City of Boys – Beth Nugent

Beth Nugent - ??

Ahhh…yes, another story to remind me how lucky I am to be born male. Jeeze…the headaches you women have to deal with throughout your lives.

Godwin hits us with the victim/victimizer one-two punch giving us this selection right after Angela. Sure it’s placement is due just by luck of the author’s last names…but, you know…is there a theme to her selections?

A gritty little story which ends up lending its name to the title of a collection of short stories from Nugent in the early 1990s.

Stories like this cause me to think back to my teenage years. I wonder if any of the girls that I knew in those days we in situations similar to that found in this short. Chances are, they were – and probably worse. Was it of their own doing…or were they subjugated?

Then I think back to my days in the classroom. I think about the young girls at their desks intimidated of me as I walk past them…intimidated just because I am a man, and someone has put that fear of men into them.

And then I am once again reminded that we are humans, and this is how things are, and this doesn’t make me happy but it does fascinate me.