The latest string of professional athletes accused of assaulting their girlfriends or wives brings to mind my only firsthand account of a man striking a woman in anger.
I was dating a young lady while in college and she wanted me to meet her family one weekend. We drove the 60 miles from our school to her hometown to attend a weekend family cookout/fish fry.
The young lady was from what is known as “The Country”—which is a remote, wooded area located on the outskirts of a city or town, and it took us longer than I anticipated to get there.
We traveled along roads, back roads, graveled pathways and eventually arrived at her mother’s house to the smell of grilled charcoal and the sound of Frankie Beverly & Maze playing in the backyard. (The Al Green would come later).
My friend’s mother opened the screen door and walk from the front porch to greet us as we go out the car.
She hugged her daughter, and then hugged me, kissed my cheek and held me at a distance to examine my face. “He kind of remind me of your brother,” she said. (Wait, what?)
Her mother led us to the backyard that was filled with people, but segregated, as women sat at a picnic table, some of them were playing cards and sipping from bottles of beer. A group of men were standing under a small tree further back in the yard and they were drinking from cans of beer.
My friend led me around the yard and introduced me to everyone. The women at the table were mostly aunts, cousins and friends of the family, and the men under the small tree were her uncles and male cousins. Another uncle was at the side of the yard tending to a fish fryer.
One of her cousins standing under the tree was a tall, slim guy wearing a light blue mechanic’s shirt. He had a gold tooth that flashed when he smiled between sips of beer. His name was stitch onto his shirt but for the sake of anonymity we’ll call him “Goldie.”
Goldie and the other men shook my hand and as my friend and I finished our tour of the yard, my friend’s mother called us from the porch to help bring food from the house, “Y’all come grab some of these tins.”
Another woman was helping my friend’s mother carry the food as we walked over. She was a younger woman, obviously not an aunt, and she was wearing jean shorts and a black, spaghetti-strapped top. She was a heavy-set woman and her breasts looked as if they would pop out at any moment, but they never did—and neither did the pack of Newport cigarettes that were stuffed in her bosom.
I would later find out that the woman was Goldie’s girlfriend. I’ll call her “Betty.”
Betty circled the picnic table, hips swaying. She made eye contact with me as she passed.
“Is that (my friend’s name)’s new man?” she said, placing a pan of potato salad on the table. “Hmm … he tall, too. I bet she be climbing all up on that … Heh Heh!”
My friend’s mother shook her head and continued arranging food containers on the table.
My friend’s uncle that was operating the fish fryer brought over a large tin filled with fish and heaved it onto the table beside the cobs of corn. “All right, everybody eat.”
Everyone sat at the table or stood near the tree, eating, talking, listening to music, and drinking from cans or bottles of beer—with the exceptions of my friend and me; she drank soda and I had iced tea.
Betty was especially celebratory in her drinking.
She chugged cans of beer between pulls of her cigarette, getting up periodically to throw beer cans into a tin washtub near the porch. “IIIIII’m … so in love with you …” she sang, snapping her fingers and moving her hips to Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together.’ (Told you the Al Green was coming.)
My friend was eating a cob of corn when Betty returned to the table. Betty lumbered down on the bench beside her, nudging my friend’s shoulder. “So, what you and your man be doing in those college dorms?” said Betty.
“Nothing,” my friend said, biting into to corn cob.
“Sh******t,” said Betty. “I know what I’d be doing.”
“Don’t be asking them kids nothing like that.” My friend’s uncle had returned to the table to bring more fish.
Betty turned her whole body on the bench to face the uncle, again nudging my friend’s shoulder. “Won’t you mind yo’ business,” she said. “These kids is grown.”
“Yeah, but you don’t be asking them no questions like that.”
“You need to stay out of my conversation.” Betty sucked her teeth and scanned the uncle from head to feet. “If you study that pot like you study what I be saying, you wouldn’t of friend that fish so hard.”
“Ain’t nobody complaining but you,” said the uncle, dumping fish into the tin pan.
“’Cause they scared to tell you,” said Betty. “Them fish chew like bricks.”
“Alright … that’s enough, Betty,” said my friend’s mother.
“Tell him—I’m over here minding my f*****g business and here he come with his two cents.”
“Alright now, hush all of that,” said one of the aunts at the table (Aunt #1).
My friend’s uncle shook his head and walked away.
“Yeah, take your @ss back over there and learn how to fry fish,” Betty shouted at his back. “My dead grandmamma cook fish better than that.”
My friend’s uncle made a b-line toward the tree where the other men were standing. He pointed back at the table with a thumb, over his shoulder. “You better get’cha girl, boy … better get her.”
My friend’s mother tried to restore order at the table. “Don’t say nothing else to him, Betty. Y’all not gone start nothing out here in this yard.”
“Nobody was even talking to him,” said Betty, pulling the tab on another beer. “He must not know me … I’ll turn this sh*t out.”
My friend looked at me and exhaled a disappointed breath, “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be apologizing for me,” said Betty. “Apologize for that broke-down uncle of yours.”
“Betty!” My friend’s mother slapped her hand on the table.
Goldie made his way over from to tree to the table with his beer still in his hand. He addressed Betty. “Girl, what kind of trouble you been over here starting?”
“I ain’t starting no trouble,” said Betty. She turned her head, looked off in the distance and took another sip of beer.
Goldie stood near the bench. “What you been saying to my uncle?”
“I told him to mind his f******g business.”
“Stop all that cussin’, girl. You see my family out here.”
“What I care ‘bout that,” said Betty, whipping her head around and frowning at Goldie. “You coming over her like you big, almighty.”
“All right, girl, you drunk … come on, let’s go.”
“I ain’t drunk … and I ain’t going nowhere ‘til I finish my beer.” Betty tilted her head back, turning up the beer, as her loud-talking drew more spectators from around the yard.
Goldie sat his beer on the table. “I said, come on, girl.”
“I told you I’m drinking my beer. Go on from ‘round me now … Fo’ I shame you.”
“Better deal with ya woman, boy,” said a male cousin who had sauntered over from the tree with a beer in his hand.
“Just go on ahead with him, Betty,” said my friend’s mother. “You been drinking and we don’t need none of that out her.”
“Everybody out here been drinking,” protested Betty. “And I ain’t going nowhere … he ain’t my ruler.”
Goldie’s scowled lip was trembling. “I said bring yo’ ass on.”
“Look at you cussin’,” said Betty. “… and you talking ‘bout me.”
“I ain’t playing with you, girl … I said, come on.”
“Goldie, go on back over there with your uncle. She ain’t gone say nothing else,” said Aunt #1.
“No, we leaving. She ain’t gone be out here disrespecting people,” said Goldie. “Come on here, girl.”
“What you gone do if I don’t,” said Betty. She stood up and walked toward Goldie.
“Girl, come back here and sit down,” said Aunt #2.
Goldie stepped back. “Don’t be playing with me, girl.”
“Ain’t nobody playing with you,” said Betty. “You act like you so big and bad, I wanna know what you gone do.”
“Go on ahead now, girl,” said Goldie, taking another step back.
“No, I want to know what you gone do.” Betty, now chest-to-chest with Goldie, looked up at him to make up for the four to five inches in height he had on her. She, on the other hand, may have had 50 pounds on him in weight.
Goldie tried to maintain his composure. “You better back up off me.”
“Back up off you, or what,” said Betty. “What you gone do … you gone hit me?”
“Ain’t nobody hitting nobody out here,” said my friend’s mother, standing up from the bench.
Betty bump her chest against Goldie, pushing him back. “I wish you would hit me,” she said. “My family’ll be over here five cars deep on yo’ @ss.”
“Get out my face, girl … nobody said nothing about hitting you.”
“Get out yo’ face or what?” Betty pointed her finger against Goldie’s face. “You ain’t sh*t, and you ain’t gone do sh*t.”
“Oh, so I ain’t sh*t now?” said Goldie.
“No, you ain’t sh*t,” said Betty. “You ain’t sh*t, nobody you know ain’t sh*t, and ya mammy is a bull-dagger.”
“BAM!” Goldie slammed his fist into Betty’s face.
The backyard was in a frenzy.
“Goldie!” my friend’s mother shouted.
“Uh uhn, that’s a girl!” said Aunt #1.
Betty was turned away, bent over with her hands covering her face.
Goldie looked at her, heaving breaths with his fist still clinched. “I told you to back up off me, girl.”
My friend’s uncle that fried the fish stepped between Goldie and Betty. Goldie stood his head on the verge of tears. “I tried to tell her, Unc … I tried to tell her,” he said. “She always startin’ some sh*t.”
“Alright, calm down, boy,” said the uncle. He walked Goldie back toward the tree and talked to him.
My friend, her mother, and Aunt #1 tended to Betty. They rubbed her back and asked if she was all right.
Betty stood upright with tears in her eyes. “I can’t believe he hit me,” she sobbed. “After all the sh*t we done been through, he hit me in my face.”
The women walked Betty to the back porch and she continued to cry; the uncle was still talking with Goldie near the tree, and I was left standing with the remaining family members in the yard.
The cousin who had sauntered over from the tree with the beer in his hand, shook his head. “D*mn, he hit her hard,” he said. “And her big, strong ass didn’t go down either.”
“We sorry you had to see that, baby,” said Aunt #2, with her hand pressed against her side.
“No,” said the cousin with the beer. “That means he family, now. After seeing all of that, sh*t, he family now … you family.”
Suffice it say, I never became actual family. But, in a way, such experiences make us all family.
Witnessing a woman getting punched in the face is a difficult ordeal. No matter how obnoxious she may have been, or how much you may have thought, “Someone should just punch her in the face”—when someone actually punches her in the face, you think, “Aww man, she got punched in the face.”
You’re inclined to feel sorry for her.
Another aspect of the story is that if Goldie had been a professional athlete (or other public figure), the headlines would have read, “Athlete Assaults Girlfriend,” without with providing context.
He would have been designated as a despicable person without consideration for what transpired leading up to the incident.
When a man chooses (or reacts) to hit a woman, he’s subjecting himself to the social—and likely criminal—stigma associated with taking that action.
Men shouldn’t hit woman due to their sheer physical advantage over women, and women should’t provoke men (as happened at the fish fry), due to their physical disadvantage.
Everyone should keep their hands and their provocation to themselves.
Lesson Learned: Never date a woman who drinks beer from a can.
