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also available in glorious technocolour at http://home.istar.ca/~paull/wire
Comments are welcome. Email paull@istar.ca

ISSUE 6 - The Violence Issue
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C O N T E N T S

- THE (IR)REGULARS

GUIDELINES for WRITERS

IN BOX
Readers write: "The US revolutionalized, zoophile dialogue furthered, Stallone 
reexamined, and sharp thorns pressed against your skin.

Lost and Found
Alex Mackenzie presents found footage of wartime attrocities in a selection of 
video violence. (No plug-in necessary; some patience may be required.)

Hello Dolly
Local artists Tom Wren and Geoff Carter are all grown up now but they're still 
playing with dolls.

- THEMATICALLY LINKED CONFESSIONALS 
FROM THE BARBED WIRE STABLE:

The Perpetrators
Jeff McDonald talks to four men about the violence in their lives. " I'm not 
saying it's justified," one of his confidants tells him, "but if you can hit a 
man, it's not much of a stretch to hit a woman."

Zebra Mugs
Meredith Low unwittingly finds herself at the centre of a fracas at a pungwe 
party in South Africa. "I had shards of glass all over my head and shoulders and 
I was drowning in beer and shame," she recalls.

How to Kill a Neighbour
Sandy Rogers is overwhelmed by the desire to do damage to a nearby resident 
who's suing her husband. "She has him by the balls," she laments. "I would like 
to have her by the throat."

All in a Day's Work
Ed Wrench pisses off a steriod-enhanced co-worker and learns a lesson about 
workplace politics. "He just reached out, grabbed some part of my parka and 
flung me with the extension of his arm, and I tumbled, gymnastically, rolling 
about twenty feet away from him," he recalls.

Battered
Lucinda Atwood recalls an enduring relationship with a physically abusive man. " 
I remember taunting him, goading him to violence, daring him to hit me. In my 
confused mind I was stronger than my assailant," she remembers.

Raging Bully
At a boisterous British state school, Paul Levine negotiates a place for himself 
as a middling menace as he strives to find his place in the playground pecking 
order. "I knew that the only way I would be truly accepted would be to torment 
and humiliate those who were weaker than me," he tells us.



GUIDELINES for WRITERS

KEEP YOUR DAY JOB
Barbed Wire is a completely non-profit venture which costs an admittedly minor 
amount money to produce, none of which is recouped in any way (there is no 
advertising). So while we accept unsolicited contributions, we don't have the 
resources to pay. Hopefully you're of the opinion that writing for profit has a 
corrupting influence on your output and you're grateful to be provided with the 
opportunity for untarnished expression. Did I mention we don't pay?

READ BEFORE YOU LEAP
Before you contribute anything please read over as many back issues of this 
magazine as you can possibly stomach. This will give you an idea of the general 
tone of the publication and will save us the effort of having to tell you that 
your piece is unsuitable. 

DON'T FORGET TO WRITE
Feel free to run your story ideas by us by emailing paull@istar.ca That way, you 
won't spent days laboring over your masterpiece only to be on the receiving end 
of the coveted Barbed Wire rejection letter.

WHAT WE WANT
Barbed Wire is comprised primarily of creative non-fiction, personal essays, 
controlled rants, and other literary mischief. We do not accept poetry. Each 
issue has a theme which you are encourage to write to. Check with paull@istar.ca 
for more details.

GENERAL GUIDELINES
- Deadline is generally one week before the end of the month.
- Keep stories to 800 - 3000 words
- We accept most widely used word pro formats.
- Spell check and proof your contributions thoroughly.
- Attach contributions to your email; do not paste into your email program.
- Do NOT use tabs or indents.

THE NEXT ISSUE
- The next issue (Issue 7) will be an entirely FICTION issue. Stories should be 
written to the theme of "the Seven Deadly Sins" - which incidentally are: pride, 
covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. 
- Deadline for Issue 7 is NOVember 23

For more info email paull@istar.ca

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IN BOX

REVOLUTIONIZING THE U.S.
I would like to know how it revolutionize the u.s today. If you could please
send my some information I would really apprieciate (sic) it.
Thanks
scream 
Scream403@aol.com

FURTHERING THE ZOO/NON-ZOO DIALOGUE
A fellow zoo told me about the article you'd written, and I was amused to
see myself quoted therein. Yes, you have retroactive permission. :) BTW, my
name is spelled "Actaeon," not "Acteon" (it's a common mistake). I wanted
to thank you for not being overly critical in your essay. If you're
interested, I would be happy to discuss zoophilia in detail, to clear up
any concerns and questions you may have: I have a feeling much of the
incoming e-mail is unlikely to be of an educational nature: they'll either
say, "how dare you say that about us" or "what can I do to protect myself
from these freaks"; if you've seen my flames page, you'll note I keep a
very even keel and a civil tongue at all times. I was amused by the term
PSA, which I plan to adopt, as well as the term "coming out of the kennel,"
which is so obvious I'm amazed I hadn't seen it used before. I agree with
much of what you said in the article, though you made a few errors I would
like to correct via e-mail, in the interests of furthering zoo/non-zoo
relationships. Interested in a chat?
actaeon@usa.n

HARD QUESTIONS
Is it true that sylvester stallone has trouble not bein (sic) erect in the love
scenes? I heard in teh (sic) specialist he had trouble with the shower scene.
Please help me on this - Justin
JniceRguyC@aol.com

GREAT STUFF
Got your URL from BC politics ng. 'Barbed Wire' is now in my favorites file.
Great stuff !!! 
regards,
samuel (samuel@uniserve.com)

NOT THE STORY YOU WANT TO HEAR
Barbed Wire webzine: "This zine isn't about telling you the story you want to 
hear - this isn't Goldilocks and the Three Bears, kiddies - but about pressing a 
sharp thorn against your skin, urging you to push aside the irritation of your 
preconceptions and see what bleeds beneath. And when you do, you'll be 
surprised. Something beautiful and personal has bloomed where before you thought 
you saw only a scab. " FROM: Pif Magazine ~ No. 9 - October 1997: Zines Worth 
Reading

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VIOLENCE violence VIOLENCE
Thematically linked confessionals 
from the Barbed Wire stable:
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The Perpetrators
By Jeff McDonald

Some of my female friends will want to beat me up me for this, but I've never 
said that violence against women is not a problem. It's a terrible problem, and 
I'm now more surprised when a woman tells me she's never been assaulted than to 
hear that she has. But, depending on which stats you want to believe, men are 
something like eight times more likely to be victims of a violent incident than 
women. This is usually discounted, in what I believe is a very small-minded way: 
because men are the perpetrators, the fact that their victims are almost always 
other men is ignored...kind of like it's our own damn fault. In a way I suppose 
that's true, but I suspect we could go a long way toward understanding and 
reducing violence against women if men could be less violent toward each other 
too.
A tall order for a single article in a web-zine, but I thought I'd at least talk 
to some men to get their thoughts on where violence is in their lives, and how 
they feel about being possible victims and perpetrators of violence. I didn't 
generate the list randomly; I sought out a couple of guys who I knew had lots of 
violent incidents in their past, and a couple of others who I was pretty sure 
didn't have that in their histories as men. I spoke to four men, all 
professionals, in their thirties and forties; their names have been changed.
Joe is married and the father of one child. He was exposed to some violence as a 
kid, mostly through the media, and he watches the same thing happen with his 
child.
"I react to violence as a father. I see its effects in the media and in pop 
culture being played back to me by the karate kicks of my child, something I've 
never taught him. I try to teach him that violence is almost never the 
appropriate way of dealing with a problem. It bothers me that the children are 
exposed to so much violence. If you think about all the shooting and dying you 
watched on TV, you begin to think this is the normal way of the world, and I 
don't want my child to think that."
He doesn't often think that violence is going to happen to him, but consumption 
of violent images and just witnessing violence makes him fearful sometimes, and 
it changes how he acts.
"I guess I'm on guard when I'm on a back street late at night. Yeah, it changes 
what I do. There's parts of Vancouver that I wouldn't hang around in too late at 
night, and you have to keep an eye out for drunks coming out of bars, and steer 
clear of people who are likely to cause problems. It's not that I think a 
violent thing will happen, but you get touched by certain low levels of 
violence. When my car window got smashed in, I heard the noise from my house. I 
wonder about what would have happened if I had gone out there and seen the 
people smashing in my window with a two-by-four. They might have used it on me. 
But it's the male role to kind of control things, if there's guys in the back 
alley hanging around causing trouble, I'm the one who has to go out there and 
deal with it."
Joe hasn't been involved in many violent situations personally, but even a 
reasonably peaceful man like him has a story of violence to tell.
"I was sharing a house with other people once, and this one guy who was over 
there started flashing his boots and pushing around this woman who had been a 
long-time housemate of ours. I tried to intervene and ended up tussling with 
this guy and it got pretty nasty. Neither of us got really hurt, but what was 
scary was at one point there was a brick in my hand and a cleaver in his, and we 
were holding onto each other's wrists. One more step and it could have been so 
bloody."
So the potential is there for men to slip into violent situations pretty easily, 
but Joe figures there's ways to avoid it too. "I have to believe that as a 
father," he says.
Jack is married and a father. He says that throughout his life, violence has 
always been present either implied by other males or is his inherent reaction to 
situations. Any guy he see walking down the street toward him represents 
potential for physical violence.
"There's always that implied confrontation that can happen with men...I've been 
raised like that, so it's kind of a background thing. I suppose upon examination 
it's not a great way to live, but regardless of my feelings, men are way more 
often victims of violence because of that omnipresent violence that's inherent 
in men's relationships."
That's why, Jack says, violence against women happens so easily.
"When your whole life takes place within a context of potential violence, it's 
not surprising that you lash out at a woman. I'm not saying it's justified, but 
if you can hit a man, it's not much of a stretch to hit a woman. It's a power 
thing....a guy hits a woman because it's someone he knows he can take down. It's 
like a schoolyard thing."
Jack's been in a lot of fights, and he's won most of them. He's also spent time 
in jail, where violence happens every day. That's where the most potentially 
violent incident of his life occurred.
"In terms of violence that could have happened but never did, it would have been 
in jail where the two guys tried to drag me into the janitor's room and beat the 
fuck out of me. I grabbed onto this shelf full of clothes and pulled it over, 
and the noise brought the guards running and that was it, it was over. But fuck, 
was I scared. I don't know what would have happened if they had got me in 
there."
Jack says he didn't grow up as a violent person, but he found over time that 
right doesn't beat might, and he didn't like to see people get picked on.
"I've been in situations where somebody's roughing up a girl, so what do you do? 
Swallow your words and back off? Then might has beaten right again. Like the 
time my friend Caroline and me were at this party, and this huge guy was bugging 
her, and she slapped him, and he kind of clawed at her, and ripped a piece of 
jewelry off her. And even though I knew the guy was a mangler killer, I punched 
him as hard as I could in the side of the head, and he swung around and nailed 
me in the mouth, and the only reason I didn't get killed was because a bunch of 
my male friends saved my ass. How do you deal with that? Do you back down? I 
don't know."
He doesn't want to pick fights, but also doesn't want to lose one, and that 
forces him to buy into a violent attitude. He says his propensity for violence 
scares him, because it can't be controlled after a certain point is reached.
"Whoever takes me into a fight next better get me down quick, because I haven't 
fought for years, and it's probably waiting to come out," Jack says.
Becoming a father changed his attitude toward violence, not because he's fearful 
of his child growing up in a violent world: its his own violence that scares 
him.
"I have more of a fear of my violence now that I have a child, because here's 
another person who I can say to, don't fuck with me, because I can take you, 
because they're even more defenseless. Of course I fear violence happening to 
him, but I also fear my own propensity for it much more."
Rick feels that violence hasn't been present in his life; the last physically 
violent thing he can remember happening to him was being shoved into a snow bank 
when he was eight years old. But violence affects him in different ways; he 
feels that women, no matter how men act, will always see men as potentially 
violent.
"I'm getting out of my car, in the garage, and there's a woman there, and I 
think maybe I should just get back into my car and wait for her to leave so she 
won't be uncomfortable, and I wish I didn't have to do that, to feel that way."
Some time ago, Rick did work that involved focus group testing on the issue of 
violence against women. The project left him feeling pretty hopeless about male 
violence. Most men in the groups felt that there was absolutely no place for 
violence against women who said there was no place for it - but not all men.
"There was always one or two who would say "Sometimes you just have to smack her 
one," and then they would try to rationalize it. Doing this project, I got a 
stronger sense of women feeling that all men have a propensity for violence, 
that men are just waiting to be violent. I started to feel hopeless, that women, 
no matter what you do, will always paint you as a potential beater."
Rick sometimes feels uneasy in certain situations and places, but he tells a 
story of how it feels to be on the other side; the powerful side.
"A few years ago I was walking with some friends, who were tough and loud guys, 
and we'd been up all day and all night doing some recreational drug. At 3am we 
decided to take a walk through Yaletown, and at some time I expressed to them my 
fear of walking those streets at night, and one of the guys said to me, don't 
worry, us three are the people that the rest of the people are afraid of. It 
gave me a funny feeling of power, of invulnerability to violence."
He says witnessing violence makes him feel sick, but he finds psychological 
violence in movies much more upsetting than physical violence. The most violent 
event he witnessed was a work-related, psychological incident.
"The person who did it was a psychotic bastard who was violent without ever 
laying a hand on the guy. He challenged the person's competence in front of his 
peers in a way that left him unable to retort. Nobody's nose bled, but it was a 
beating nonetheless. But at the same time, the person felt he was justified in 
doing it, and I know that this person feels that he is a good and honourable 
man, yet his behaviour is still consistently violent."
Ron has made virtually violence non-existent in his life, even though physical 
violence was always present in his life as a child. He's had violent 
altercations: he doesn't look for them, but he'll fight if he has to.
"I grew up in a place where fighting was normal. My dad's knuckles are all 
destroyed from his days as a street brawler, and so were his dad's. So I sort of 
got that all my childhood, the message: don't back down, but don't be stupid. 
Injustices upset me, and I don't like to see them, and those are situations 
where I'll fight."
He doesn't feel like he's ever a target, and six years of boxing training and 
sparring give him good tools to protect himself in the Downtown Eastside bars he 
likes to go to.
"I never feel like I'm going to be a victim. I'm experienced enough to know how 
to avoid those situations. In these bars, there's lots of ex-cons, so you don't 
make eye contact because in jail that's a very aggressive and challenging thing 
to do. It's the culture here: eye contact means something totally different. 
You've got to be aware of boundaries, of how you come across to people, and how 
they perceive you."
Ron says a guy has to walk tall in the downtown eastside, and sometimes he has 
to present himself as somewhat threatening, like he might snap at any moment. 
And he's got a tip for anyone who finds themselves in a violent situation: it's 
not the loudmouths in the bar you have to worry about.
"Guys who do all that posturing and chest-beating, those are the guys who are 
going to lose fights. You've got to make the decision quickly; either turn the 
other cheek, or go for it. Guys who win fights are almost always the ones who 
land the first punch, and they don't do much posturing. They just strike."

Jeff McDonald would rather be striking than posturing.

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Zebra Mugs
By Meredith Low

It's Africa Month at my neighbourhood coffee franchise. Zebra-striped mugs, 
leopard print packaging for the chocolate-covered coffee beans, and Ethiopian 
Sidamo on special. None of it is even vaguely evocative of the Africa I lived 
in. But amidst the paraphernalia, I heard the familiar groove of Thomas Mapfumo, 
the god of Zimbabwean pop music. Seems some cross-marketing genius included him 
in their African sampler cd.
So, in line for my McLatte to go, I was catapulted back to the wood fires and 
thatch roofs and tenacious thorns of the place where I spent a year when I was 
22 and too young to know much about anything.
Thomas Mapfumo (the name means "spears") is a cultural icon in Zimbabwe. In 
urban grocery stores there they play him, along with Bob Marley, as Muzak; 
somehow the food shortages don't matter as much when you shop to rhythm like 
that. Thomas is revered for his intoxicating music using electric guitars and 
traditional mbiras (thumb pianos), for his long dreads, for his espousal of weed 
as a religious experience, for having been jailed by the Ian Smith apartheid 
regime.
To truly experience Thomas Mapfumo, though, you have to go see him live, because 
he is also revered for his pungwes.
A pungwe is a traditional celebration that was co-opted by the revolutionary 
movement of the seventies, the long and bloody civil war that meant the end of 
Rhodesia. During the fourteen-year war the liberation soldiers, living as Maoist 
fish in the rural waters, would go into a village, bring everyone into the 
clearing beneath the baobab tree, and teach and sing and dance all night around 
the fires. Spirit mediums, channeling the voices of their ancestors, told the 
villagers that these soldiers, not the government forces, were to be supported.
Pungwes helped to create a politicized countryside which changed the course of 
the war. They also meant the execution of anyone who skipped them, because 
presumably the only reason to do so was to alert the Rhodesian army. One of the 
slogans of the liberation movement was "Tell no lies; claim no easy victories." 
No victory was easy in that war; by the end, the whole country was a 
battleground.
When I got to Zimbabwe, eleven years after the fall of Rhodesia and the end of 
the bad old days of racialism, pungwes were pretty much just social events. They 
were usually held at hotels in combination with braais, or barbecues, as all-
night concerts and parties. If you passed out drunk early on in the evening you 
could be revived at dawn to join in again. During a pungwe, people forgot their 
problems - health, home, money, family, despair - and partied like tomorrow 
would never come.
I had come to Zimbabwe ostensibly to learn culture. Avoiding the recession at 
home was an added bonus, as was getting away from the worst winter in years. I 
lived in a rural Anglican mission and taught ineptly at the girls' high school 
there. One of my classes was second form history, the curriculum for their year 
being the colonization and liberation of Africa.
I read two weeks ahead and tried to follow the curriculum in the three textbooks 
that they had. My tourist guidebooks came in handy as the final arbiters in the 
frequent cases where the textbooks contradicted each other. I was preparing my 
students for a national exam that would come in six months, so we were racing 
the clock, and I told them the story of their continent as fast as I could.
I told my students about forced relocation and official lies in the early and 
late days of white settlement. I told them that their ancestors had been 
converted to "civilized" religion, but that many had been massacred anyway by 
whites trying to follow the North American model of genocidal colonialism.
I told them the historical details of a story they already knew - the uprising 
of 1897, when the Shona people had fought one of the early guerrilla wars from 
the painted caves of what was now Matobo National Park. I told them how, in the 
seventies, both sides in the war of liberation had press-ganged children into 
fighting for them, but that only the Rhodesian (white) army had crossed the 
borders to bomb refugee and army camps in Mozambique and Angola.
My students - all girls - told me what they knew about how their families had 
lived through the war years before they were born, or when they were very young. 
My colleagues told me about their relatives who were killed or arrested or 
simply disappeared into silence. My friend Greta Chigumira told me about how she 
had to live in a concentration camp and then fell silent. I didn't ask her 
again.
When I traveled to other parts of the country, I recognized names of towns and 
villages as sites of concentration camps, massacres and pitched, bloody battles. 
I began to realize why so many young Zimbabweans had names that translated to 
"we are comforted," and "trouble," because they had been born at times of so 
much death.
I met Nigel in Harare, the capital, after my teaching term was up. He was - is - 
a Zimbabwean-born white, part of the lost generation whose parents fought and 
lost a race war. The culture they were raised in was gone, and the new order 
couldn't support them in the manner to which they had become accustomed. Most of 
their peers were living overseas, and the rest had plans to leave. Everyone had 
an illegal way out of the country, whether it was a British passport or an 
American green card. They drank a lot, smoked a lot of potent Malawian grass. 
They had all grown up behind the barricades in a war zone and were incredibly 
jaded as a result.
Nigel was less jaded than the rest, but equally troubled. He was quiet, but not 
reserved. It seemed to me that there was a stillness around him, an intake of 
breath. Maybe it was just sadness. At any rate, I fell for it.
Supposedly, I was in Harare preparing for a long trip, hitchhiking alone across 
the Kalahari desert to Namibia. I was afraid to actually set off, but I was 
faking it. Except for the fact that I was too nervous to eat, I seemed fine.
Nigel was also stalling for time. He'd come back from living in London with a 
Spanish girl and was trying to figure out what to do. His father had a framed 
certificate of appreciation for his time in the reserves of the white army, and 
his sister referred to blacks as "afs," short for Africans. He was studying 
computers at a business college and Shona traditional music at the 
ethnomusicology school. He wanted to make a documentary film with a friend about 
wildlife management in Zimbabwe but they seemed to be bluffing about that. I was 
in a temporary limbo; he was in a more permanent one.
Because staying in would have meant talking and thinking way too much, we went 
out a lot, to bars and clubs and dinners. We listened to reggae at Job's 
Nitespot, to Zairean Rumba at the hotel near the marketplace, and to jazz at the 
Holiday Inn lounge.
One night we went with two friends - one English and one Swiss - to the Seven 
Mile Hotel outside town to see Thomas Mapfumo play a pungwe.
I was pleased to going to a big party with a boyfriend in tow. Canadians seem to 
stick to dancing about two feet apart unless there's really something going on - 
but that rule just does not apply in southern Africa, where dancing is a contact 
sport. Also, white women were so rare at black events that there tended to be a 
lot of macho posturing around us. So a night out dancing would usually involve 
more body to body contact than I was comfortable with - and trying to be a good 
sport about it didn't always send the appropriate message. I figured that if I 
was going to be at the pungwe with my guy, all would be well and I wouldn't have 
to devote so much energy to sexual politics on the dance floor.
We were just about the only whites at the pungwe, and people there talked to us, 
asking where we were from. As a Zimbabwean white at an event like this, Nigel 
was more of a curiosity than us foreigners were, and people were pleased to see 
him there; we reveled in the colours of the rainbow for a while.
The problem came out of nowhere. Just after Mapfumo came on stage in his usual 
trancelike state, I finally backed right away from one particularly drunk guy 
who had lurched in my direction once too often. I moved back to Nigel's side, 
and thought it was over, no big deal. But then I saw the same guy arguing with a 
black woman, who seemed to be telling him to get out of her face. They started 
smacking each other a bit, and cutting a wide swathe through the crowd, which 
parted like the Red Sea.
What I saw was a drunk, fairly aggressive guy hassling a woman who was walking 
away from him. I was worried she was going to end up getting beaten in the 
parking lot. I was appalled that nobody else in the crowd was doing anything, 
and wanted her to know we would help her. At least I thought that's what I was 
doing.
What I didn't know was that she was with him, that she was pissed off at him for 
dancing with me, that she was drunk too. What I didn't know was to leave it 
alone.
As they passed by, I reached out to the woman to intervene, touching her 
shoulder. She shook me off angrily, and passed behind me and Nigel, her man 
following, both yelling in a language I don't understand.
I'm not sure who did it, or really even why. Just drunk and angry, seeing a 
clueless white chick with her clueless white friends, not understanding a thing 
about what was really happening.
Someone from behind me took a full quart bottle of Castle beer and brought it 
down it over my head. The glass shattered.
Thomas Mapfumo kept playing. He's seen worse. The crowd around us just stared. 
They've seen worse, but usually there's hell to pay when the colour barrier is 
crossed in violence. I couldn't see anything through wet hair, and my friends 
crowded around me. We decided to leave; nobody reached out to us.
When we got to the door, one of the friendly guys we'd been talking to earlier 
stopped us. I guess it escaped his notice that we all stank of beer, that my 
hair and Nigel's T-shirt were soaking wet. He told us "You can't leave now! A 
white girl has been hit over the head!" We just said we knew, and thanks, and 
got the hell out of there.
I think that security was hauling the happy couple in as we left but I didn't 
care. As Nigel pointed out, even if there were police there, they wouldn't have 
had a vehicle. We would have had to drive everyone into town. I also didn't want 
anyone official looking too closely at my visa...
But mostly I just didn't feel righteously indignant. I had shards of glass all 
over my head and shoulders and I was drowning in beer and shame. I felt like I 
had had no business in a place where I was the outsider and obviously couldn't 
figure out the first thing about what was really going on. I took a shower and 
went to bed and none of us really talked about it, which confirmed my guilt in 
the matter, I thought.
Nigel and I wisely, inevitably, ended things a few weeks later. Having run out 
of excuses to stay in Harare, I was forced to embark on my grand adventure, 
which is another story. I traveled through thousands of miles of empty deserts, 
independent and clear-headed and just a little sad.
I made it through to Cape Town, doing cartwheels on the beach, feeling 
triumphant. But then there was a car accident and I smashed a windshield with my 
head, and that ended my sense of power and strength for the time being. I guess 
I was just a head injury waiting to happen on that trip.
I became a gut-level racist for a while. I couldn't sit in the middle of a room 
if the people around me were a different colour. It happened in Cape Town, in 
Harare, in Toronto, in Vancouver. It finally eased up after about a year so I 
could start to forget the twitchy feeling that I would get - just before I had 
to stand against a wall, or leave, nervous bigot that I was. I hated that 
feeling.
I still have glass embedded in my head from the car accident - but since it 
feels like the two incidents are related, I think of it as being from that angry 
woman in the bar who thought I was stealing her man. A reminder of naivete, 
maybe. I'd never imagined that I had so much power that someone would want to 
take it away from me like that. I've never really forgotten it since.
I used to tell both stories to other travelers a lot when I was still in Africa, 
sitting around at hostels. I haven't told them much since I got back, especially 
not the pungwe story. It's too weird, and too connected to actually being in 
Africa. I am afraid people won't understand. I don't understand.
And since I've been back the pictures of Africa have either been genocide in 
Rwanda or funky leopard-spotted teapots at trendy coffee shops. So how do I say 
what happened to me in that bar, but also the other things?
How do I say that when the rains came back at last I was in posh downtown 
Harare, and everyone came out of the shops and offices and we let the raindrops 
fall on our faces until they mixed in with tears of joy that the drought was 
finally over?
Or that when there was a poisonous snake in the school compound, a small solemn 
girl hoisted a rock bigger than her head to help me kill it, because her younger 
brothers and sisters were afraid?
Or that the woman I shared a train compartment with to Mutare took me home to 
meet her family and have a meal, because she had been a teacher too and because 
we talked about the need for education?
Or that I went outside to watch the brief sunset every night during the rainy 
season because it was so incredibly beautiful, with fluorescent oranges and 
blues?
How do I take you there? I can't. Even to show you a picture is difficult, 
because you don't see what is outside the frame.
But the music playing that day at Starbuck's took me there. For a moment I could 
be back on a shuddering, cramped bus with nursing babies and tied-up chickens 
around me, hoping with everyone else that we wouldn't break down before my stop, 
watching the villages go by under the cathedral-high sky, not knowing much about 
much.

Meredith Low doesn't own a single zebra-striped coffee mug. 
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How to Kill a Neighbour
By Sandy Rogers

In my dream, I kill her. I hit her over the head with frying pan and lock her in 
a meat freezer and just wait a couple days. Then, I saw the frozen carcass into 
pieces and scatter the bits in the forest for maggots to eat.
It's a scary dream. It scares me that I dream it.
My husband is being sued. By a neighbour with a lawyer. She is dismantling our 
lives piece by piece, slowly, agonizingly, unrelentingly.
She feels wronged. My husband feels wronged. I feel fury. I feel a deep seated, 
burning anger. I am almost overcome by a desire to commit an act that would put 
me behind bars for a long time. Why?
We've scrambled and worked our asses off for a little bit of the life my parents 
have. A house, a dog, a family. Things that were just out of reach, but 
tantalizingly close. Is my goal of family, home and hearth reason enough to 
kill?
Before this event, I had begun to really appreciate the value of my life and 
appreciate the value of the individuals in my life. I was striving to be less 
judgmental, to enjoy what I have and who accompanies me on my journey. This 
desire for a violent solution to a serious problem is a new and alarming 
discovery.
The neighbour with a lawyer threatens my sense of autonomy. I feel treated like 
an animal, my choices removed, opportunities taken away, as she refuses to talk, 
behave, or communicate like a human being. She is using her power tools against 
us. Intimidation. Threats. Lies. In my backlash I can only think of her as 
something less than human. She is a problem that is taking on the cast of 
monstrosity. It's much easier to dream of killing a monster than a living human 
being.
Violence as solutions to problems is a way of life that has perpetuated the 
human condition for as long as the species has been alive. The human condition 
can only be changed by intellectual choices. The choices that are currently made 
reflect the value we place on human life. What about homelessness, child abuse, 
rape, murder? Are they not all products of seeing human beings as something less 
than human?
Can we choose something else or are we slave to centuries of human conditioning? 
I choose not to kill her, even though every fibre in my being tells me that it 
is best way to solve the problem. This woman is asserting that her cut-throat 
aggression makes her more worthy in the game of survival of the fittest. She has 
the resources and the leverage to destroy us, our goals, our hopes and desires. 
Our choice is to treat her nicely and hope that the damage won't be devastating. 
It's galling. It's civilization.
Money is the object of this dispute. Would I get in a ring and claw her eyes out 
for eighty-five thousand dollars? Yep. At the moment, nothing could give my 
anger more satisfaction.
But what is at the heart of the conflict? Fear. The fear of being treated like a 
object and not a person. The fear of the removal of all things that make both 
her and me feel safe, so that we can explore being human on our own terms. 
That's why dehumanizing her and wishing I had the chutzpa to kill her is an 
effective coping mechanism. It deals with the fear. It's an instinctive 
reaction.
What is bred in the bone is cruel and ruthless. Instinct overwhelms intellect in 
cunning and clever ways. It makes adults yearn to produce children in a finite 
environment. It drives people to attain power by desperate and fanatical means, 
within the family unit and without. It divides us, makes us enemies. It makes 
some of us commit heinous acts of violence.
Dehumanization begets violence. My instincts tell me that to survive I must 
dehumanize myself and others. My intellect rebels and tells me to be human.
The cost of that instinctive use of violence would see me rejected by the 
community of people I have come to know and respect. I might incur a jail 
sentence, taking away my freedom to participate in the joyful activities and 
relationships that have become dear to me. These are the reasons I won't tear 
her limb from limb. They are human reasons: friends, family, freedom.
The punishment is the deterrent. Instinct is my enemy. But that knowledge 
doesn't ease my seething anger or my helpless frustration. Did he fuck up? Yes. 
Will she profit from his mistake? Yes. She has him by the balls. I would like to 
have her by the throat.

Sandy Rogers might claw your eyes out for eighty-five thousand dollars.

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All in a Day's Work
By Ed Wrench

I work in the transportation industry. It is a tough industry. It is a twenty-
four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, big dinky toys operational 
type environment, designed to deliver people and air freight products to 
wherever it is their supposed to be, and a soon as logistically possible. In 
order to service the high demands of you modern consumers out there, we are 
currently open from 5 a.m. to midnight, but we start as early as 4:30 a.m. and 
work until 2:30 a.m., even later sometimes. Given this, it doesn't take a rocket 
scientist to figure out that most of us have to work shifts, and some of us have 
to work statutory holidays, including Christmas, without overtime but as part of 
a normal rotational shift cycle. It's definitely not a job, it's a life! But as 
unglamourous and dull as the industry may seem, and as horrible a shifts as have 
been worked, it has always proven to be at least mildly humourous on a daily 
basis, and there have also been some incredibly funny, heavy, and scary moments 
over the years as well.
Back some years ago the shifts were really ugly. I remember being on a 5x2, five 
days on and two days off like normal people, from 2:50 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. with 
Sunday and Monday off, unlike normal people. We were a freighter crew, employed 
to unload two big planes and load one big and one small plane within two and a 
half hours, and there wasn't that many of us. The first big plane arrived at 
2:55 a.m.. Normally, or abnormally, when it's 3 a.m. and you are manually 
unloading cargo from the belly of a DC-8 freighter, capable of carrying over 
90,000 pounds of payload, you might get to thinking about how you're working 
your fucking ass off while everyone else is sleeping and how those sleepers are 
quite unaware of the underlying impact all these logistics have on their 
pathetic daily little lives etc, etc, etc. Or, just maybe because you're so very 
fucking tired and there's a shit load of work to do in a very short period of 
time under high corporate pressures of on time performance, you or someone else 
loses it, gets pissed off, and there's an incident. And it happened, a lot.
Rage flare ups were a frequent sight on that shift. One middle of the morning, I 
remember entering the change room before work, at about 2:45 a.m., to find this 
guy fiendishly beating on the wall between the two hand dryers. What do you do 
about that? I said "Morning", careful not to preface it with its mate "Good", 
and I went to my locker. He continued to punch out an every growing hole in the 
bathroom wall, hurled a few profanities, and stormed out, ready to work. Other 
locker room beatings included a regularly cranky individual, aptly nicknamed, 
who used to frequently punch out his locker before work. The effect was greatly 
heightened however when he arrived to find someone, read we, had stuck severely 
edited portions of bodies from only the raunchiest pornographic magazines onto 
his locker. In all, the material provided for making three very clear and 
distinct, and true, statements about his personality, and by the resultant rage 
he flew into upon seeing them, he evidently got each message.
Dousing our fires with gasoline, was our supervisor (let's call him Joe), a real 
hard ass, complete with honours in the old school yell at 'em and they'll do it 
mentality, a real McCarthy if you like. He was also hyper tense and on heart 
medication. Joe boldly made up for his inability to control the employees or the 
operation by constantly yelling at EVERYONE, but he also had his favourites, us, 
the rat pack, the new young grunts. That was his style. Thus we, also known as 
the almighty and powerful freighter crew, the guys that could really fuck him 
up, the guys he REALLY needed, got it all the more. He fired all of us at least 
once and one or more of us on several occasions.
Unfortunately for Old Joe, but much to our enjoyment, he had the knack of making 
a tremendous ass of himself whenever he flew off the handle. This was evidenced 
best the morning he fired us all, just before the freighter had arrived. (All we 
were doing was killing some time playing floor hockey with boards and a roll of 
tape, honestly, but he fired us just the same if only for just that.) That day, 
over the normal abuse we ladled on him, one of us chirped up that if we were 
REALLY fired, we'd have to leave the premises, like now. As the freighter could 
be heard pulling up to the gatehouse in the background, Old Joe grew red faced 
as if his necktie had suddenly tightened and right before our eyes he was 
eventually reduced to a sputtering blathering undignified mess of a human being, 
who then ordered us to work the freighter or we would be fired. We told him 
"Fuck off, go to your office, and stay there!", then we worked the freighter.
Although this would normally be enough, or at least seem obvious enough an 
example of employee disdain for the supervisor, his authority, and all that 
other corporate policy crap etc, to REALLY fire us, this was so common place and 
so relatively tame that it was just a day in the life, especially when compared 
to:
The time he was taped to a chair, put into a cargo container, and lifted up into 
a racking system where he sat for over an hour pleading with the less rebellious 
employees, as if he had some camaraderie with them cause he hadn't yet fired 
them--yet, to untie him.
And the time, while at our busiest afternoon overnight freighter peak, 
appropriately known as "freighter madness", he was yelling and screaming like a 
banshee, clearly out of his mind, when the cranky guy who beats up his locker 
whacked him across the chest so hard that his glasses flew off his face, his 
hair whipped back, and he was left, again so undignified, gasping for air.
And the ultimate, the time when a group of really bad-assed employees barricaded 
him in his office by placing a pile of dock skids against his door, trapping him 
in, while one of them backed his truck in against the skids and proceeded to 
repetitively rev the engine, filling the office with blackened exhaust, nearly 
KILLING poor old Joe.

There are many more examples, but I think you get my point that by telling him 
to fuck off etc we weren't threatening his life or anything, well not physically 
anyhow, and on the scale of things past, not only did we not deserve to be 
fired, but we hadn't earned it. Deep down Old Joe knew this, and so he played 
along, did as we told him, and everything went well. Later, much later, and 
certainly after we'd had coffee, he'd come around all smiles and goofy like and 
try to make up. Sometimes, he'd even apologize, but he never meant it. Always, 
the result of his coming by was further, and heightened, animosity among the 
relevant parties. It was always a fight with him. But it was also a bit of a 
game, and we were vigorously willing players whose ultimate goal was to wind Old 
Joe up so tight that his heart would explode out of his chest during one of his 
imfamous rampages. Disappointingly, it didn't happen that day, but we had hope. 
Next round, next shift.
With such high tempers running amok among employees and management, there were 
naturally many arguments, at the minimum, but some would escalate into fantastic 
displays of insane face to face spittle flying incoherent hollerings, possibly 
leading to incredible feats of violence, which immediately became folklore, 
stories to be told over again and again long afterward to new generations of 
hirees. One particular guy, a really big pumped up muscular stupid guy with a 
bad temper, is the subject of many of these lore. He was pretty stupid all 
right, which was probably why he got into weightlifting in the first place, to 
ward off school yard beatings in his earlier years we figured, and naturally 
because of both of these character traits he had all the usual nicknames like 
Hans (or Franz), thick-neck, monkey, Cro-Magnon, etc, but my personal favorite 
was TOADIE, which just happened to rhyme with his real name, and to which I use 
to refer to him hereafter.
To give you an idea of just how strong this guy was, I'll tell you the lore that 
resulted in one of his many nicknames, TUMOR. He earned this one one day when a 
baggage tractor, likely through his own ineptitude, went into gear and pinned 
him against the side of an airplane. Where you and I would have readily been 
mashed into a bloody pulp, he managed to push it back away from him, bending the 
steering wheel with his animal strength, until he got free. Evidently (--that's 
how all these stories get going; Apparently also works), someone in the vicinity 
of this incident, probably a crew member, happened to notice that during this 
incredible feat, huge tumors were bulging out of Toadie's head just above his 
eye brows. I guess he looked like the Incredible Hulk or something at that 
particular moment. Anyhow, the story was told and the name stuck.
After Toadie got back from the hospital a couple of weeks later, the guys razzed 
him about it big time, culminating in the day all his crew mates showed up to 
work with half Ping-Pong balls taped on their foreheads. Well, Toadie lost it, 
characterized by the eyes rolling back in his head like a Great White, and he 
chased one of them for a about five minutes before he caught the guy. The 
details of what happened after he caught the guy are sketchy at best, and as I 
didn't witness either of these incidents I won't speculate or even make 
something up about what did happen, but suffice it to say that the Ping-Pong 
ball stunt was never repeated.
I did however personally witness Toadie pick up a guy, regular weight and 
height, lift him up over his head and jam him into a 40 gal drum garbage can. He 
managed it so effortlessly it was ballerina-like. I also saw him grab an 
obnoxious rail of a meek man John by the scruff of the neck and literally toss 
him about 15 feet into a wall. This was pretty cool. Very Flinstonesque, as John 
flew through the air completely vertical, his feet flapping aimlessly in the 
wind inches above the cement floor, grasping for traction -- then he crashed 
into the wall and sunk to the floor in a crumpled ball of contorted arms and 
legs. No serious injuries though. I had also flirted with the great shark myself 
and was keenly aware of his awesome power. One day I was sitting in a truck and 
I lipped him off from afar. He marched over, reached through the passenger 
window and grabbed ME by the scruff of the neck and shook me like a rag doll 
within the compartment of the truck cab.
Fortunately for us, Toadie also had a sense of humour, and one had to admit he 
actually was pretty witty, and funny, in an intimidating big guy kind of way. As 
such, he never held a grudge very long, and the violent outbursts were just 
that, outbursts. As long as no one got hurt, you could normally kiss and make up 
and laugh about it about ten or fifteen minutes later, if you were willing. Then 
the waters would remain calm for awhile, until his next feeding frenzy, or 
outburst rather, and they continued to happen with some degree of regularity, 
but also completely spontaneously. No one was immune.
We had a special hate-hate relationship right from the start. I attributed this 
to two things: One, my Dad was the big cheese (Old Joe's boss), and two, I just 
couldn't bring myself to lie down for this guy. If he started something with me 
I was in his face. I don't take well to intimidation, and my theory was that if 
you can't stick it to the big guy then your a permanent target for him, his 
buddies, and everyone else. Even if the not already living shit was going to be 
beaten out of me, I felt the necessity to get in a few good shots first. This 
attitude had been developed early on in my life as the youngest of a large group 
of kids on my block, and along with the large number of beatings I had taken 
over the years, I had over time gained some semblance of respect from my the 
neighbourhood bullies as I'd blackened their eyes and bloodied their noses. I 
saw the current situation as no different, except that he was a workplace bully, 
and of course nobody's Mom was going to appear on the front porch in curlers and 
start yelling at us to break it up -- too bad, this kind of distraction could 
have saved lives.
One day, Toadie and I really locked horns. It had been brewing for a couple of 
days as Toadie had been in an uncharacteristically prolonged bad mood and he'd 
been laying into everyone, myself included. I normally wore a baseball cap at 
work, to cover the hair I wasn't going to wash at 2:00 am before work, and 
Toadie had developed this extremely annoying habit of knocking my hat off, 
especially when we were mixing it up, but sometimes just because it, and I, were 
there. This would always illicit a stream of verbal abuse from me, but I too had 
been in a prolonged bad mood about something that was going on at work, and this 
time I really let fly on him. He just laughed and walked away, but for me it 
wasn't over. When changing to go home I noticed Toadie had left his locker open, 
so I left him a little love letter. Inside the door I wrote "Don't ever knock my 
hat off again", tough words I know, then on the outside in huge letters from the 
top of the door down to the floor I scribed with a knife into the paint -- 
FAGGOT. Not that I have anything against gays, but for a pumped up Italian guy 
with numerous nicknames, this was as big an insult as I could come up with. Then 
I went home.
As childish as my graffiti may have seemed, it definitely had a pronounced 
effect, even more so than I could have predicted. And as it turned out, even 
more so than I'd wished. He started shift later than I did, and next morning 
while I was unloading a large cargo container, he came in. He could be heard 
screaming my name from the locker room. Then he came down on the floor, and 
hunted me out. I was standing in this container which is seven by ten feet and 
tall enough to stand in when he approached. I knew by the whites of his eyes I 
was in serious deep shit. As he approached I grabbed the guy in front of me and 
kept him between us while Toadie was trying to get a hold of me. The guy in the 
middle was laughing as he was flopping around to and fro as Toadie was trying to 
push him aside and I was keeping him from falling down in order to stay alive. I 
knew this wasn't going to last long so when I saw my chance I let go of him and 
made a break for the container opening and freedom. I was just about out the 
container door when Toadie's extended reach managed to latch onto my parka hood. 
That was it.
I was suspended in mid air only for a moment until my hood ripped off and I 
plopped to the ground. I sprung back up to my feet immediately to reduce my 
vulnerability and Toadie jumped out of the container right in front of me. He 
grabbed my hat off my head and was raging about the note I'd left him and how 
he'd rip my hat in half. As my adrenaline was pumping up, I stood there slightly 
dazed, as I watched him trying to tear my hat in half. He was standing legs 
apart and arms in front of his chest tugging at the hat, and to our amazement 
and his, he was unable to rip it with his huge pipes (read arms) alone. I 
remember thinking that his position was very vulnerable, and that with one hop 
and a jump I could plant my clod hopper steal toed boot right between his legs 
and drive his balls up to his ears and ring his bell. The idea was appealing, 
but if I missed, or if his suspected steroid use had shrunk them so small it 
would have had absolutely no effect, then I'd be a dead man. What I needed was a 
gun I thought as I continued to look on, not sure of where this was going to 
lead. Eventually he had to employ his foot in the hat ripping effort and he 
finally managed to rip it, although the damage was considerably minimal compared 
to the effort outlayed. Within two minutes, I'd lost a hood and a hat.
It was my turn to lose it, and I did. I started screaming at Toadie, calling him 
everything under the sun. I was jumping up and down, with our noses almost 
touching on the upswing, and I was pounding my index finger into his meaty chest 
with ever increasing frequency all the while I was cursing him out. He started 
to lean back, surprised at my demonstration, and bewildered as to WHY I was so 
irate -- told you he was stupid. He was on the receiving end now, and he started 
to back away, but I kept it up, pogo-ing up and down, my finger flailing in and 
out like a serpent's tongue, and screaming wildly. I was all over him like a 
swarm of flies on a mountain of shit, and I was clearly starting to irritate him 
as he barked out "Get AWAY from me!", which I wouldn't. Finally he just reached 
out, grabbed some part of my parka and flung me with the extension of his arm, 
and I tumbled, gymnastically, rolling about twenty feet away from him. He began 
walking away from the scene, as if it was all over, but it wasn't, and in an 
instant I was back on him worse than before.
A couple of minutes had elapsed by now and other people were beginning to notice 
that something was going on, as they slowed in what they were doing and casually 
looked over our way. I was yelling pretty loud by now, and while I was two feet 
off the ground, and with my finger bent into Toadie's chest, I happened to catch 
Old Joe the supervisor in my peripheral vision as he came around a corner of 
stacked up freight. Thinking that that was that, and that Old Joe would surely 
put an end to the row like the teachers in a grade school hall fight, all fell 
silent for a second, and Toadie and I looked Joe's way. I'll never forget what 
happened next -- Old Joe, looking right at us, and obviously aware of what was 
going down, did a whoops double take type move, turned, and skittled back around 
the corner out of sight. Thanks Joe! As if this was his cue, Toadie reached out, 
grabbed me and flung me again, and I rolled across the polished yet very dirty 
cement warehouse floor, AGAIN. Ever wonder what if feels like to be a dishrag? 
Well I'd definitely been wrung out but I wasn't hung out, and I got right back 
up and right back on him.
The jumping, finger pointing, and yelling made its way across the warehouse as 
Toadie kept walking away and I pursued. I must have been out of my mind, as I 
was rationalizing that if I could provoke him into hitting me he'd be fired -- 
of course I'd be hospitalized if I survived. But Toadie had to be commended as 
he managed to contain himself for the most part. It wasn't until I brought his 
family into the slew of verbal abuse that I tipped him over the edge. I can't 
even remember what I said, but what ever it was, his arm suddenly reached out 
with an open hand and he laid a choke hold on me. I immediately retaliated with 
a kick to his kidney area. We both stood there stunned, looking at each other in 
disbelief, realizing just how close we'd come to both getting fired, let alone 
me seriously hurt. We responded by marching away in opposite directions.
Suddenly Old Joe appeared, naturally after the situation had already diffused 
itself, and ready to take credit for resolving things, he now wanted to get to 
the bottom of what was happening. He was afraid of Toadie so he approached me. 
My ears were burning and I couldn't hear a thing he said. All I could think of 
was his chicken shit run away response minutes earlier. I grabbed him by his 
tie, pulled him in real close, and whispered in his ear "Why does your breathe 
smell like your ass? Resolve that!" Then I pushed him away and walked off. He 
just stood there, unsure of what to do next. Then Toadie passed by him and 
blasted him. Now Old Joe was pissed off, and Toadie and I would have to pay for 
that.
About ten minutes later, Toadie came by and I wandered over. "Feel better?!" he 
snipped, and I said that I did. So did he, and then we both began to laugh about 
it. Old Joe however, decided to make something of it now that it was a dead 
issue. Toadie and I oddly enough became half-assed friends after this. Our bond 
was strengthened further when Old Joe tried to discipline us, ironically for 
something that he himself hadn't seen take place, and Toadie and I co-conspired 
to deny that anything had ever happened. The end result was that Old Joe came 
off looking like an idiot, as usual, and that Toadie and I had a new found 
respect for each other's limits of sanity and just how far either of us could be 
pushed. We never fought again physically, but continued to torture each other 
verbally -- a safer and more enjoyable kind of play.

Ed Wrench doesn't like to pick on people his own size.


Battered 
By Lucinda Atwood

Bill kicked over the paint can and stormed out of the apartment. I was stunned. 
This was my new boyfriend, the gorgeous, gentle dancer who was helping me start 
my new life.
Recently separated, in fact still technically married, I had met and begun a 
relationship with Bill. My attraction to him was the final straw to a dying 
marriage. I married at 20 and by 22 was understanding my mum's warnings. Marry 
in haste, repent at leisure. Good looks and compatible fashion sense aren't the 
basis for a sound marriage, and I was ready to leave. So Bill became my 
transitional man.
I met him at work; I was a waitress and he was the dj of a briefly hip dance 
club. His sensual body and sympathetic nature attracted me like a moth to a 
flame. I hardly knew him - he was from the other end of the country but had 
moved here with five friends to start that club. His friends seemed surprised to 
see us together, and his best friend told me I'd "jumped out of the frying pan 
and into the flame", but refused to explain.
After a few weeks I left my husband and took a small apartment across town. The 
day I moved into my new bachelorette pad Bill came over to help me paint and set 
up.
We were painting in silence, listening to the radio and each lost in our own 
thoughts. The shock of his act stunned me momentarily - I'd never seen 
unprovoked anger. My upbringing had taught me to yell, to show anger, to induce 
guilt, but I'd never seen this. I didn't know what to do - what would cause a 
scene like that. And what should I think of this man?
I cleaned up, had a little snuffle, and waited for him to return. His actions 
were so completely unacceptable that they were outside my experience. I was 
pissed off that he would do that in my place, to me. How dare he?
Little did I know that that episode was just the beginning. I have hearing loss 
in one ear because of him. He hit me, choked me and broke my eardrum. I showed 
up at work with bruises and welts. Friends suspected something was wrong but had 
no idea of the extent. I kept it to myself.
That's the oddest part of this little tale. I'm a person who believes in self-
proclaimed power, in taking care of myself and especially in not being a victim. 
I'd always thought that women who stayed in abusive relationships had no one but 
themselves to blame. The first time he hits you, I thought, just get the hell 
out of there. Split.
Yet here I was staying with, and trying to help, a man who would try to kill me. 
I barely knew him, yet was martyring myself. Why? What the hell was I thinking? 
I was a perfectly self-supporting 22 year old, with family and friends nearby, 
yet I returned again and again to this man. I said nothing to my parents, and 
lied to girlfriends.
For some reason my friend Brent was able to snap me awake. I became gradually 
aware that Bill would indeed kill me - that this wasn't a game - if I didn't get 
out. I left and told him not to contact me. He cursed me, told me that he would 
kill me, that I was like all the rest who'd abandoned him.
I remember that time as a bad dream - I felt so helpless. Bill followed the 
textbook behavior of abuse. He would attack me suddenly on unrelated pretexts, 
then weep and beg my forgiveness. He was like a baby in my arms as I held and 
forgave him again and again. There is a lot of power in victimhood, and I wore 
self-righteousness like a crown. I was the victim; I had been wronged; in some 
bizarre way I was omnipotent. I remember taunting him; goading him to violence, 
daring him to hit me. In my confused mind I was stronger than my assailant.
Bill's childhood had also been textbook. The whole family had been victimized 
physically and sexually by his father, who committed suicide when Bill was 13. 
Bill told me that as a child he had watched his father kidnap and rape a little 
girl. He's been to psychologists and therapists, social workers and counsellors. 
He knows the jargon, understands his injuries, but nothing could stop his 
lifelong pattern of abuse.
I think that he had too much to overcome to help himself, that his self-
awareness wasn't enough to heal his soul. Last time I heard from him he'd moved 
back to Vancouver and was living with a woman. He said he was eating well - 
always important to him, and not drinking. Alcohol depressed him into rages of 
despair - he was scariest the day after a drinking binge.
That was ten years ago, and though I have no contact with him, I often think of 
him. I know that he did not wish for violence, that he tried hard to live in 
peace. I appreciate my own childhood, my parents' love and tenderness. I grew up 
in what I now understand is an exceptional atmosphere of support and 
encouragement, with lots of play and laughter. He had none of that.
I do not in any way condone Bill's violence, but I have forgiven him. His pain 
has shown me how lucky I am, and how much I need to understand, rather than 
judge. I experienced a relatively small taste of some people's lives. My violent 
relationship lasted only a few months and I got out without being seriously 
harmed, but I feel that I have a certain level of appreciation of violent 
relationships. Contrary to what most people think, there is no easy solution for 
victims of violence. Women and men who are trapped in violent relationships must 
leave, but I also understand what makes that so difficult. I know that it's not 
our nature to abandon those we love, even when they hurt us. I know that we tend 
to want to help, to heal. We often put aside our own safety to support others.
I also understand the attraction of victimhood and the seduction of martyrdom. 
Once I was out of that relationship my bruises healed quickly but it was my 
addiction to victimhood that was hard to kick.
A victim is someone who is always right, pitied, understood; someone to be 
nurtured, someone to treat gently. A victim doesn't have to take responsibility 
for his or her actions. A victim is guaranteed to be listened to; a victim can 
demand an audience. A victim doesn't have to do too much other than heal; a 
victim can lean.
It's taken me a long time to understand the shock value of my experiences; in my 
middle-class society there's not a lot to top being bloodied by your boyfriend. 
Instant surprise. Instant sympathy. Instant attention. To this day I still 
question my motives for speaking of this violence.
Is it a conversation-winning ploy for attention? My pain tops your pain. I've 
experienced more than you. I can shock you?
I know my motives were ego-driven originally but I now feel that it is time to 
speak up - to say this can and does happen to well-educated middle class women. 
This can and does happen to people you know. This can and does happen right 
under your nose. Violence is a topic that needs to come out of the closet; to be 
spoken of, understood, and hopefully conquered. 

Lucinda Atwood no longer dates gorgeous, gentle dancers.


Raging Bully
By Paul Levine

I am not a violent person. My attitude to inflicting physical pain on others 
approaches what I imagine to be the Pope's relationship to Buddhism: it's a 
interesting idea to contemplate but in the end it's not a very good fit. Part of 
my reticence is due to purely logistical details. I'm quite tall but my muscle 
and bone mass approximates a particularly lanky Sammy Davis Junior. And the 
similarities with the legendary lounge singer do not end there. While I'm a 
lousy singer, I happen to be of Jewish heritage, and as Stephen Spielberg has 
shown us, Jews do not inflict violence; they have violence inflicted upon them. 
We're a sheepish people, cowering in the shadows, waiting patiently for a warm-
hearted Christian to herd us into safety.
I also abhor the idea of physical pain, my own more so than someone else's, and 
I realize that the idea of committing violence without feeling pain of your own 
is a fool's fantasy. I know this because I flirted with a short career as a 
school-yard bully in a small grey town just outside of London where I spent my 
formative years.
I wasn't always a nasty lad. My first few years of education were spent in a 
private school that specialized in teaching precocious, snot-nosed children of 
privilege with parents of taste and distinction the complexities of algebra and 
Latin, the discipline of a good afternoon of cricket, and stirring of the heart 
that accompanies the daily singing of God Save the Queen. My brain proved far 
too undisciplined to retain or digest the courses on offer and my parents' bank 
account confirmed that taste without distinction does not a private education 
make. So with grim reluctance, at the age of ten, I was entered into the British 
state school system.
Urban planners for the town I was housed in had placed a bridge in the centre of 
town which conveniently divided the rich from the poor. On one side were 
palatial mansions with Volvos gracing the driveways. On the other side were row 
upon row of grey rented council houses with barking dogs pissing on the brick. 
Most of my parent's Jewish contemporaries were firmly ensconced on the sunny 
side of the bridge, from where their offspring were shuttled daily to "good" 
schools miles away while their mummies passed time doing volunteer work for the 
local Ladies Guild. My parents had not made the cut but had bought a house as 
close to the bridge as possible, in an neighborhood that abutted the sprawling 
local council estate. They would jaunt over the bridge often to tea parties and 
cards evenings. On special occasions their friends might grace us with their 
presence. I'm sure they thought of our cramped family home as quite quaint.
To rent a council house from the government was considered to be something one 
simply did not do unless one spent a great deal of time eating pork pies and 
working at the local factory. So with a modest mortgage and by a couple of feet 
my parents had avoided the unthinkable indignity of working class torpor and 
slid narrowly into the uncomfortable lower middle class.
Despite my peerage at the bottom end of the b-team of the privileged classes, my 
new schoolmates were, without exception, the sons and daughters of the British 
proletariat, their lives virtually preordained from birth: the girls would most 
likely end up as mothers spending the days watching their husband's underpants 
rotate in the washer; the boys would inevitably take up work along side dear old 
dad, watch soccer on the weekends, and eventually take over the rented house the 
family had been living in since before the war.
My new school was about a mile from the house and my walk there required careful 
zigzagging from one side of street to the other in order to avoid unprovoked, 
spontaneous violence from the local youths who littered my path and took a 
particularly British pleasure in inflicting random torment on innocent passers 
by. Making eye contact with the local thugs was to be definitely avoided since 
it would inevitably invoke the Pavlovian utterance: "what the fuck are you 
looking at?", a question to which no answer can assuage, and almost always a 
guaranteed predictor of an impending physical confrontation. While the best 
strategy was to avoid being on the same side of the street, sometimes 
circumstances made it impossible to get where I was going without walking by a 
group of the local shit-disturbers. Often I would graze past without incident. 
Occasionally, I would feel a splatter of wet gob on the back of my neck which 
came with no warning since the youth of Britain spend their off-hours 
cultivating an ability to spit accurately and, after much practice, silently. On 
one memorable occasion I became the victim of the dreaded "Knees up Mother 
Brown", a pub song converted for street use. As I eased by a gaggle of goons, 
they slowly encircled me, locked arms, and then delighted in simultaneously 
singing the legendary tune and delivering a flurry of knees as I crumpled to the 
pavement.
In another incident I was confronted on the street by a group of older kids. One 
of them had brought his younger brother who was barely out of diapers but had 
the unmistakable look of a shrunken yob. The mission of the day, I quickly 
surmised, was to toughen up the young tike, give him a fraternal helping hand in 
his important formative years as a young menace. Two of the youths grabbed me by 
the arms while the other picked up his brother elevating him so that our eyes 
met. The child looked enthused, his face taking on a giddy glee that I 
recognized from my own childhood, from when my parents promised ice-cream or a 
trip to the zoo.
"'it 'im," said the older brother in the manner that was both subtly threatening 
and touchingly nurturing. The child looked a bit confused, his eyes darting 
around for reassurance. The older brother continued. "Go on, champ, 'it 'im! 
It's ok. We'll keep you covered, little mate."
The child clenched his tiny fist and I prepared myself for a micro-blow. I 
looked into his eyes and he giggled. "Go on!" screamed his brother impatiently. 
The child's smile turned to a grimace as he started to cry. "Fuckin' kid's a 
poofta," declared the older sibling as the others loosened their grip permitting 
my exit.
Once on the school grounds, safely away from the street yobs, I was faced with 
the torments of my schoolmates who would eventually grow up to hang out on the 
street and pick on the next generation of innocent passers by. Key entrances to 
the buildings I needed to enter were often guarded by gangs of pale, spotty 
junior sociopaths who would deliver light flurries of kicks and punches as the 
price of entry. The classroom was a safe refuge from student on student violence 
because of the rigorous discipline enforced by teaching staff. Unfortunately, 
though, it was the centre of teacher on student violence which came in the form 
of slaps to the face, rulers to the hands and, in extreme cases, canes to the 
ass. Being beaten by a teacher was often considered to be a badge of honour, a 
surefire method to work your way up the playground hierarchy. Mouthing off the 
teacher was the most direct route to corporal punishment, but since most 
teachers were aware that the perpetrator wanted to be hit, one had to show some 
considerable finesse to properly pull off the exercise. Successfully annoying 
the teacher, who typically were masters of studied indifference, was the 
ambition of every potential self-promoter. This was not an easy task. 
Challenging the teacher verbally often resulted in humiliating retorts. One 
student I remember had a large winestain birthmark on this forehead. He was a 
large lad but a little sensitive about this defect and any mention of it on the 
playground guaranteed a fight. One day, after he thought he was having a bit of 
fun at the teacher's expense, he found himself sobbing quietly at his desk. "Mr 
Masters," the teacher had said. "It seems that your birthmark has leaked into 
your brain causing substantial damage." The class roared. Mr. Masters was 
deprived of a thrashing.
On another occasion a stringy reptile of a student, desperate for peer approval 
but always an abject failure, interrupted the class with obvious, lackluster 
remarks which the teacher chose to ignore. Later, during a silent reading 
period, the teacher slowly circulated the quiet classroom to ensure that we were 
all at the very least pretending to read. Behind the reptile's chair the teacher 
stopped, drawing the furtive glances of the class. A devilish smile graced his 
face as the back of his hand met the back of the reptile's head. Using all of 
his brainpower to affect the illusion of silent reading, the poor boy hadn't 
noticed the teacher's presence and was sadly unbraced for impact. His face hit 
his desk at high velocity and he emerged with his nose and lips bloodied. He 
sobbed quietly as the teacher casually handed him a handkerchief to clean up the 
mess. You could hear a pin drop for the remainder of silent reading that day.
Despite the strict discipline in the classroom, the school administration took a 
particularly permissive attitude to decorum during playground breaks, teachers 
most often retreating to their coffee lounge and doing their best to avoid any 
contact with students until a situation became impossible to ignore. Fights 
between students of both genders occurred so often that teachers would sit at 
the staff room door with their ears cocked for the cheers of the gathered mob 
that would instantly encircle the combatants. Casually strolling to the scene, 
the teacher would watch for a while, as if appreciating the impetuousness of 
youth, before gliding in to break up the scene. When fights weren't happening 
they were threatening to happen. Those who were at the top of the shit-kicker 
list would roam the playground with their friends challenging the meek and 
panicked in order to maintain their stronghold. In my early days at the school, 
fresh from my private education in gentlemanly decorum and cucumber sandwiches, 
I was unflaggingly meek and undeniably panicked and a common target for bullies.
Standing alone in any play area of the school was an immediate invitation for 
calamity. On more than a few occasions, I would spot a group of my schoolmates 
hurtling towards me, unannounced, uninvited, like dogs at a fox. Running away 
just postponed the inevitable, so I learned to stand still and brace myself for 
impact. The rush of bodies would flatten me to the ground and the group would 
move on to the next victim barely registering my identity. I knew I needed the 
cover of company for protection so I did what I could to endear myself to the 
nastiest bastards in the school. This would not prove to be easy since they all 
seemed to have a reflexive dislike for me based on the fact that I was somehow 
different from them. For a start, my identity as a Jew, the only one in the 
school, precluded me from eating the all-pervasive pork pies and immediately 
cast me as an outsider. Then there was the problem of my accent which was not 
particularly regal but my intact "h's" betrayed me as sympathetic to the 
bourgeois. While I might have said, "what a horrible, horrid, horrendous 
hernia", my schoolmates would have uttered "wot an 'orrible, orrid, orrendous 
'ernia". I needed to remake myself so I took to the task of aping the mannerisms 
and general deportment of my new peers. I practiced my spitting whenever I had 
the off chance, developed a passable skill at soccer, untucked my shirt whenever 
circumstances permitted, and started to drop the "h"s.
"'ello mum," I'd say on arrival home in the afternoon.
"It's 'Hello', Paul," she'd remind me. "With an H".
"Wot?" I'd say.
"It's 'what', Paul. You're starting to sound so common".
As time went on I started to develop a general skill at making comments in class 
that had the simultaneous result of endearing me to the teacher and entertaining 
my fellow students. While others received school sanctioned beatings for their 
outbursts, I would enjoy tacit approval. Occasionally I would misjudge the mood 
and end up in detention writing lines like "I will not amuse the class" five 
hundred times. But I managed to avoid being hit in the classroom throughout my 
years there.
While my classroom antics coupled with my Eliza Doolittle reversal were helping 
me gain some social footing, I knew that the only way I would be truly accepted 
would be to torment and humiliate those who were weaker than me. Such creatures 
were not easy to find at first. Then a miracle happened. A new boy appeared in 
class one day whose breeding and demeanor made me look positively déclassé. He 
was from the right side of the bridge, possessed an accent that wouldn't have 
seemed out of place in Prince Charles mouth, and he looked suspiciously like he 
smoked a pipe. I don't know whether he was the result of a budget shortfall back 
at the manor, whether he had failed out of whatever private school he'd been at, 
or if his neo-hippy parents had decided it would be interesting social 
experiment to place the poor bastard with the local little people to build his 
character. All I knew was that my bullying career had begun.
This new boy was so absurdly out of place there was a queue forming to get at 
him. He was gangly and physically awkward, and he remained exceedingly polite no 
matter what the circumstances. "Please may I have my underpants back," he would 
say in the PE changing rooms. "I would prefer it that you would refrain from 
hitting me," he'd say to the bullies in the playground. It became a bit of a 
school-wide challenge to try to get him to show some emotion, to rile him out of 
his well-mannered stasis. After day upon day of torment he was showing signs of 
wearing down. He was becoming less polite and mildly confrontational. I'd had 
little practice picking on anyone up to this point (although I'd carefully 
studied the methods that had been used on me) but this guy seemed liked he'd be 
an easy entree into bully-hood.
One morning, as a crowd gathered around the entrance of one of the school 
buildings, I noticed the new boy a few feet away, looking slightly defeated. I 
looked over at him and he caught my eye. "Wot the fuck are you looking at," I 
said, relishing the dropped "h" and trying my best to sound menacing.
"Don't you try anything with me," he said in a manner not unlike a Kung Fu 
expert providing a gentleman's warning to an overconfident thug.
I could see he was on the verge of blowing what little cool he had. I didn't 
want to do any real damage to him, just enjoy the power of the threat. A crowd 
was started to gather around us in the fighter's circle formation. I recognized 
the look of panic on his face as the crowd started to chant: "Fight! Fight! 
Fight!"
The new boy spoke. "Fuck you," he said to the delight of the crowd, his first 
official public curse.
"Fuck you," I parroted back in my best Queen's English and spat to the ground, 
pausing momentarily to admire the waddle of spittle I'd successfully projected. 
As I peered out into the crowd, bathing in peer approval, I felt a stinging blow 
to the side of my face. I looked up at the new boy who was standing in the 
traditional boxer's position - fists up, legs dancing. His teeth were barred and 
he was doing his best to convert his supercilious smirk into a threatening 
scowl. A rush of adrenaline hit me followed immediately by the panicked "fight 
or flight" reflex that turns the world to a slo-mo gelatin. I would come to 
realize that successful fighters are the ones who have long ago desensitized 
themselves to this reaction, who can with calm and calculation go about the 
business of inflicting pain on others.
I took a broad goal-scoring kick at the new boys legs which took far longer than 
I imagined to make its mark. He hopped instinctively and I kicked at his other 
leg. As he fell to the ground I rammed my fist into his face noting that TV had 
lied to me on two accounts: fists hitting faces make no sound at all and 
punching someone in the face produces pain in the hands of the puncher. I didn't 
want to keep hitting him, partially to avoid my own pain, and more so because I 
realized at that moment that I'd never be a good fighter because I felt for the 
poor bastard. A teacher appeared, broke us up and dispersed the crowd. Normally, 
fighters were given a stern talking to and then sent on their way. I braced for 
a lecture but instead the teacher grabbed me by the ear and dragged me across 
the playground, through the hallway of the administration building and into the 
Headmaster's office. I had unwittingly transgressed an unwritten rule of order. 
The kind of fighting tolerated by the school administration was based on 
gentleman's rules of conduct. I knew that the use of foreign objects to inflict 
violence was taboo; a true Brit should be able to get by with his fists alone. I 
knew that cross-gender violence was not permitted, although the occasional case 
of a girl beating up a boy was always overlooked. What I didn't know is that the 
school, responding to the popularity of Kung Fu movies at the time, had recently 
outlawed the act of kicking. Apparently I hadn't been listening the day they 
announced this at assembly. I started to panic about the consequences, choking 
back tears as the Headmaster delivered a stern lecture on the role of schools in 
developing moral character. I let his words turn to sonic soup as I considered 
my fate.
Detentions were the most frequently invoked punishment. I'd been there; I could 
handle that. Suspensions were unheard of since giving a student a few days off 
school was considered a gift. Expulsions required exceptional circumstances. The 
only one I'd ever heard of was tall black girl who'd hospitalized one of her 
teachers at a neighboring school. She was now part of my student body and nobody 
fucked with her. The prospect that I would be caned was looming. This would give 
me the street cred I needed but it would also hurt. As the Headmaster's lecture 
tapered off to it's conclusion, I started to cry.
"Look here, Paul," said the Headmaster. "Your normally quite a good boy and I'm 
sure that this act of yours was based on a misguided idea."
"Yes," I sniffed.
"But I'm sure you realize that this cannot, and will not, go unpunished."
I stiffened as he outlined my punishment. "We're sending a letter home to your 
parents," he said. He'd met my parents at a school social evening and had 
decided that they were the kind of people who would be able to appreciate a 
well-worded assessment of my delinquency. He seemed almost grateful to me for 
providing the opportunity to exercise his pen for those he thought were on par 
with his social standing.
"It says here," said my mother, "that you beat a boy called Peter Nebsby, that 
you kicked him."
"Ee 'it me first," I said.
"It's 'hit'," said my mother, "with an H."
"Hit, then," I replied.
"I've told you about hitting," my mother said. "This is terribly embarrassing 
receiving a note like this. Of course, you realize, you're going to have to 
respond."
So the punishment I received from my parents was to pen a heartfelt apology to 
the Headmaster for disrupting the school day, for causing him the inconvenience 
of having to intervene, and promising that I would control my impulses in the 
cause of the greater good.
At school the next day I sensed a subtle shift in my standing in the pecking 
order. I was still to be pecked at, but now there were those who thought that I 
may be the one doing some pecking on them. I sensed their fear and did what I 
could to encourage it, challenging them publicly when I felt it would be to my 
advantage and luxuriating in the power of watching them back down. In this way I 
maintained a position as a low-ranking, middling bully.
To gain favour with the ice-hearted, over-developed goons in the high ranks I 
would pick fights with them and hope some mutual respect would arise from the 
exchange. I wasn't suicidal, though, so I would only initiate my attacks at the 
end of recess, as we marched backed into class, with a teacher at hand to 
quickly break up the conflict before any real damage could be done. Through this 
practice, I managed to negotiate myself into a position where the real bastards 
of the school considered me to be someone to leave alone rather than someone not 
to fuck with. Although it wasn't ideal, I was grateful for this verdict. Yet I 
still felt pressured to provide occasional displays of public callousness to 
maintain my position.
One day, during a lunch-time soccer game, the ball went out of play and brushed 
by a fat boy in the year behind me. He caught the ball with his foot as it 
passed, paused, and then kicked it further out of bounds. This was a blatant 
challenge to the authority of the players, most of who were my nasty new 
friends, by an ambitious youngster taking a heavy risk. He was inviting a lesson 
in pecking order politics but someone kicked the ball back and we went on 
playing without incident. A few minutes later the fat boy appeared in the play 
area. A few of the players spotted him while chasing the ball and as they 
brushed past showered him with silent spit. I rushed by him on my way to the 
ball and spat ineffectively at his feet. "Fuck you, you fuckin' wanker," he 
screamed. I couldn't let this direct challenge slide, this perfect opportunity 
to confirm my place among the lads. So I took the first step to escalate the 
scene and pushed him. Hopefully, a few of the others would follow my cue and 
we'd send him running with a few kicks to the arse.
As I registered the game continuing on without me the fat boy punched me square 
in the throat. I gasped for breath as he punched me in the eye. I lunged at him 
with a flurry of awkward blows, each missing their mark. I felt his shoe hit my 
stomach as I fell to the ground and rolled instinctively into a ball. I had my 
head down, my eyes closed and I braced for the inevitable kicks. As they came I 
made an attempt to grab his foot as it swept into me but misjudged the velocity 
and ended up tasting his leather shoe. Scrambling, I managed to get up and kick 
the fat boy in the ass as the teacher's whistle blew. The sound of a teacher's 
whistle during a break was a direct command from the administration for everyone 
to stop dead in their tracks. It normally indicated an emergency or a breach of 
discipline. There was silence all around as the teacher walked towards us, his 
steps deliberately slow underscoring the fact that he was the only person on the 
school-grounds permitted to move.
I stood a couple of feet from my assailant as we starred each other down, 
panting. He wasn't going to make a move; he had already made as much of a point 
that he needed to make. I had some serious footing to regain so I pulled my 
standby maneuver. As the teacher approached I jumped at the fat boy and landed a 
couple of ineffective blows to his gelatinous midsection. We both received heavy 
slaps to the head for disturbing the playground peace. The teacher blew his 
whistle again and everyone reanimated. This would be the last fight I'd 
initiate.
With my mediocre menacing skills I had to admit to myself that I had neither the 
backdrop nor the instincts to join the ranks of the professionally angry. I was 
just playing at being a lout and I really wasn't prepared to keep up with the 
antics of the school's leading radicals. I backed away as they turned to 
stealing, to rumbling with the other schools in the area, to getting their heads 
shaved in affinity with the punk rock bands that were sweeping up the charts at 
the time.
They would inevitably go on to stints as punk groupies, soccer hooligans and pub 
brawlers before settling in the accepted routine of working class living. At my 
house there was nothing but the anticipation of unqualified ambition, the 
middle-class prospect of "bettering oneself", hanging in the air. As the Sex 
Pistols' signature chant "No future" spilled out of the radio I wondered what 
was in the cards for me. Did I really have any more hope of rising out of my 
station than my playground cronies? What did England have in store for me?
I was never to find out. As the final term of school finished, just as I was 
turning 14, my parents announced that the family would be moving to Canada. The 
byline of the post-war advertisements for immigration still rang clearly in my 
parents' minds: "Canada - Land of Opportunity".
Suddenly I was transplanted to frighteningly flat, strangely uniform suburb of 
Vancouver. There was no threat of violence on the streets or anywhere else for 
that matter. Canada's boostering optimism for social mobility had dissipated the 
tensions between the haves and the have-nots. Here traditionally working class 
occupations had been subsumed into the acceptable mainstream. Plumbers and 
accountants making similar salaries lived side by side in spacious subdivisions, 
their kids attending the same schools and sharing the same goals: to make money 
and continue the good life.
In school, the key to playground credibility was not rebelliousness but 
conformity. Those who dressed the best, excelled at team sports, and made the 
honour roll - these were the louts of Canada, the ones who you wanted to 
befriend to enhance your social standing. I was struck by the fact that almost 
everyone talked in an identical manner which I tried to imitate to make myself 
less conspicuous but which often resulted in linguistic calamity as the cultures 
clashed. I reinstalled all my 'H's, which helped, but my attempt at properly 
pronouncing "can't" came out sounding suspiciously like "cunt", which didn't 
help.
I found myself thrust into the role of representing British Society as viewed by 
Canadians. The only way my new schoolmates could really understand me was by 
turning me into a tangled muddle of trans-Atlantic cliché. I was a tea-drinking 
sophisticate with geezer street cred, a soccer hooligan with a taste for opera. 
In Canada such things were thinkable, even possible. In England, these 
juxtapositions pull at the threads in the social fabric and the result often is 
violence.

Paul Levine now pronounces all of his h's.


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