TRYING TO KEEP FROM BEING WASHED AWAY BY THE CULTURE AND MY STORY BEING ANNULLED
One of the reasons I try to put my “what’s what” into my
entries is that right now I am moving towards wherever it is I am headed. Nebraska and I will manage to be friends and
that left me feeling strangely fine. The
reason I say that is because I have famously been a “friend” and not someone
who has friends. Since that has been the
case for big swatches of my life, I have not missed the companionship of having
someone like say, the Fly Skimmie or Hutch around to spend time with. And though I miss the SFC, when it comes to
people and being long-time friends, I just don’t know. I may, and this is still in the study stage,
a ways from going into policy, start calling folks whose numbers I have and
seeing “what’s what” with making that connection.
Also, while I trust most of my readers to discern what is
actually going on with me from my “true fiction” writing, I still feel more
comfortable offering a disclaimer so that no one who does worry about me is
actually worried about my well being given what I feel is the “downtempo”
orchestration of these recent entries.
Were I to get to know my starter wife now, I would not have
taken the chance with her in marriage.
This is not some buyer’s regret that I she would begin hitting me or
anything. Three episodes prior to our
running down I-75 to Toledo are still clear in my mind, indications that we
were not meant to even be friends much less f*ckin’ each other. What isn’t as clear is the order of the
events and that is that.
At the drug store that I provided security for I did make a
male friend whom I invited to a ghetto dinner party that my wife (am tired of the darn prefix… gotta problem with that?)
held, inviting a few of her girlfriend’s over to do whatever they did. Not only were they from the Sisterhood of
Single Black Mother’s, they were all big girls, who are distinguished by their trying-too-damn-hard to be cute outfits, garish make-up and equally loud
and unattractive hair styles, to say NOTHING of their character.
My friend and I came straight away from work that evening
and as soon as we got in, I could smell the caustic witlessness in the
air. They all had jokes including my
then-fiancée. And that was an antecedent
of sorts for the kind of a**hole she was, degrading the horse that she wants to
help her plow the field of her life with, but I thought at the time, “Hey, that’s
just you Mark,” and moved on as much as I could.
Now everyone has their local celebrity story in
Detroit. At least it seemed that way
growing up, as all the adults had their claim to either seeing someone famous regularly
and speaking of them as though they were friends or spreading rumors that they
confirm through their “reliable sources”.
While I never say that I know Tommy Hearns to avoid the implication of
trying to be a famewhore two (or three) steps removed, but I do know Tommy
Hearns. Went to middle school with two
of his brothers, and of course, from boxing, and he was and still is the only
person that I have ever said was, “my hero”.
Because of that, he was a big thing not just to me but in my
house as well. So when my wife was first
introduced to my sibs and Moms, she came in talking smack about Tommy, the cat that
my Aunt took me to see when he was still a skinny kid boxing and whom I could
not go to school for two days after his loss to Ray Leonard, 16 September,
1981. It was funny to her and I guess
she thought it cute, to be slaggin’ on my man, in my home, a home where you
would get run out for such blasphemous talk!
So whether you want to call it youthful immaturity on her
part (even though she is three calendar years older
than me) or ignorant teasing, that was among the biggest signs that I
SHOULD NOT marry her. There were other
offenses, but for me subjectively, these are two of the incidents that made it
clear that she was the wrong girl.
Of course, she had a “Tee Jay” character in her life, the
brother of one of the women in her particular coven. Maybe I should have included this into my
case for our fail as well not her not really having dealt with her emotions for
him, that she did not think that she was as pretty as her friend, his
sister. Man, there was NOTHING attractive
or remotely cute about this rectangle of a woman. All the things that she thought of her, that
she projected onto her, were qualities that I believed she had in spades and
her friend had NONE of that!!
So even though she had shown flashes of violence during the
brief gestation that was our getting to know one another, which combined with
these three evidences of her personal uncertainty, thought that there was
enough to call off our relationship. But
I had gotten sucked in too deep and like a swimmer in a lake and finds
themselves unable to resist the current, I could not back to the shore.
I don’t really remember all the times she tried to hurt me…
that is how I really saw it at the time, as there was one time on the
Southfield Freeway where she DID manage to hurt me and I hurled her ten feet
and threatened a by-stander who I felt was putting on a white hat to come save
the day for her. But not only had each member
of my family individually observed her violence, there were several “combo
incidents” where either one or both twins along with the oldest girl in our
family were witnesses, and there were several time my younger brother came to
my defense. So whenever she would try to
justify her actions or worse yet, minimize them, I would make that the center
piece of my response to “oh, you hit me too” comments. I fail to see where one incident was able to
justify a clear pattern on her behalf, but hey, sister-girl logic… f*ck ‘em if
they can’t take a joke.
Because this was inspired by an article posted on Face Book,
I want to draw things to a tighter conclusion.
The author was not an angel herself, having chosen poorly and having
relationships that ended with a termination of a baby. But nothing, not her bad partners, her lack
of contraceptive use, her “free love” ways, nothing she did allows for her to
be a victim of assault, to put up with abuse, mental or physical. And I guess that is where I am coming from.
Smurfs and Smurfettes, you know me. If you do not know what you need to know
about me from my blog, then bring your a** to Omaha and find out. Or, if you want to be “the home team” send me
a plane ticket and you will see for yourself whether or not I am who you thoughtI was… otherwise, you are jus’ campin’.
Getting back to the source for this, I never claimed to be
altered by the domestic abuse that I endured.
First, a cat like me is more grateful having survived nothing more than
a deep ego bruise. Second, when
considering the costs, it should not be forgotten that I was a young
ATHLETE. And for athletes, aging for
them has more in common with how aging relates to dogs. “Don’t waste her young years,” my Mom said
when I asked her should I get a divorce.
She knew, as parents always know, that we were D.O.A, and not just
because I was bangin’ other people.
Because I was only seeing my friend from high school, the Fly Skimmie,
and I was out of the house. So if I am
guilty of anything, it was acting as though I was an “unrestricted free agent”
instead of a “restricted” one. So to her
using my whorish ways as justification for jumping on me, TWEEE—EET! I have to throw another bullsh*t flag on that
one.
So face it. She was
and may still be a horrible human being.
And it would be in the same vein as Sen. Ryan and Rep. Akins, who would
try to represses women’s rights based on misogyny and superstition, along with
other misconceptions. Because nearly all
of the domestic violence I have experience was so early in my adulthood, I have
never tried or even thought to make a claim to having suffered any scarring
from it. The only damage that I have
ever acknowledged was the years that I lost as a young boxer trying to be the
husband to a unwilling partner. And
maybe, that was damage enough. I mean,
how does a person deal with their dreams having begun the irreversible process
of dying on the vine, all the in the pursuit of a love that was never truly
mutual?
If the scars from the series of events that has me label my
wife as “violent” did do anything that I have noticed, it is to like Adam and
the Ants song, “Friend or Foe” a whole heck of a lot more!! Oh, and tell more people that they can “eat
sh*t and die”!
3 comments:
With some people it will be the same song, 15th verse unless you move on from them. Starter wife sounds like she fits that bill. Life at the dictate of the bad-tempered is hell.~Mary
i knew with v 2.0 that it was over as soon as it started, i just refused to believe it, thinking that people change.
people change when they want to do so, and only one of us changed in that whole mess.
usually the instigator is the one who will never change. what peeps don't like to think is that women can be the instigators too.
xxalainaxx
Agreed, not excuse for violence except a lack of self control.
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