, and how gone was the day when whites got white privilege, got all the best positions and advancements, got the best raises. Which was good news to hear, unless you were white, like Gus, who had profited off that system for over three decades now and would not know how to live if it were changed in any way, so set and established in the old ways was he. Yes, if you were white, your whole world was changing and was going to change drastically before it was all through, this process, this force, that seemed to be a double standard, a game that was rigged against whites, when admittedly it had been a game rigged for whites for quite some time. But now that was all over. What? No more dirty jokes about other races? No. Pretty soon we won’t be able to wish each other Merry Christmas because it offends someone who isn’t Christian, Gus thought, for it didn’t just apply to race but to religion as well, and gender. Gone were the days of just the boys at work. As Gus processed all of this over the better part of two hours at this seminar, if he had any, he could have just spat some beechnut onto the new fancy brochure he had been handed and had stared at, focusing on some key words like DIVERSITY and EQUITY, refusing to look up and pay heed to the black man who spoke in a militant tone. His name was Vincent, that’s about all Gus had gathered, oh, and that he seemed to hate white people and wanted to take them down, just like it looked like he was taking Wendall down by taking over for him, taking his job, which meant he would now be Gus’s new boss. The whole event played back through Gus’s mind as he drove home, with some more of his favorite Creedence Clearwater Revival playing in the background. He was a product of the sixties, but he had been on the opposite side of the Civil Rights Act, on the side of Bull Connor, and the firehoses that blasted the guilty ones across the street with its force, the team with the German shepherds that were unleashed onto the other side. In many ways, that team with the fire hoses and German Shepherds still existed, a little dismantled and dissipated, but still there, like some dormant force under- ground, like hot lava slowly oozing from a deep dark Hell, a place where Satan was said to live. Satan. He mine as well be for the whites because the whites were now demonized, as if they were Satan themselves, little white devils. Well, if the shoe fits, then wear it. That’s the conclusion Gus came to as he pulled into his driveway and noticed his wife and kids were not home. He stared at his garage door for several minutes with his low beams seeing almost a vision, a dream before him. He compared how Jesus was and how Satan was. The more he thought about it, the more he saw himself being more like Satan, hateful, spiteful, intolerant, full of anger, violent. Jesus had never sat well with Gus, as Gus could not relate to Jesus. And especially now that he was supposed to lay down his arms and love his enemy. For a warrior like Gus, this was not even an option. So, Jesus had to go, and Gus made his choice to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.3.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-9719-4 / 9798350997194