Thu, 19 May 2005

the things i’ve caused (two)
One Sunday afternoon, watching football on the couch, his father turned to him and said “I want you to listen, and whatever happens you need to remember this. A man who hits a woman is a punk. He’s a fucking punk.” His father never swore, even when he caught his hand in the car door, so he knew this wasn’t a casual comment. He didn’t know what to say, so he pulled himself together a bit, put a little more depth into his voice, and said “I know”. Years later, he’d been in circumstances with women which were, to put things kindly, ambiguous, where the use of violence, or at least the threat of violence, seemed to be a desired result. She would turn, and she would dig, for a reaction, and he would give her nothing, held inside, unwilling to push against the few things he took as truths. In time he found someone with whom this was not an issue, and he took her as his bride, and she told him the story, the story every woman he’s known eventually tells him, who he was, when it happened, how she’s not really afraid anymore. The next year his father died, and after the funeral he sat on the back porch with his wife, and his sister and her boyfriend, and he mentioned the thing his father told him, and they all became quiet, and his sister told him what had happened to her, and how her father found out, and what he wanted to do, but she said no, no, it’s over. After everyone went to bed, he sat on the back porch by himself, staring at the scattered lights of distant farmtowns, and he found the address in the phone book.
(12:26.05.19.2005) [/scrytch] #