I met Paul “Pancho” McDougall the winter of 1990. I was hanging out with his best friend, John. We were in his den watching television when we heard a knock at the door. It was Pancho coming for a visit. He walked to the back room where we were sitting and took a seat at the other end of the couch. He had a 40 oz. Budweiser, I guess he got from his job. He still wore his work clothes and seemed tired. I guess back then he was still delivering beer to local party stores, and I guess it took a lot out of him that day. He admitted in front of me that he was hiding from his girlfriend and that he had walked over from his grandmother’s house around the block. He didn’t feel like arguing with his girlfriend, and when she called, to tell her that he wasn’t there. In about 15 minutes after his arrival, she called. “Hey…Nah, he ain’t here.” He was silent for a bit, while she talked about what was going on. Then John ended the conversation by reiterating that he hadn’t seen Paul and didn’t know where he was. He sits still like if he moved, she would hear him and know that he was there. I sat still, too. Whoever his girlfriend was, she had him hiding out. That meant she was tough and from the looks of him, he was running on all amps and couldn’t survive a fight with her that night. I thought if she showed up, I would be an accomplice and maybe he would let me have it, too. At that moment, we sat still and let John handle it. Like the pro he is, he did his best friend’s duties and lied through his teeth. Paul took a couple of swigs of his “forty” and gazed into the TV with relief he had dodged that bullet. Taking another swallow, he settled in.
After about 15 minutes, he was asleep. I looked over at him and thought, “He does look like Dewayne Wayne from A Different World”. He had flip-ups and everything, just like the popular television character. I also felt sorry for him. He couldn’t even go home and sleep comfortably in his own bed. John looked him, and was also sorry for his friend, and said, “Dang, my boy tired!” I look at him and said, “He did right to hide. She must be something else. Should I get him a blanket?” “Nah, he’ll be okay.” John motioned to dismiss the gesture. He looked so pitiful. That’s how I felt for him, until about a year later, when I met Patricia.
Patricia is Puerto Rican and beautiful. We met at the old women’s clothing store “Hit or Miss”. The first day we met, she had on this black skirt a black leopard print blouse and a thick black belt around her waist with a pair of saddle boots on. I looked at her like, “Who is this woman?” That outfit was interesting to say the least. As soon as I got the chance, I would tell her what I was thinking. It was lunch time or something, I asked a question and ended with, “Vennesa del Rio” and smiled. Now, Patricia has a thick Spanish accent. She’s Puerto Rican, but she grew up in Texas, San Antonio with a bunch of Mexicans. She had identical-twin brothers that looked White but speak fluent Spanish. Mostly, she said she spoke Tex-Mex, and her mother hated it. She lost her mother when she was 16. She and her brothers were separated after she died. Patricia moved around. Being treated unfairly and being used. She met a family that used her and had her sleeping in their basement. They forced her to pay them rent and just mistreated her badly all around. She left them when she got pregnant with her son. She felt that she didn’t want to raise him in a basement and got an apartment for the two of them. Then one day she met her long-lost sister and moved in with her and her daughter. They had their issues, but she was with family and that was better than strangers. Then one day she met Pancho, and they started hanging out. Then she became pregnant. Then she found out that she was pregnant with twins. It started one day when she was four months pregnant and fell asleep in the middle of the day. Pancho was calling her. She told me she was just sleeping hard, because she is pregnant. Pancho took off from work, drove to Detroit and in her words, “Kicked {her} my ass.” I couldn’t believe it. The guy who came to John’s house that night.
“Pancho-Paul-McRick”, that’s what John had called him the night he fled to his house. It took her about a year to tell me she was in an abusive relationship. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t feel sorry for him anymore because he was a monster. All she ever talked about was Paul. Paul…Paul…Paul was al she would say at work all day. When he walked into the store, he had given up on the flip-ups and had on regular glasses, but it was him. When he had left, I said, “Oh, you go with Pancho-Paul-McRick? She didn’t speak English well, but she had the “ghetto” expression down. She gave me one and exclaimed, “Who!” I made a face of my own, “Pancho-Paul-McRick. That’s what John calls him”. She still was looking at me crazy. I asked, “Do you know John?” She relaxed and I believe I told her the story about him hiding out, because she said the ex was a horrible girlfriend. She was happy about the story and told me Pancho got tired of her being so obsessive. When she finally told me about the abuse, I asked if he beat that ex. She told me that he tried, but she fought back. I think she won, too, due to the night he hid out with John and me. I asked her why she didn’t fight back. She told me that she did, but it was worse when she fought back, so she’d just curled up in a ball, protecting her face and waited for him to stop hitting and kicking her.
I should have known something was wrong, because one night, well morning when he came home late, she put on his winter jacket and walked to my house. She lived in Crystal Lake Apartments. I lived near the Lighthouse off Woodward. She walked, in the dark and in the cold, getting away from him. My mother called out to me, “…Somebody is knocking at the door”! I got up and let her in. We sat up and talked four a few hours. I gave her my bed and slept on the couch. The next morning, before he came to pick her up, he and I talked. She hadn’t told me about the abuse yet. I told him she was ungrateful, and she needed to appreciate him more. He is a master narcissist and psychopath. He had fooled me and against her. I would never believe it, until I saw it for myself. The last beating. She came over and showed me the results. It was just nasty. The bruises on her arms were blurple. A mix of black and purple. Triangles the print of his shoes where he had kicked her in the back. She had no one here, but me and no one else. He had his family and had turned them against her. She went back home to her sister who had taken her back in. They had fallen out, because her sister had lost her job and had asked Patricia to use another address to get aid. She had been using her sister’s address and was getting cash and food benefits. So, it wasn’t a fairytale for my friend. He wasn’t taking care of her; they had been taking care of each other. Plus, all those late nights he claimed to be out with the Bud Girls, he was with other women.
Pancho thought Patricia was dumb. That thick accent could make someone believe it, but she was smart. He had gotten a promotion at Budweiser, and they had updated their pagers. He laid the paperwork on the pager program on the counter and went to lie down. Patricia got it and learned how to check his messages, she was so good, she taught me how to do it, so I could check his messages while she was at work. Her work phone wouldn’t let her do it. I checked all the guys’ voicemails who worked at Budweiser. That’s what ended it, because he was cheating. There was at least three other women. His new job had him traveling around Oakland County putting taps in bars. The waitresses were too much for him to resist and Patricia was pissed, because she was mostly at home alone and when he was home he was beating her up!
"Beware of fake men who come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves...Every good tree bears good fruit, and every bad tree, bad fruit."
Matthew 7:15
