There is a small, angry man who lives on my street. He’s not medically small. He’s just small, small. If you threw pointy shoes and an elf hat on him, you’d say, “Huh. I didn’t know an elf lived around here.” I call him Little One. This is a mean thing that I call him, but it is a thing that I call him. I am not very big myself.
In the mornings, Little One rises late, revs his modified Acura like he’s trying to play the Reveille with his muffler, then rides laps around the block, shaping his ill-perceived battlefield. When he grows bored of driving laps, he parks in front of the building, plays the same five songs on repeat, and leans in repose on the hood of his car. No matter the song, all I hear is, “LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!”
Little One is usually fighting with someone or talking about fighting someone. I once saw Little One fight a delivery driver for beeping his horn while Little One was double parked. More recently, I overheard Little One bragging about beating up the deli man around the corner for not cooking his eggs hard enough. People really like their eggs cooked to piss around here.
Little One communicates exclusively through shouts and hyperactive hand gestures. He speaks of other men only in the context of the threat they pose and women as if they are cats he’d like to run over with his car. He does so loudly, waving his hands and wiggling his torso like one of those red blow-up creatures outside of the Shelor Motor Mile on I81. Little One frequently says things such as, “I am a grown-ass man with a big-ass dick,” and, “Bitch, shut up. You just hate to see me winning.” Due to the volume at which the Little One speaks, I know more about Little One than he will ever know, and that I would like to know, not least of which, that he is a whopping thirty-eight years old.
The term Napoleon complex is generally reserved for individuals such as Little One. Still, I fear such a term gives small, angry men too much credit, for it attaches implications of geopolitical, cultural, and economic ambition to their misguided dander. I fear Little One simply has a man complex. Little One has no world to conquer. He has conquered himself and left his mind in exile on an island of his own making.
My problem with Little One is not that he is small but that he is a loser. My problem with Little One is that I have been a loser, too. My body and brain have long exploded in an attempt to be seen. I’ve swung my fists around in an effort to be loved. I have screamed and worn loud clothes and said awful things out loud to people who do love me. Even now, I’m sitting here on my couch, revving my engine. This Substack is my Acura. Vroom, vroom. Look at me. Look at me!
I see you, little fella. I see you. Now, please, shh, shh, shh. Santa’s coming.
Hello, world.
Sounds like Little Man needs a Josephine to chill his ass out. Either way, dude's fascinating.
Love the end!