A series of books came out about 10 years ago declaring: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The books explored the notion that women and men are world’s apart. My readers should understand, at this point in my life, as a man, as a writer, I am fixated on the differences between women and men. Our so called differences have created monumental social problems in the last 50-75 years as men and women struggle to cope with the adversity that accompanies modern life.

I have no healthy solutions to this age old dilemma. I just want to talk about women that are down with the Mars Project. Before I get started, I should mention, as a caution to women, about men who want to make frequent trips to Uranus. They are bad astronauts. The rest of us like to explore the universe called women. Some of the more enlightened travelers voyage around the world. But I digress…


Why Some Women Support Men
A discussion about the women that support men and the women’s motives for supporting their men is very subjective. Being less than objective has not stopped me in the past, so reader feedback will be especially appreciated.

Is this an issue important to men and women? In the present scope of things, it probably is not that important. In this tumultuous age, I allow myself to reminisce about the “good old days” and indulge my escapist fantasies about my “wonder years” to make my professional and personal life seem more fulfilling.


Down With The XY Klan
About 10 months before I went away to college, I went to a set on the near west side of Detroit. I’m from the east side, so I've always favored west end girls. Anyway, I was walking around the party trying to look swave and disinterested. I came upon a girl standing in a corner of the room with her back to me. She was bouncing an incredibly big ass, to the beat of the music, stuffed in a brown velour mini skirt. The zipper on the back of the skirt was about to pop open under strain of holding all that ass inside that skirt. The ass beckoned me. I taped the girl on the shoulder. When she turned around she gave me the once over and smiled enthusiastically. Her front was equally proportioned to the back. Baby was 5’ 5” with 36 D titties, a little thick around the waist and was packing that 44” ass.

I need to digress a moment to go over some pertinent points. I am a black man. I love every aspect of women. I know, at this point in my life, that the shape of a woman’s derriere is not a determining factor in the choosing of that woman nor is the roundness of said ass an indication as to how good she might be in bed. In fact, it has been my experience that a narrow butt sistah will screw you into a coma!! But that’s another blog. In the future, I plan to further explore this phenomena and associative urban mythologies like; big titties (evil) versus big asses (mean). I will not explore the issue of big dicks versus teeny weenies. Women always lie to me and tell me I’m the man so I have no objectivity regarding this issue. Anyway, it’s not how hard you swing the bat, it about the number of home runs you hit.

Anyway, me and bodzilla exchanged numbers. I found my way over to her house. Baby was an exciting young woman and I made no attempt to hide my excitement. In fact, I believe she was impressed at how excited I was to be in her presence.

Baby and I dated well into my college years. There were times when Baby would get on the Greyhound and come visit me at school. Baby wrote me letters. Baby sent me money. There were no limits to the things she would do in bed. Baby was a down to Mars girl.

A wise old man once told me that if you want to see who your girl is going to be, in the future, look to her momma.

Momma had two men: a manager at a Chrysler plant and a handyman with a pickup truck. Handyman installed a picture window in Momma’s house and did some general upgrades to the physical plant. When Handyman got finished with the upgrades, Momma married the Chrysler manager and moved her family-Baby and her 2 brothers-into a much bigger house with an in ground swimming pool and rented the old house out!

Baby had two men too. When we met, she was 15 and mature beyond her years. She had been kickin it with her hoody for sometime before I pulled up to the bumper. I was taller, much better looking, had a car, a job and was headed to college. Momma had taught Baby well. Baby knew at some point homeboy would be driving a pickup truck and I would be sitting in an office somewhere looking out the window thinking about getting home to her. But since I’d be away at college, why throw away a handy man?!

I knew Baby had a plan for me and I was a willing participant. Unfortunately for her, I got my nose opened by some bona fide University debutant's. By the time I flipped my tassel, Baby was just a pleasant memory.

I finished college and returned home with zero job prospects, at Christmas time. My Jewish mentor, who never expected to see me again, was considerate enough to rehire me at the clothing store he owned and operated.

I lived with my mother about 6 months until her menopausal rage ran me out of the house. I moved to the lower east side on Cadillac off Mack. A few months later, while shopping at the only decent market in the hood, I literally bumped into my new girl with an armful of groceries. We laughed about bumping into one another and she laughed at me because of my embarrassment. Good thing she liked what I had on. Because I sold men’s clothing, I wore a suit and tie everyday. I convinced her to give me her telephone number.

I was 5 years older than her oldest child. She had 5 children, no job and a man living in her attic that she had met at a bar she frequented. The man begged her to be his woman and offered her the world. She allowed him to live in her attic and she took his money. She had no affection for this man. He was country, underemployed and drank too much. He came home every Friday from the bar and gave her what was left of his paycheck. She fed him, washed his clothes and stored him in the attic. She confided to me that she had no respect for a man that would throw himself at a woman in such a manner.  He was too needy to be her lover.

Rose was in her late thirties. She was what the old men call “All Woman”. She was thick. You could set a tray of drinks on her big yella ass. She had hazel green almond shaped eyes. Her eyes sparkled , when she smiled,  but they also revealed the hardness of her life. She had been too busy supporting her five children to be anyone’s lover. Then she exhaled.

We would meet at little hotel in the hood. She was not eager to explain a 24-year-old lover, to her children or to her boarder who was patiently waiting for her to show him some love. Rose was the ideal “date”.  The notel was much cheaper than dinner at a restaurant and it kept my roommate-my evil twin- from getting too deep into my bidness.

We usually got together on Monday evenings. During the 6th week into our tryst, I came home from work that Wednesday and found Rose waiting for me on my porch. She put her arms around me and placed her head on my shoulder. She told me that she had been thinking about me all day and couldn't wait to see me. Rose had fallen harder than either of us wanted or anticipated.

Right up until that moment, I thought that she and I had the perfect relationship: no strings and no inhibitions. I was not the first man that Rose had met at the notel but I was certain that I was the first man she had ever walked 2 miles to see and then waited for 2 more hours in the cold.

In my mid-twenties, my only concern was the development of my "professional career".  I liked Rose a lot but attending to her was not my first priority. I did not go to college for five years to return home and sell clothing for the rest of my life. I hired a professional job placement service. I interviewed, once a month and got jocked, over and over. One day, while at work I overheard my boss on the phone with a job prospect. My mentor was giving me a less than positive endorsement. He had promoted me to manager and had no intentions of letting me go.

The next time I went to an interview, I insisted that my employer not be contacted for a reference. I got the job. I moved from the east side of Detroit to southwestern Michigan.

When I informed my landlady that I was moving, she jumped in my lap and asked if she could go with me! Even though she looked just like her father-and he was not a handsome man-my right arm slid itself around her waist. Daddy’s Girl told me that she would be willing to leave her good county job, her 2 teenage sons and her assorted mens to go away with moi. I never knew Daddy’s Girl would be willing to give up everything to start a new life with me.

I pursued my “professional career” but it caused me to abandon 2 down to Mars girls.

The move put my deteriorating relationship with Rose to bed. From the day I discovered her waiting for me on the porch, we both knew we were in trouble. The streets had made her too leery of falling for any man. She knew from the start that I had a very narrow interest in her but she enjoyed our time together. It took her away from a life that had become mundane and unrewarding. For me, it was an experience that I would learn to appreciate, the older I got. She and I got to a place most people just read or talk about. We pushed the inside of the envelope.

I moved from the lower east side of Detroit to lower Slobovia near the Indiana/Ohio borders. I was the only single black professional male under 30-years-of age in the county. I was an anomaly.

I moved to the country. I worked in an institution for the mentally and physically challenged. The place where I worked was considered by the locals to be the best place to work in the county. I worked with farmers that used the money they earned to pay the taxes on their farms. They were good people. Most of them had owned their parcels of land for 3 or 4 generations. Unfortunately, none of their twenty something progeny were interested in carrying on the tradition. The kids only wanted to smoke dope, get knocked up by some nig from Battle Creek, be on welfare or move away and never come back.

I was the first "professional" that the direct care staff had ever seen be treated and talked to like a peon like they were accustomed to being treated. Me and the direct care staff bonded very quickly. We had a common enemy: the RN’s. My immediate supervisor was an RN with a masters degree in English. Now y’all understand why I be write so good. She was on my ass every minute of the day and attempted to correct every report I wrote.

There was only one person on the ward that the RN’s and the shift supervisors would not mess with. Her name was Caroline. She was built like Marilyn Monroe and her face was a ruffed up version of Mamie Van Doren's. She wore tight shirts, unbuttoned down to the 3rd button; push up bras to show off her big titties and tight blue jeans to show off her big Aryan ass. She had short platinum blond hair and had a gruff mannish voice from chain smoking Winstons.

When I arrived in HER unit, she immediately began harassing the piss out of me. I knew right away that she liked me. Her eyes were always smiling when she started fucking with me in front of the rest of the staff. Every statement she made was followed by hearty laughter. It wasn’t too long before she would come and get me to go outside with her and have a cigarette every morning before lunch time.

One Friday night, Caroline called me at home. She had been drinking heavily as was her nightly custom. She told me that she wanted to come see me but was “afraid to come over”! She began weeping very softly as she was talking to me.  No amount of coaxing could get her in that Chevy, over to my apartment and out them tight clothes. As shocked as I was by the call, my 25-year-old horn dog ass was eager to get her Daisy Duke on steroids, Marilyn Monroe shaped 50-year-old ass over to my place. Fear of the social backlash kept her at home.

When I got back to work on Monday, when she saw me, coming down the hall, she purred out my name. The other women gave her a look of shock and disapproval. From that day forward, no one in the unit could fuck with me in her presence. If anyone directed any form of sarcasm or hate at me she would beat them down verbally. When we had a potluck, when I waltzed into the room, Caroline would make me sit down and would fix me a plate. The first time she did it the mouths of several of our female co-workers hit the floor. Whenever I encountered her in one of the tiny medication rooms or in one of the observation rooms, she would intentionally walk by and press that big ass against me real slow. But, she would never allow us to meat behind closed doors.

I would get an anonymous phone call on Fridays about once a month. I would say “Hello?” but never got an answer. This went on for 3 years. We were the victims of social rules set in place before the Crusades. She also knew that I would never get used to line dancing, non mentholated cigarettes and Budweiser. I eventually left that small town and came back to the D. My down with Mars girl made my time in lower Slobovia tolerable.

I behaved like a lumberjack straight out of the woods for the first 6 months, after my return to Dtown. My behavior was down right reprehensible. I was working downtown had two cars and no expenses.

At a house party, I ran into a bartender, that had secretly admired me from afar, during my clothing store days. She was living with her baby daddy. I would go see her on weekends after baby daddy left to do his street hustle. We would entertain one another until the early morning. We were able to pull it off for over 2 years. I threw a monkey wrench in our good works by inviting Dracula into my home.

She was my last Down with Mars girl. She called my house every Saturday morning, about 3 a.m., for a year, after I hooked up with Dracula. When I see her now she still verbally abuses me for abandoning her, like it happened day before yesterday. It didn’t matter that I was her fourth on a string Jody. She was a dedicated member of the Mars Project.

Men complain about women all the time about a variety of things. Men and women involved in relationships frequently engage in “fault finding”, when it comes to one another. As relationships become strained, we begin to reminisce about the one that got away. We dream about the good times we shared with someone from our remote past.

Andre 3000 reminded me in a song that even the most successful men are sometimes unable to have stability in their relationships with women. Habitual relationship failure serves to reminds people of the few good relationships we managed to have, even if they weren't that good when we were having them.

We are fortunate to find companions that support us emotionally and are willing participants in bed. As time goes on, in reflection, these women become goddesses. Each of them with hearts of the purest gold. They were living their lives, yet made time to attend to an asshole like me in ways that no one else was willing to consider.

As time moves forward, I have come to appreciate their efforts. Women tell me all the time that they meet men who express the desire to treat them a certain way, yet time and jaded viewpoints prevent these women from allowing those willing men to love them. Each of us deserves the opportunity to be loved. Please don't pass up your next opportunity. It will come and you must be prepared to receive it.