On Pulling The Trigger Twice

There was a story on NPR's Story Corps this morning about a mom, who being abused by her husband had killed him with a handgun. She shot him twice twice and of course, the guy died . The piece moved me because, I understood why she shot twice, why she pulled the trigger the second time after the first. She wanted to make sure the abuser stayed down. You have to do its the first and perhaps only rule of bully survival. We have to make sure that when you retaliate you do so with a vengeance and retribution so significant the bully forever leaves you alone . One of the best examples I have seen in literature of this was in Ender's Game where Ender retaliates against his bully and kills him.

Sorry to say I have older brother who is a bit of a bully growing up. We are friends now and I appreciate our friendship but growing up it was kind of frustrating and frightening. I think on a primal level I knew about this scorched-earth policy of retribution towards your aggressor but I really never had the full commitment to pull this bit of self protection off. I think I feared that I would not be able to achieve the ferocity needed to establish this kind of resolve. Many times I tried only to aggravate the beast to the point where the retribution visited on my person would be intolerable. I don't know if my brother would have killed me had I finished the job of beating the snot out of him to the point where he would leave me alone from that point forward. Actually, I knew deep down I would have to kill him to bring about that kind of security. Saying that actually happened there be no security for me I would punish myself for committing this final atrocity. Interestingly in the piece on NPR's the one daughter never spoke to her mother again following that night when mom assassinated dad out of self-preservation. The daughter now understands and appreciates the action her mom had to take to self-preservate and wishes she had been able to communicate this to her mother.

I don't know what so intrigued me about this Story Corps so much. I don't know that was the description of the event or the fact that the storyteller went out of our way to indicate she pulled the trigger twice on the weapon she used. In the telling of the story the communicator does not say the reason for the second shot was to make sure the perpetrator did not get up but I certainly fully understood the rationale of the second pull. And truly appreciated the courage that wife/mother exhibited to pull the trigger a second time.

Just a quick aside – – I really like Story Corps, I've actually been on Story Corps, I supposedly have my recording archived at Story Corps Central Washington DC. I'm lucky I have a copy of the interview with my friend Marty Blair because I've never been able to find it at Story Corps... Just saying.