…about the one and only time I’ve ever been bitch-slapped? Not sure if I’ve written about this on the blog before. It relates to the topic of evolution, oddly enough.
I was 17 years old, hanging out with a group of friends downtown in our small southern town in the middle of the night. It was common for us to sit out there in the back of pick-up trucks chatting entire nights away, and on this one in particular there were about 6 of us. Some left to drive out to the gas station by the highway to use the restroom, so I was left with two young men, one being a Mexican acquaintance (whom I later got to know better) and the other a big, tall 24-year-old Navy boy. Well, we were lying there in the back of the truck, looking up at the stars, and everyone had been getting along just swimmingly. That’s when I -rather absent-mindedly- began marveling about the magnificence of our universe, saying how astonishing and massive it was and how perfect everything seemed to go together.
I can’t recall exactly how the argument spun from that, but the Navy boy asked at one point if I believed in evolution, and I said I did. He jumped up off the tailgate, aggravated for reasons that didn’t register to me at the time, and began calling me out, blathering about me disrespecting his god. I jumped down as well, bewildered by his reaction, mouthing back at him in defense. That’s when he grabbed me by the wrist and started jerking my arm around, leaning in close, spitting as he screamed in my face. Having recently returned from living in the Midwest and being unfamiliar with this sort of “Southern” tirade, I demanded that he let me go. When he refused, I popped him on the cheek with an open hand. I remember him pausing for a second with a slight, angry grin, and then WHAM – to the asphalt I went. That son of a gun leaned back, swung around, and knocked the shit out of me. Never before had I been flat-out hit by a man, nor since.
While getting up off the pavement, I remember hearing our Mexican buddy freaking out and saying something like “Oh my god! Are you guys related?!” Which I suppose meant that had we been related it would have been somehow less offensive (not quite sure how sharing blood makes violence more acceptable). Well, all I could do was get up and walk home, which was maybe 10 blocks away. On the way, our friends passed me coming back from the gas station and asked what had happened. I told them their son of a bitch buddy had hit me and they sped off, leaving me to contine walking.
I got home and was crying, as you might imagine. My grandma checked my cheek where it was red and starting to swell, demanding what I had done to receive a blow like that. Always gotta blame me for other people’s inappropriate actions, though I know she didn’t mean any harm; it’s just how she’s come up, being taught that the female is generally the one to blame. My grandpa heard the commotion and came in the room. He didn’t say a word, just turned my face, looked at my cheek, and walked out, getting in his truck and driving away. The whole ordeal left me pretty shocked and confused.
A few minutes later my grandpa returned to ask if I wanted to press charges, to which I said no out of fear that I would get in trouble for slapping the Navy boy first. Come to find out, my grandpa had driven downtown after stopping by the police department, and he and the cops had circled the Navy boy and threatened him every which way to sundown. Essentially ran him out of town seeing as how I only remember seeing him maybe once after that. It’s nice to know my grandpa stood up for me on this occasion.
No charges were ever filed. But this episode left me very depressed, especially following years of ridicule and rumors from people in that town accusing me of being a “devil-worshipper” and “witch” simply because I was not a Christian. It felt unsafe to talk with anybody in town, fearing a backlash against anything I said that might have proven unpopular or been deemed “anti-Christian.” I took to my room for a couple months after that, embarrassed to show my face out in public and risk further harassment.
My gay guyfriend would come by and check on me, eventually encouraging me to apply at the university he planned to attend in the northern part of the state. The rest is history…
That must’ve taken place in October 1998 because after much prodding from my gay guyfriend to get up and out of the house, I took a job at the local pizza parlor and met my future husband in January 1999. Hmmm…almost exactly 10 years ago.
You know what’s really disgusting about that incident? A week prior, the Navy boy and I had hooked up for a romantic midnight swim in a friend’s pool. While we weren’t interesting in dating, he had spent an intimate evening with me.
What a guy. I wonder if he’s landed himself in prison yet.
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