“That is great to know. I think you’ll find it interesting, even if you don’t write poetry yourself.”
Jake couldn’t stop smiling. She had such a way of making him feel good about himself, no matter how much shame or guilt he might have previously felt.
He kissed the top of her head as they moved through the streets, hand-in-hand, his heart beating like a kettle drum in his chest.
They arrived at the event taking place in a hole-in-the-wall bar. Jake looked around and noticed people who all seemed to be dressed a lot like Casey: carefree, hippie, also ironic in their lack of style. He could feel their eyes burning into him as they swerved through the crowd, looking for a table.
Casey paid no mind to them and sat at a table to the right of the stage. Everyone was drinking and chatting with smoke from vapes and some sneaky cigarettes swirling in the air. Jake felt like he had gone back in time to the sixties.
She unexpectedly reached out and grazed his hand sweetly. “Are you okay?”
Her eyes were like stars in the darkness. He nodded, giving her a cute smile in return. “I’m fine. It's just like we were saying at the museum. I don’t really know much about poetry. I’m sure it shows.”
Casey shrugged with her hands waving back and forth in the air.
“Oh, neither do I, believe it or not,” she said. “I don’t really write or read any of it myself. But I’ve heard a fair amount in places like these, and I relate it a lot to what I studied in school.”
A waiter wearing a fedora and a scarf, despite the warm weather, came by and took their orders. They both got rum and Cokes and continued their discussion when they had their drinks.
“Philosophical?” Jake said.
Casey nodded. “Poetry can be very stream of consciousness, meditative, and thought provoking,” she said passionately. “There really aren’t any rules for it either, which I quite enjoy. You can be way more honest through poetry than you are in general conversations.”
Jake nodded and took a sip of his beverage. “Are you saying that you’d rather write a poem to me than be honest with me?” he quipped.
Without hesitation, Casey leaned forward and grasped his hand. “Talking to you is like poetry. I can’t really be anything but honest.”
Jake felt a warmth shoot through him that he had never felt. It was a solace, a comfort, an eternal certainty. It made him want to cry and at the same time, stand on the table and tell the world how spectacular living life to the fullest was.
Instead, he bit his bottom lip and grinned at Casey. She grinned back and gave him a wink.
They spoke some more about poetry as a philosophy, and she remarked upon how some of her favorite philosophers used similar language as poets. Jake adored hearing her speak so passionately. It was contagious and restorative to his soul.
During her avid rant, Jake spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Casey had her back to the stage while Jake was facing the stage with two tables within his eye line. As he tried to focus on what Casey was saying, he noticed a man continually turning around to look at her, eyes dragging up and down her body like a butcher measuring its slaughter.
He tried to look away, but whoever the man was started to get progressively more vulgar. There was a possibility that he was drunk or high or both, but really, there wasn’t ever a good excuse for disrespectful behavior.
The man whistled at her and remarked about her dress and her body shape. Eventually, Casey picked up on it and turned around while the man grabbed his chest, imitating the rubbing of breasts.
Without thinking twice, Casey raised her middle finger at him. He was with a few other men, who were also disrespectful and vulgar. They burst into frat boy laughter and started yelling obscenities about her body.
Jake squeezed both his fists together, one on the table and one around the glass. When Casey turned back, he saw that her excitement about the night had vanished, fading into a passive resignation many women were forced to slip into.
“Don’t worry about it,” she muttered, leaning against her palm. “Apparently, women can’t even go to a poetry slam and not be objectified.”
Jake watched as tears began to form in her eyes. At the same time, he realized that the man who had started with the lewd comments was an old college rival named Mike Hobart. It was likely that he had recognized Jake and began harassing Casey because of that recognition.
Jake felt terrible but was enraged. He stood from the table, took off his jacket, then slowly began to roll up his sleeves.
Casey was frowning, but her eyes were large with intrigue. “Really, babe,” she said. “You don’t have to do anything. This shit happens all the time.”
“That’s not okay with me,” he snarled.
Jake knew that Casey wasn’t a woman who needed protection. Nor did any woman really, but he felt he had caused the attention, so he was going to get his pound of flesh before the night even began.
He felt her eyes on him, and he knew there was a part of her that loved what he was doing. He would protect her forever if she wanted him to. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
He stomped away from the table, then jetted toward Mike Hobart. He was still making annoying kissing sounds and remarking about Casey’s breasts when Jake’s massive frame stood in front of him.