Steven C. Wright
It is 2012, and it is with a perfectly reasonable alibi that I am watching WWE RAW while doing
my APUSH homework. On mute, of course, so I can focus on the Civil War while I side-eye
Cesaro’s beautifully hairy thighs, and his ass in red trunks. As The Union battles The
Confederacy, the USA Network hosts RAW on channel 38. This is a brilliant strategy: as Matt
passes by my room, all I have to do is tick the remote up once to TBS on channel 39. He asks
“what were you just watching?” in that exact way someone does when they know exactly what
you were watching. But, uhh, bup bup bup, hold your warhorses, I was just tuning into The
Big Bang Theory reruns before the new episode of Conan. I’m being coy, like those quirky
laugh track misogynists on the CRT, but my brain is being projected in the reflection of my
glasses. Coy, like Sheamus’ beefy forearms wrapping around Cesaro’s neck from behind, and
now there are tangible images of bulges and choke holds that have me in a choke hold. I think
that I am coy, but I am blatantly window shopping, and I was just caught with my nose to the
glass. My window to the barracks, where thoughts of pile drive or be pile driven wage a quiet
civil war of eroticism. I just played both in my head, and now I play dumb so stupidly that
Matt makes a gay joke on his way to the bathroom, but he keeps the truth of it an open secret.
So, more like a gay profiling. In 5 years, I’ll come out to him. He will have long since known by
then. He won’t remember today. I, of course, will. I wait a long second after he leaves before
reverting the channel back to USA, and returning my thoughts back to US History. A
commercial break is a cock-block, and a photo of dead bodies from the Battle of Antietam is a
cocked rifle. A shellburst. A double barreled bummer, a boner blunderbuss. I remember that
“civil war” is a grave oxymoron. I remember they call it RAW because it spells war backwards.
