STREET FIGHTING MAN

by Henry Brown

Copyright 2019

Virtual Pulp Press

All rights reserved.

In Silicon Valley, the catalyst for Outrage Orgies generally fit into one of two categories: internal and external.

My workplace suffered an internal catalyst once when a clandestine whistleblower within the company released an internal memo to the public. The memo contained our new definitions of violence and racism, for deplatforming purposes.

When smelly WalMart shoppers out in the unwoke hinterlands discover that using words like “border” and “voter ID” is now a hate crime...or that calling certain people “hypocrites” is terrorism, they take issue with our right to dictate morality, censor and dox them for ideological heresy.

We then suffer oppressive scrutiny. Big Tech grows paranoid. Employees suspect coworkers of being the mole. Many fear others might suspect them of being the spy. Various and sundry behaviors might be interpreted as signs of latent fascism—manspreading, buying American, or failing to quote Rachel Maddow on a cappuccino break.

External catalysts were far less stressful. Woke comrades could enjoy the subsequent Outrage Orgy without fear that Nazis would beam down from their secret Moon Base to launch the next Holocaust or question the Wage Gap Narrative.

While I was debugging algorithms for Domestic Dragonfly, the latest externally inspired Outrage Orgy spread from the cappuccino machine through the whole office. This time, those dastardly fascists were going to assemble downtown in an effort to legalize hate crimes!

During Phase One of the Outrage Orgy, the weeping and gnashing of teeth around the office was so disruptive that my production slowed almost to the rate of the Somali coder in the next cubicle who took about nine Menstrual Leave Days a month.

During Phase Two, Jessica Singh (formerly Justin Sanders) paid me a visit.

While fondling the “Coexist” poster tacked to the wall of my cubicle, Jessica told me of xer intention to join Antifa downtown during the racistsexisthomophobe demonstration. Xe vowed to take some Nazi scalps, and invited me to attend.

I politely declined, insisting I must catch up on my yoga...and that the thought of violence triggered me, anyway.

During Phase Three of the Outrage Orgy, our supervisor, Diamond Chang, gathered all her underlings. With reddened eyes and tear streaks down her Goth mascara, she encouraged donations to the compassionate organizations busing in counterdemonstrators from out of town. She promised an unprecedented quantity of fellow travelers, and the racistsexisthomophobes would never know what hit them. After we silenced the political opposition once and for all, we could finally have the national conversations we so desperately needed.

I concurred solemnly, harrumphing at the appropriate moments. Me being bigger than everybody but an obese software engineer on the second floor and a land whale in Human Resources, a lot of coworkers opined I should jump on the scalp-hunting bandwagon. Perhaps my pushed-in knuckles made them assume I should be a natural at punching Nazis. I maintained a straight face while reiterating my yoga-and-pacifism excuse.

The Outrage Orgy diminished a few hours before the end of my shift. I made some progress on the algorithms while uninterrupted, then logged out, exited the modern complex of steel and glass, and walked seven city blocks to where my truck was parked.

There were closer parking garages. This was just another part of my cover. I wasn’t going to die my hair black, like Jessica, and spend hours at a tanning bed so I could identify as Diverse to establish my creds. I sure wasn’t going to undergo gender reassignment surgery to check one of the elite boxes on my Demographic Verification Form.

No way would I drive a Prius. I compensated for my white male heterosexuality via pretensions of eating vegan, frequenting Starbucks, and utilizing public transportation. Leaving the office in the direction of the bus stop fit my carefully-crafted profile, and a remote vehicle staging reduced risk of observation by nosy coworkers.

Inside my old urban camoflage pickup, I shedded my disguise. Off came the skinny-leg jeans, Birkenstocks and faggoty toe socks. On went cargo pants, real socks, and boots. Up top, I threw on a flannel shirt, my old Minnesota Gophers cap, and yellow-tinted shooting glasses.

Goodbye Nick Polgar: “woke” NPC. Hello Nick Polgar: “based” enemy of the Globohomo State.

Feeling considerably less icky, now, I left the parking garage, wound through the city and into the suburbs, the rumble of my American engine no doubt menacing treehuggers right out of their environmentally correct pajamas along the way.

Once home, I devoured some real food, read for a while, and conducted my workout.

I once considered a career in mixed martial arts. Maybe with a good trainer and manager, I could have competed professionally. But I took enough of a beating in the infantry; and was made aware of the human body's finite capacity for cumulative physical abuse. Besides, an MMA career would entail some degree of notoriety.

Considering notoriety, I guess it was just as well the NHL quit drafting one-dimensional brawling goons like me. It was doubtful anybody in Silicon Valley had ever watched a Gophers game back when I played (or at any other time), so my soyboy facade at work rendered me as incognito as a skateboarding pothead at a Beto O’Rourke rally.

There was nothing spectacular about my puck handling or slap shot, but my body checks were devastating. I beat the piss out of some bad dudes on the rink. But enforcers weren’t in demand anymore in professional hockey. I guess I was lucky that the University of Minnesota was old-school enough to still value that particular

skillset back when I went there.

Even if the NHL and UFC never utilized my abilities and disposition, that didn’t mean those abilities couldn’t prove useful elsewhere.