I Read Trav McGee! Part 7

Okay, so they get more information about Jane Doe, including her name, Vangie. She was, natch, mixed up in some pretty nasty business and the pretty nasty guys wanted to get rid of her. Since they were bad guys, they made it a point to leave her alive to drown, instead of killing her quickly and dumping the body. But because she's kinda incredibly badass, Vangie pretended to be dead as they dumped her, not even screaming as she was DROPPED OFF A FUCKING BRIDGE, just for the chance that the bad guys would think one of them had put her out of her misery ahead of time, and thus land one of them in some trouble. So, what's Trav's response to this Crowning Moment of Awesome?

I could not tell whether it was spirit or stupidity that made her feel pleased with her own cleverness in giving Terry a hard time as she was, as far as she knew, being murdered.

Oh, fuck you. It was huge brass balls. Maybe you should look into getting some of your own. I hear hunting's good for that.

And, this being a Trav McGee novel, and this being a girl with some trauma in her recent past, she tries to sleep with Trav, but he turns her down because… you know… dirty pillows.

I'd felt no itch of desire for her, and knew why. It had been a white lie. I was a prude.

Yes, that's a good start…

I had been emotionally involved a few times with women with enough of a record of promiscuity to make me vaguely uneasy. It is difficult to put much value on something the lady has distributed all too generously. I have the feeling there is some mysterious quota, which varies with each woman. And whether she gives herself or sells herself, once she reaches her own number, once X pairs of hungry hands have been clamped tightly on her rounded undersides, she suffers a sea change wherein her juices altar from honey to acid, her eyes change to glass, her heart becomes a stone, and her mouth a windy cave from whence, with each moisturous gasping, comes a tiny stink of death.



You know, I started reading this series because I heard it would get better in its attitude towards women, and that Trav would end up even poking some fun at his own "chivalry." But this? Jesus, this! I've seen writers who are trying to write misogynistic characters that aren't this sexist. I mean, Jesus fuck shit damn folks! Me and this series, we're fucking done professionally.

So there's me and Amy, and we're all inseparable, right? Just big time in love. And then four months down the road, the idiot gear kicks in, and I ask about the ex-boyfriend. Which, as we all know, is a really dumb move. But you know how it is: you don't wanna know, but you just have to, right? Stupid guy bullshit. So, anyway, she starts telling me about him... how they fell in love, and how they went out for a couple of years, and how they lived together, her mother likes me better, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... and I'm okay. But then she drops the bomb on me, and the bomb is this: it seems that a couple of times, while they were going out, he brought some people to bed with them. Meacutenage à trois, I believe it's called. Now this just blows my mind, right? I mean, I am not used to this sort of thing. I mean, I was raised Catholic, for God's sake. […] So I'm totally weirded out by this, right? And then I just start blasting her. Like... I don't know how to deal with what I'm feeling, so I figure the best way is by calling her a slut, right? And tell her she was used. I'm... I'm out for blood. I really wanna hurt this girl. I'm like, "What the fuck is your problem?", right? And she's just all calmly trying to tell me, like, it was that time and it was that place and she doesn't think she should apologize because she doesn't feel that she's done anything wrong. I'm like, "Oh, really?" That's when I look her straight in the eye, I tell her it's over. I walk. […] It was a mistake. I didn't hate her. I wasn't disgusted with her. I was afraid. At that moment, I felt small, like... like I'd lacked experience, like I'd never be on her level, like I'd never be enough for her or something like that, you know what I'm saying? But, what I did not get, she didn't care. She wasn't looking for that guy anymore. She was... she was looking for me, for the Bob. But, uh, by the time I figure this all out, it was too late, man. She moved on, and all I had to show for it was some foolish pride, which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I know that now. But I pushed her away. So, I've spent every day since then chasing Amy... so to speak.

That was from a Kevin Smith movie. When Kevin "wrote Felicia Hardy getting raped, Silver St. Cloud getting killed, ripped-off Elektra's death for Karen Page" Smith is more feminist than you…

If this weren't a library book, I would burn it.

By the way, Trav, you know what a good way is to keep from having too much sex? STOP DATE-RAPING PEOPLE. YOU FUCK.