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The Man Card

Ellie Rose McKee

    Brian thought for sure that he would get his when he turned eighteen, but it didn’t show up. He didn’t get one when he smoked for the first time, either. It didn’t come when he punched someone out in school, or had his first beer. There was no sign of it when got his driving license, or even when he had sex.
    There was a guy in he used to know – Aaron – who made a big deal of becoming a man when he had his bar mitzvah. He told everyone that’s when he got his card, and that it was proof that his faith had it right.
    Brian was jealous. He wanted his man card so badly – all the online articles said it was the only thing that really mattered – and was so pissed that Aaron got it so easily.
    That was until Aaron later admitted that he lied, after one long night in the bar. He got a lot of cards at his bar mitzvah, he said, but it wasn’t one of them. He said it made him feel ashamed, and he cried. It was pathetic. Brian was so angry, he never spoke to him again.
    After that, he’d begun to think the man card was a myth and didn’t really exist at all, except his roommate in college – David – had one. And he’d even seen one of the girls in the dorm opposite with one in her wallet. Whatever that was about, he didn’t know. Probably fake, he reassured himself.
    Brian couldn’t bear not knowing any longer. “How did you get it?” he asked David.
    David shrugged.
    “When?” Brian asked, instead.
    A line appeared between David’s eyes as he twisted his lips into a pout.
    “Well?” Brian told himself he didn’t care and believed it, too, but damn it, he had to know!
    “I was... eight,” David said finally. “I think.”
    “Eight?” Brian shook his head. If David was going to lie, he didn’t know why he hadn’t at least made it more believable. Did he really think he was that gullible? Eight? Come on! That was ridiculous. Dave was making fun of him. He’d gone silent again, and Brian wasn’t having it.
    “Fine!” he yelled. “Don’t tell me!” He threw himself down on his bed and glared at the ceiling.
    “Yeah,” said David, more to himself than to Brian. “Eight. I must have been.”
    Brian stared at him, realizing his roommate had glazed over and missed his outburst. It made him want to have another one. He’d hit David so hard his card would automatically transfer ownership to him. He would–
    Brian’s thoughts were cut off as he heard David say, quietly, calmly, “I walked in on my dad beating up my mom.”
    Brian propped himself up on his elbows. It took a conscious effort for him to stop his mouth hanging open like a fish. “Okay,” he said, after a moment. “So, you, uh...” he frowned. “You shot him?”
    “What?” For the first time since he’d been asked about the whole thing, David jolted back into the conversation, giving it his full attention. “No. Why would you– of course not!” he snapped. “I mean,” he gestured as if trying to pull words from the air. “Who does that? You can’t just freaking shoot people!”
    “I would have,” said Brian. “I would have killed the bastard. If he’d done that to my mom? I would have eviscerated him.”
    David leaned away from him, disgust in his eyes. It made Brian want to slug him. He wasn’t disgusting. How could he sit there and judge him for wanting to dole out justice?
    “What did you do, then?” he demanded, thinking maybe a gunshot would have been too kind a punishment, after all.
    “I, well....” The line appeared between David’s eyes again. “I mean, he left. When he saw me there, at the door? He went.”
    Brian sat forward. “And?” he pressed, hating himself for caring so much.
    David shrugged again. “And I went and sat with my mom,” he said. “She was crying. I... I held her. I told her it wasn’t her fault.”
    Brian blinked, the words ‘Is that all?’ dying in his throat.
    “I don’t get it,” he said, instead.
    “Huh?”
    “I don’t get it. How could that earn you... anything?”
    “I think,” said David, “It’s less about what you do, and more about who you are.”
    “Oh.” Unsure, Brain turned on his side. “Well, I never really wanted one anyway.”

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