Dick Cheney, the Goat, the Bat and the Jackal

I recently read an article posted on The Raw Story website where Rep. Grayson describes Dick Cheney as a vampire. "Blood drips from his teeth" whenever he criticizes President Obama (I would have used a more descriptive word, such as, "fangs" maybe?) then at the end of the interview the congressman from Florida wonders if Cheney "turned into a bat and flew away" when he last attempted to admonish President Obama.

This story brought to mind another story my mother and her siblings often tell about one of their sisters. My aunt was married to a man who was extremely abusive and cruel when he drank. He would arrive home in rages fueled by the alcohol, the cruelty intensified as time passed. And each time his cruelty surpassed the previous cruelty. How my aunt endured this I will never know. Her life certainly has not been easy; a daughter succumbed to leukemia as a teenager, another daughter committed suicide as a young adult, a son is drug addicted with unknown whereabouts and more likely homeless or perhaps even dead, a grandson accidentally drowned as a toddler and another granddaughter is severely anorexic. My aunt is now in her mid 80's.

Once my uncle was so stupefied by the alcohol that when he came home he dragged my aunt out of bed by her hair and ordered her to sleep on the floor, where the goat slept. He carefully picked up the goat and put the goat in bed. He left and continued with his drinking through the night. The next day a neighbor came and knocked on my aunt's door telling her that my uncle was on the corner of Matamoros and La Avenida Revolucion passed out. My aunt, being the dutiful wife, and probably tired of being humiliated and embarrassed picked him up and brought him home. This occurred often. Finally, one day she had had enough and became desperate. Desperate enough to seek out the local potion maker, an elderly woman with deep wrinkles carved into her face. She had just the remedy, she told my aunt as she scanned her many glass bottles of assorted sizes and colors. Each filled with a guaranteed cure. She gave her a bottle filled with a clear liquid and instructed her to put it in her husbands' food and beverages whenever she knew he was going to drink alcohol. (perhaps a primitive form of antabuse?) That would not be difficult to gauge as he drank every day. She put it in his food, in his beverage, even in his bath water. When he drank that day he became so violently ill, that the family legend is that at one point he was turned inside out. He had vomited the desire to drink. Not only did he stop drinking, but he looked down upon anyone who did drink.

My uncle's abusive nature was tradition in his family, his mother was cruel and vindictive to anyone who was not her child (my aunt was often the target of her cruelty) he also had a sister who was manipulative, conniving and wicked. The family elders say she was known to dip into the darkness of black magic. Now the story tellers of my family swear to what happened at this sister's death bed. She anguished for days, suffering greatly as death lingered around her. Finally, when she gasped her last breath and rendered her spirit, a jackal came out from under her bed. A jackal? I often ask the women of the family who tell this story, how can that be? did they have a dog? I ask still incredulous to this story. Oh no, it was certainly a jackal that had come for her soul, sent by the devil she danced with in life.

And as I see Cheney dancing with the devil I wonder if a jackal will too come out from under his death bed.