About Fifteen Years Ago . . .

One night I heard a growl. Not a voice. It was too much like an animal's roar to be called that. Then a body hitting the floor, hard enough to shake the lighting fixture on my ceiling.

"But I love you, I love you, I love you!" The girl screamed back. Those were the only words I could make out. She continued saying them over and over.

A few years before that before that, I had discovered that several of my female friends had been victims of domestic violence in at least one relationship in their lives --- one whose ex-husband had literally knocked her through a wall. I had found this out after doing an interview for my college paper with the woman who was the director of the local task force on domestic violence.

I immediately called the task force after the incident upstairs, only to find out that they weren't much help. All I can remember them saying was, "Have you tried talking to her?"

Luckily, the abuse lasted only one other night before the girl left him. She came back to get her belongings, accompanied by the police.

I felt guilty about not doing more. It really tore me up inside, and was all I could think of for a while. If I had truly been a man, she wouldn't have had to go through that a second night.

You might be interested in knowing what happened to the guy. Seems that one night the guy was working his job as a security guard at the local college when someone beat the living hell out of him in the college parking lot.

As much as I hate how it sounds, I smiled when I heard that. I like to think that karma found its way to his doorstep.

No man has the right to EVER hit a woman. Any man who does is beneath contempt.

I just hope that if it ever happens around me again, I will be more of a man.