I've heard girls say, a part of me was missing until HE came into my life lalala. But that’s not how it was with me and Will.  It was more like the law of the jungle, or something. I bet lion kings and lion queens know each other the way Will and I did.

It was Eli who introduced me to Will.  They were friends, but they were complete opposites. Eli was sorta smart, but he was one of those people who thought if you were good it made other people wanna be good too, and he should’ve known that wasn’t true from the way his wife treated him. She’d say the most awful things and then look at him like she was daring him to do something. Naturally, Eli being Eli, he never did, just grinned and shrugged his shoulders, or gave you a sheepy look like, well what are ya gonna do…she was a real bitch, but I think part of it was she was tired of him being so nice all the time. Every now and then I feel a little bad about Eli, but Will and I did try to warn him; Eli might've been sorta smart, but he wasn't very quick.

Eli used to say stuff like, "poverty's a crime" or maybe it was that "property is theft"-thing …I forgot how it goes now, but it was something about the poor and sick and their place in society lalala.  Anyway, Eli liked helping people, and I guess he thought everybody wanted to help them the same way he did. Eli looked at everyone that way, like, he thought I was sweet just because I acted sweet—figuring out what to be is harder for girls, I think.

I don't mean, what to be when you grow up, or for a living. I mean like when I was a kid, little girls wore dresses and little boys wore jeans, and little girls couldn't dig in the dirt for buried treasure like little boys could. It didn’t make any sense and it used to make me mad.

But I watched them from a distance, studied 'em you might say, and I could see their weakness, what they call the achilles heel, is no one cares if you really are sugar ‘n’ spice ‘n’ everything nice. You can be mean as hell inside and as long as you wear a dress and look pretty on the outside, no one knows what's inside and no one wants to know. And having that figured out was almost as good as finding buried treasure.

Naturally, that achilles heel-thing is how people knew they could walk all over Eli. I used to tell him all the time, you say you wanna help people...then you let 'em get away with murder. But from that first night at Eli's party, I knew Will could see exactly what I saw;  the same way lion kings know lion queens, I knew I'd never have to explain about dresses and dirt and stuff, to Will.

The other women at that party were talking on and on about how because men did this and because men did that, it kept them from becoming truly liberated. And the men were all nodding and agreeing with any stupid thing any woman said just so maybe they could sleep with one of those women later; I watched them from a distance, and listened, because after I figured out about the dresses and dirt and stuff, I knew being liberated is kind of a personal matter. If you’re really liberated, or serious about being liberated, you don’t go around talking about liberation, or worrying all the time about someone not giving you your rights.

So I was listening, and looking at them all herded together, and I knew the women all told themselves they wanted one of these men who agreed with everything they said, and the men thought they needed one of those women to keep them in line, even though those men wouldn't go outside the lines if their life depended on it, which was why those women wanted them. And all of them could talk all night about high-minded crap that didn't mean anything once it was dark and they were alone.

But if you’re a woman, until you admit there’s been at least one time you thought about a guy just taking you whether you said yes or no, you don't know shit about liberation. And if you’re a guy, until you admit you’ve thought about just taking a girl without listening or caring what she says, you don't know shit about what scares you about women. And I figured it was probably something like law of the jungle stuff like that made Eli's wife be such a bitch.

So I was listening to all of ‘em go on and on about how men still oppress women and that it was built into the culture lalala. I watched the men agreeing with the women so they could seem sensitive and still sleep with the women later saying, yes it's terrible that some men still treat women as though they aren't equals lalala. And I was thinking about stepping up and asking ‘em something like, who’s your favorite Stooge.  Or maybe asking, which is better the Addams Family or the Munsters, because I knew they’d say the Addams Family.  Then I was gonna tell ‘em the Munsters was better because they were working-class monsters and the Addams Family were aristocrats, just to be smart-alecky; I'm little and cute and mean, and my plan was to slug ‘em and curtsy and walk--but that’s when I saw Will.

From the back of the room he cut right through the pack, he didn't say "excuse me" or anything, just walked right through them to the front of the room where this purple loveseat was pushed up to the wall. Will looked dead at me and patted the empty space next to him like “Come—sit beside me, now”; his eyes never left my face and I hopped up there beside him like a well-trained puppy.  And no one said a word, they just swung their heads and looked at Eli like a flock of long-necked birds in a jury box.

I knew what they were thinking, though: they were thinking, Will, you're such a pig, in this day and age you can't treat women that way.  Women want men who are sensitive, who listen or at least act like they listen, who think about the world and everybody in it, about people who are hungry and sick and poor, and about how we can help them.  Women like that stuff and if they think you do too, you got a chance—but you gotta go slow and act like you care about whatever the hell they’re yappin’ about. That's how it works these days, you can't just hold out your hand and say come hither, like it's all about what you want…they'll just think you're a pig, Will.

But Will knew better.  Will knew everything only worked if boy lions did what boy lions do and girl lions did what girl lions do. It didn't work if you tried to trade places because the places weren't the same. When Will put out his hand I came and took my seat, not because he filled some empty place inside me, but because  it was rightfully my place.  I could see he knew about buried treasure, and dresses and dirt and stuff. 

Naturally, the long-necked jury looked at Eli like, so…the pig is your friend eh, and Eli's eyes got big and white and round like he wanted to say, “No, that's Will, that's not me! I treat women good, I treat everybody good." And it might have made a difference later if he’d actually said that, or if he'd said anything. But Eli being Eli, all he did was stand there with a big sheepy grin, so what are ya gonna do, law of the jungle.

After that, it wasn't long; Eli’s wife started cheating on him and I don’t mean like a fling, I mean it was like she was in heat. Eli acted like it was all his fault, which in a way it was, and when she filed for a divorce Eli was a wreck, crying all the time and sending her flowers and begging her to please come back.  We'd given him a fair chance, even after what he did at the party. Then he said with her gone it felt like a part of him was missing, and sometimes it doesn’t matter whether you’re a boy lion or a girl lion. Sometimes all that matters is whether you’re a lion.

So we loaded up the car and headed out past town; I was wearing my little red dress, naturally, Will says it's his favorite.  I told him it’s the perfect dress to wear for burying treasure, and we could not stop laughing. We rode out on the sunset 'til the moon was in the sky and the woods were jungle-thick. And until we didn't hear a peep from the trunk anymore.