Men who were her age or older represented problems. Health problems that went on and on and never stopped. Or money problems and the problems of retirement and what that would cost them. Problems. That’s all they were. Problems. Men without erections who took their tiny pool of aging testosterone elsewhere. To their bank accounts, to their workouts at the gym, to their tireless hours seated at bars, talking about life in 1968.

Men without testosterone who found power in persuasion. They lured in younger women and talked a good game until push came to shove. Then they shoved hard and real and knocked that woman square onto her ass and then sat back and claimed innocence. Claimed misinterpretation. Claimed that the woman had wanted what they had not. Old men. Old men without charm, balding like weak eagles on rocky cliffs.

Annie knew all that. Knew what the old white men were about, and she sat there and sipped her wine and thought about what to watch on Netflix that night. One man with a white goatee and an even whiter hat looked at her from across the bar, caught her eye and shouted, “You are a remarkable-looking woman!” Annie grinned and looked down at the bar counter.

He came close to her and introduced himself. “I’m Alex, and you are?”

“Annie.”

“Annie, what a lovely name. Where are you from?”

“Oh, up North. Quite a distance from here.”

“And where would that be? Churchill or some place like that? You look Native. Are you one of those, you know, what do they call them . . . Eskimos!”

Annie felt her shoulders start to tighten. She gave a half-smile and a half-nod.

“Really! Hey fellas, look over here—it’s an Eskimo!”

She knew not to interact. No matter what. Not with a white guy, and especially not with an old white guy. She let her breath out and held her head up a little higher.

“Like the football team, you mean, Alex?” The bar burst into hard laughter. Peals of it slip-sliding everywhere. Annie saw the bellies of all those white men jiggling like Mr. Claus. She saw their white beards ho-ho-ing and their blue eyes glittering like the stars on a Christmas tree. Annie saw what she always saw in white men. Annie saw hate.

She turned her head away from the man named Alex and nodded to the bartender that she wanted to pay her bill.

“Oh, now don’t run off,” said Alex, his white teeth lining the edges of his white goatee. “Sit with me for a while and tell me about yourself. Now what is it that they call you people nowadays? In-you-ette. In-you-ite?”

“In-you-pants!” shouted another of the Bar Flies, and again the room roared.

Annie stared into his diamond-blue eyes and shook her head: No. She was trying to get up from her stool when Alex put the fingers from his right hand into the small of her back. Annie felt the pressure on the base of her spine, and she felt the snarl begin to rise from her throat.