The Butch Experience

Butch Throckmorton was a manly man. The kind of guy that pulled a left over steak out of the freezer and ate it for breakfast, with his hands, while it was still frozen, but not his left over, someone else’s, because Butch would never not finish a steak. Butch led the kind of life that every man dreamed of. He lived in a house just outside of town with 20 acres of trees and wildlife with a pond stocked full of fish for fishing. He showed up at parties but was always late because he just got back into town from some week long expedition or some romantic getaway with a beautiful woman he had just met the week before. And even though he had a different woman with him every time, you never heard of a woman who didn’t like him, because he was such a manly man that the women he was with knew that it wasn’t going to be anything more than a great week, and they were ok with that, because he was Butch Throckmorton. But then he met Her, and he didn’t know why but he was feeling something he had never felt before. There was something about Her that was different, and it wasn’t just that her name was Her, yes that was different, but there was more. What was it? She was beautiful, but no more so than all of the other women he was used to being with. He could hear her laugh from across the room and it sounded like baby bunnies hopping across a field of flowers. Butch’s head was spinning. “Why am I thinking of baby bunnies when I usually think of fast cars and underwear models?” he asked himself. He asked a couple of people who she was but no one knew. Butch’s friends sensed that he was getting ready to unleash his irresistible manness on her and everyone stopped what they were doing to see the master in action. The men in the room lived vicariously through Butch and the women were ok with that because they were all too familiar with Butch’s charms and they too lived vicariously through the women that Butch dated. Butch approached Her and said something. No one knew what he said but knew if it was being said by Butch that it must be classic and that she would soon be enjoying the Butch Experience, which is what Butch’s guy friends called it even though they knew it sounded like it had a much different connotation. She turned to Butch and smiled, but this was different. This was a polite smile and then she turned away and continued her conversation. Butch was dazed, so much so that he stumbled back a few steps and knocked over a lamp. Every guy in the room that witnessed what had just happened gasped and had flashbacks of when Mike Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas. Suddenly guys jumped to assist Butch like cornermen in a fight. One guy waived smelling salt under Butch’s nose to get him to come around and another started putting Vaseline on Butch’s eyes. No one knew who that guy was and he was quickly escorted from the party. Who brings Vaseline to a party and starts putting it on someone’s face? What a freak. And Butch’s face? If Butch wasn’t in the condition he was in that man would probably have gone missing. After the weird Vaseline incident Butch regrouped and went back in. This time she stopped her conversation and turned to Butch and everyone in the room heard her say…”I’m sorry, do I know you?” to which Butch replied, “not yet, but you will.” There it was, classic Butch! A sense of relief filled the air and everyone could feel the cosmic forces realigning. But no one saw what was coming next, especially not Butch. Her, smiling, looked Butch in his eyes of blue steel and said “I don’t think so” and turned to finish her conversation. The guy she was talking to gave Butch a look that said “nice try, but you’re selling sautéed salmon and this girl drives a Toyota Camry.” What was going on? Butch just gave Her his best shot and she’s talking to this guy? That look didn’t even make sense. Toyota Camry? Butch made a few more attempts but each became slightly more pathetic than the one before. He started telling really loud stories about all of the girls he had dazzled with his “Butchness” as he called it. It was at this moment that the Butch Experience started to sound less and less cool. He even took his shirt off because of the ketchup stain he received when he took the ketchup bottle and started “accidentally” squirting himself. Then he began to rub himself and loudly proclaim “my giant muscles ache from chopping wood all day”. He looked around and could see the look of horror on everyone’s faces. Women had that look they get when another woman walks into a party wearing the same dress but in a smaller size. The men, the men had a look that’s hard to describe. The look you get when a hero lets you down. Like Mark McGwire admitting he took steroids, or the thought of fat delusional Elvis dying on the shitter. People tried to look away as Butch staggered out the door looking pathetic and defeated. Couples drove home in silence that night. Men never spoke another word about what had happened. No one heard from Butch Throckmorton again until several years later when the news ran a story about a guy who lived alone just outside of town on a bunny farm called The Butch Experience. And as couples watched that story they turned to each other, gave each other a loving kiss and said “wow, how pathetic is that guy?”