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Off The Rail - Jan 29, 2005 - Printable Version
- Nowhere to Hide, Ever (A fist full of love)
by Mike Bohling
Once again I find myself writing about something that I don’t understand, about a topic that no one wants to openly talk about. Even if some of us have not been personally been affected by this subject, all of us know someone who has…. The other night I was at the poolroom, playing my regular Friday night game, with my regular Friday night adversary. The place was crowded. So crowded that Rick, the manager, had to fill table # 7, right next to us on # 6. He always fills every other table in the house first, just to allow my opponent and I to have an “unfettered” session. On this particular Friday, Rick filled table # 7 with a couple of guys I had never seen before. They were both in their early twenties. One of them was short and thin, wearing a backwards baseball cap, and the other was a big kid, about 6’4” and 240 pounds. They both appeared to be employed in the lower rungs of the construction trade, heavy boots, and torn dirty layers of clothing. They were drunk. They were loud. It seemed as if they took turns dropping things, at least once every two minutes a cue stick would go crashing onto the floor or a beer would get knocked over. They were both well beyond the point of realizing how much of a disruption they were to our game, or anyone else within earshot for that matter. They were totally oblivious to what inconsiderate fools they were being, as drunks in the poolroom often are. No big deal.
After half an hour, Bob and I pretty much gave up the idea that we would be able to keep our sanity while these guys were on the next table spilling beers, bumping into us while we shot, and talking smack to each other. We decided to give it up. We packed our things and went to have a drink at the bar. What the hell, we both knew that at one point or another when we were young, we each had been just as drunk and obnoxious as these two fools were tonight. It was a natural decision, live and let live, sit at the bar, watch, and humor ourselves with their stupidity.
It was about fifteen minutes later that the big guy’s wife came in. She really laid into him about not coming home, not calling, and leaving her alone with the baby. She looked to be about 5’4”, 140 pounds, and at least 7 months pregnant. She and the big guy were creating quite a scene yelling at each other, so much so, that Rick the manager told them both to take it outside. They cashed out, and they all left together, the little guy, the big guy, and the wife. Bob and I just kind of looked at each other and laughed. The guy was an asshole, he had it coming, and by God, she was going to give it to him.
Shortly after that, a man walks in and tells Rick that he needs to call the police. He said that he just saw a fight between a big guy and a pregnant woman out in the parking lot. That the woman had a broken nose, he’d heard it snap and saw the immediate gush of blood that always comes when a nose gets crushed by a fist. He said that she refused come in and get help, and then, that all three of them got in the car and left.
I just want to say one more thing before I get to the part where I start writing about things that I don’t understand. I hope for my own sake that I never see that big guy again. He’s half my age, twice my strength, and has 40 pounds on me. There’s a good chance that I’ll say something to him that will get the crap kicked out of me. But I swear, if I’d seen him do it, if I was there when he raised his fist to that girl, all of the bulk, youth, and strength in the world wouldn’t have been enough to save him.
I know that most men feel the same way that I do about husbands and boyfriends that beat their spouses. They are second only to people that harm children as the lowest forms of life in our society. I told my wife and a couple of friends about this incident the night that it happened, and asked the same question that I always ask. Why? Why do men do it? Why do women endure it?
Not surprisingly, we all agreed that it was mostly a combination of two things. That the men who hit their wives tended to be insecure in their manhood, and that the women who endured it tended to have low self esteem.
Now, I’ve known plenty of insecure men. All men are insecure in some aspects of their lives, but most would never go around beating up women half their size. I’ve known plenty of women with low self esteem, who couldn’t seem to see themselves as anything more than a doormats, but would draw the line at being be punched, kicked or choked. I also know that a lot of it has to do with the environment in which we are raised. Sons who grow up watching their father abuse their mother, tend to think that it’s normal behavior, and that it’s somehow associated with masculinity. They then grow up to become abusers themselves. Daughters from these same households grow up believing that being abused is an expected part of love and marriage, and may even see it as some sort of confirmation that her man loves her.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know where it begins, I only know that it will never end as long as we hide it, ignore it, and pretend that somehow it will go away all by itself. I’ll never understand how any man could live with himself after putting his wife into the hospital during a fit of rage. I’m having a tough time living with myself for not seeing what was about to go down in the parking lot the other night, and for not being there for that girl. The more I think about it, the more it enrages me. The sad part is that if I had seen it, if I had intervened, it’s more than likely that the girl would have stuck a knife in me for my trouble, climbed into the car, and drove off with the big guy anyway. Even the cops are afraid of domestic dispute calls. They know that it’s the most explosive situation you can put yourself into. It’s a crazy world.
So, how do we put and end to the cycle of abuse? Sweeping it under the rug doesn’t seem to be doing a damn bit of good. I know that everyone reading this personally knows of some victims and/or abusers in their very own towns and neighborhoods. Maybe even within your own families. Do we push for tougher laws and penalties? You know as well as I do that a man can put his wife in the hospital, and get out of jail within 12 hours, even if the victim DOES decide to press charges, and that Restraining Orders aren’t worth the paper that they’re printed on. So, how do we end it? Mandatory sentencing? Charges or not? Lock ‘em up and throw away the key? Seems appropriate, but decidedly unconstitutional.
My only suggestion is that we, as a society, shame the act so badly that no man could live it down if he ever raised a fist to his spouse. Put it on the level on which it belongs, right down there with child molesting. Make the abusers know that they will be watched, that they will become outcasts, that they will be ostracized, “persona non grata”, and that the stigmatization of their acts will follow them around for the rest of their worthless lives.
We may never cure the disease, but we can sure as hell make life miserable for the carriers.
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