The Incredible Shrinking Hulk

“We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men, leaning together, headpiece filled with straw. Alas.” The Hollow Men, poem by T. S. Eliot

The expose that follows is a sordid story of emasculation. It’s painful to peel back the hideous underbelly of ego. Reader discretion is advised.

His cell rings. His wife calls. He answers.

“You’re late, again. Dinner’s getting cold. Where are you?” Excuses explode in his brain. Useless platitudes…she’s heard them all before.

“Working,” he says with a whimper. Before he could add, “Be there soon,” she cuts him off. He utters an expletive. Shrinkage sets in.

Terrell’s a big boy, 260 or so, 30 years young. A man’s man, a woodsman. The forest parts as he walks through. Weeds wither under his ponderous stride. His massive shadow swallows large buildings. Yet, he has a mealy-mouthed proclivity---he shrinks. He becomes a gigantic, punctured balloon. His bluff and bluster vanish at the sound of her voice.

He sits in his truck in the dark. A faint light shines from the house. He creeps to the door. Inside a baby cries, a dog barks. He thinks he might get lucky. He holds a cheap bottle of champagne. It’s lukewarm.

The door jerks open. She stands there, hands on hips (a bad sign…men know it well). Her eyes blaze with fire. Her gaze ignites him. He perspires profusely. Flames lick his flesh. His body becomes rigid. His shoulders slump, his head sags. His chin crashes to his chest. His feet and legs become butter. They melt. He watches them puddle onto the floor. He shrinks.

He offers up the champagne. She rejects the gesture. He morphs into a midget and shambles meekly across the threshold. He withers like a primordial husk. His tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. His backbone crumbles into a clump of rattling bones. The Incredible Shrinking Hulk shrivels into a caricature of a circus clown.

He tells me this story. It must have been an ugly scene to behold…a man being stripped naked of his masculinity. “You’re not alone,” I say. “You’re just a microcosm. Millions of men shrink daily. Deal with it.”

He asks why this happens. “Pal, women have mysterious powers. Men can’t comprehend them. Neither can science. It’s the universal conundrum.”

I explain the irreconcilable irony: From weakness comes power. The profundity disturbs him. He wonders how that can be. I tell him women reduce Titans to toads. They shred bare a man’s thin veneer of pretense. It is what it is. Get over it.

“Look, all men are little boys. Women know this. Boys need discipline. You know, the ‘spare-the-rod, spoil-the-child’ sort, like your mother did.” He’s confused.

“Listen, why do you think Mother’s Day is such a big deal? Man up,” I say. “It’s brutal, but it must be done. Men can’t be trusted for self-discipline. Even Putin cries.”

“Do you shrink?” he asks.

“Every day,” I say. “I’ve licked the boots of bankers, bowed and scraped to authority and groveled more times than I care to admit. It’s a disgusting stigma.”

“Why?” he asks again. “Because men are insensitive, irresponsible, embarrassing and often just plain stupid. Why do you think florists shops proliferate?”

“Huh?” he says.

“Flowers, man, flowers…they’re our only weapon. Forget the cheap champagne; bring home flowers, early and often. Cook dinner, clean up, walk the dog. Get domestic. You’ll survive.”

A friend recently wished me happy birthday. She reminded me that at this age we can leave some things behind. I tell her I had three teeth extracted last week. I’m becoming a shrinking man. She rolls her eyes.

She said her husband was shrinking, too. He’s been carved up so much that he made a cut-rate deal with the mortician on the premise that he needed less embalming fluid and a smaller casket.

Terrell’s disappeared. I call his home. His wife answers. Inside a baby cries, a dog barks. “He’s vanished,” she says. “Last time I saw him he was crawling on the floor with the dog. Maybe he vaporized.” Damn!

Shrinking is serious business, men. I exhort us to organize, to rise up, pour into the streets, to withstand the encroachment of this insidious injustice. Who will be its first martyr?

If shrinking makes a sound, it’s the deafening roar of silence!

Bud Hearn
March 15, 2012