THE BULL IN THE GARDEN - J. MILLER FICTION - PART 1

I had been thinking about violence, domestic violence, and a correlation between it and stressful financial times. But unlike my experiences with those who use cannabis, or the general population and college communities in general, domestic abuse, which sometimes leads to victim death, i can't recall much memorable experience. There's plenty though - it's simply I mentally block such memories if I can.

There was my friend Deb from 15 years ago... got her nose almost torn off when her boyfriend smashed it. She was a co-worker at the time and we became friends. He, her "boyfriend", did disappear after that - locked up for a time and then onto greener pastures , where no doubt he would repeat his aggressive behavior.

Their was Maria, a girl-friend I knew back in the 70's... her mother seemed similar to mine; at around 2AM one morning while in bed with Maria her phone rang... which was in the other room. Maria had to answer it at that hour, could be an emergency... myself in bed, from across the hall I could hear Maria talking to her mother. I could hear her mother's voice as she (correctly) claimed Maria had a man in her bed, but she then screamed at Maria what a whore she was, etc...

There were the HS dances, that despite my geeky nature, I attended occasionally, usually with friends, but sometimes alone... how often they ended in some male or males confronting me, and threatening me. I have looked at a knife more than once. Alcohol was always involved.

There was the night I was at a good college friend's house for a party... the end of my first year at college... my friend and I had spent hours and days and weeks studying over the phone (in the 1970's) for homework and tests in our physics class...  he also was a co-worker at the dept. store I worked at. We had a party at his house one Friday night. All the hot ladies from work were there, and in spite of my fear of dancing... since no woman ever accepted a invitation for a dance at one of those past mentioned dances, I was delighted that at this party, I danced up a storm. Life was good. Until, my friends brother, took a dislike to me, and while we passed in the hallway he suddenly started beating the crap out of me; until others, including my friend pulled him off of me.

Score one for a major turning point in my life... a downturn.

Those are snippets of my past... all leading to a discussion about Domestic Violence", and it's many forms.

I'm not a fighter... though if I had to I am a wiry guy, and I'm sure I could defend myself. The fact is, I don't wish to hurt anyone... I would prefer talk, use patience until things cool. If it came down to imminent death, I wouldn't hesitate to use deadly force in return. The question is, how does one know when that moment is at hand?

Enter John Miller and an experience he'd like to share.

It's a cliff hanger, as the story is pretty involved, intense...

It was the deadline for this past federal taxes... the farmer's wife, divorced, was due home after a week in Florida. John had gotten home from work and the Bull was fretting the farmer's wife's return... his girlfriend, sure, but he depended on her as since the housing bubble burst, he's been out of work. Plenty of work where he lived. But that put him in a girlfriend/laborer role. Meanwhile, John got home and talked to the Bull awhile, trying to lend a ear, and it turned out the Bull HAD NOT filed his tax return yet. And the next day was the deadline. He was bullish, to say the least!!!

The Bull could use a computer, but wasn't comfortable with them. He was a carpenter. So John not only built a computer for him to use, since we can hardly get by without one these days, but he provided whatever help he could for Bull. What he couldn't provide was a broadband connection, and the process of downloading the necessary tax forms from the IRS, via dial-up internet, filling them out, was torture. The internet connection kept freezing... and the cursing began.

Next time... Bull snaps... BobKat gets a inside view of how domestic violence can yield so many different "facts..."