ESTANISLAO CONTRERAS

My psychiatrist, psychologist and physician are treating me for an obsession that transforms into a depression when my circular mania has exhausted me. The three offer a variety of medical remedies, both long term and short term. I'm juggling the short term. I don't want to surrender my mind. I just require a short silence from the incessant chattering.

I count on Valium and Xanax coming out of the bullpen on a daily basis when life starts shelling me in the later innings. My psychiatrist suggested another strategy to cope with the chaos. I'll be curious to hear her experienced opinion when she learns that I haven't followed her advice. I'm not dissing her wisdom. Like the Buddha, she is pointing, but it's my responsibility to choose the way.

For the tenth time today I'm reciting the innumerable reasons I hate my wife. I have the list memorized. My three experts agree that she has traumatized me. I'm man enough to admit that this woman has floored me several times and has me hanging on the ropes. I have no doubt that she will knock me to the canvas again and again before this 15-round slugfest ends. I'm not expecting a favorable verdict from the judges, but I hope to survive the punishment and resume my normal existence without too much brain damage.

A friend told me that when a spouse files for a divorce, she has a boyfriend eagerly waiting to fill the void. I saw her walk out of the supermarket yesterday with our daughter. She emanated a radiance. She had worked all day, but there wasn't a hint of fatigue in her face. Happiness suffused her countenance. Is she in love?

When we accuse others of a transgression, we're oftentimes guilty of the cited offense. She has accused me of adultery. Is she the one fucking or is she counting the days until she is officially single and can give herself without guilt?

Will the court permit me to speak when I have to counter the charges of adultery and mental cruelty that she intends to exploit in order to squeeze more money out of me? Should I write a brief on behalf of abused men that the judge and prosecuting attorney can read since the language, the lingua franca of the bloggers, will be too obscene to express orally in a judicious setting.

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if your wife wanted to swing, have sex with two guys at once and ravish the mythical man in black?

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if your wife refused you hundreds of times after telling you that during her single days she had to have it night and day?

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if your wife after telling you that ecstasy turned her into a nymphomaniac would say you bored her and sex once a month would more than suffice?

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if your wife told you that her amigos con derechos would fuck her when they picked her up at her apartment, fuck her after a night of partying and fuck her in the morning would tell you after wining and dining her at the finest restaurant in town that she wasn't in the mood and would angrily repulse you for not respecting her space?

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if your wife rendered in debauched detail her myriad sexual escapades in which every orifice was penetrated and filled with sperm by one-night stands, weekend-flings, fuck friends and boyfriends in the bathroom stalls of restaurants, across the back seats of cars and on the desks in offices as well as any place that afforded sufficient space for some horny bastard to stick his prick in her palpitating pussy?

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if your wife told you that she preferred a cat to you and then kicked you out of your own home because she opted for a dog instead of you?

"How would you respond, gentlemen, if after giving her children the father they never had, your wife robbed you of your daughter because she wanted to fuck other men?

"Is it unreasonable, therefore, to expect that a man going crazy at the hands of a Mary Magdalene who wants to wrap her fingers around another's penis wouldn't screw behind her back and scream in her face?

"I have learned through all this travail a variation on a much-repeated adage. They say that behind every good man stands a good woman. I beg to differ: Under every good man lies a good woman."