The tall Andy has been the community’s pride in wrestling; an epitome of brute force. He had wrestled down the heavyweights around and about his community and had made those fitting this description to be scarce. The loser’s back always bites the dust.
For his prowess, he was honoured with a wife the moment he indicated an interest in Betta, the smallish lady.
It was a community tradition; women are supposed to love their husbands and the men are expected to cherish their wives. But Andy had an internal restlessness. He had carried his masochistic penchant into his home. As he had no worthy wrestling competitors, he sometimes wishes his wife could pair with him as an affirmation of her love. Otherwise, if only to prove to her that he is the head of the house, he envisions beating her whenever she refuses to do his bidding. But he managed to suppress this tendency and like all fake acts, the truth always shows up in due course.
Over time, Andy had finally been contented with beating his wife in good measure. Because women had been brought up to respect their husbands, they received the beatings as a matter of duty; respect and submission. Andy was a huge, tall and athletic man while his wife had a midget frame. For her injuries, she always says it was a neighbour’s assault rather than indict her brutal husband to external ridicule. It is either ‘Oh, I fell in the bathroom’ or ‘Oh, I missed my step, I’ll be more careful next time’. These were the rehearsed and familiar excuses. In disgust, she once remarked to her husband, ‘For others, it is a disservice if a woman they love declines to marry them but to you, I did you a disservice as I agreed to marry you because you said you loved me’.
One day, on his way to his house, Andy boasted to his admirers about the expensive white dress he was adorning. When he got home, his smallish wife annoyed him again. And as usual, he had resorted to his traditional line of discipline; beating the wife. He had rushed at her after a quarrel over who was to eat the chicken’s neck as he usually did. But this time, unable to bear Andy’s traditional brutality and having made up her mind even for divorce, she stood her ground. It made him angrier. In furry, as he rushed at her, she dashed in between his tall legs and like a fulcrum, she unbalanced him and he tumbled over her raised back and crashed heavily unto the ground, soiling his white dress. This fall only made him much angrier. He could not imagine her audacity. She had never done this before. If she was advised by someone to do so, then he was going to teach her and her teachers a big lesson.
He charged at her as a final assault more as a chauvinistic expression than reason. At first, she dodged. But like the bully that he is, he charged again. She was ready. Using her small frame to advantage in their height disparity, she passed between his legs again. This time he was quick to turn but not before she grabbed one of his legs, raised it and pulled it simultaneously. Then he lost his balance and crash-landed on the muddy floor the second time. This time on his bum with his muscle-endowed legs splayed wide apart. Of course, his trouser joint was split open like ribs exposing other fancies peeping from under his pant. Having done this, the wife escaped. He did not have time to change into another dress before he encountered his astonished admirers.
As his dress was stained severely and torn, they wondered. ‘Oh, I accidentally tripped in my house’, he told them. He could not brave to tell anyone the details of his crushing defeat by his wife even though he knew that no one believed what he told them. They wondered, what kind of an accidental misfortune will befall a man of such physique and affect not only the front of his dress but also the back, and they remembered that the loser’s back always bites the dust.
This time you could see that it was Andy’s turn to assign his injury to another cause; more like a new family tradition not to indict his ‘brutal’ wife: his newly discovered heavyweight wrestler.