For the past twenty years, I have referred to my ex-husband only as The Anti-Christ. There were and are many, many reasons for this. He was verbally and emotionally abusive. He was a border-line sociopath. He was a man who, as my father of blessed memory was wont to say, would rather climb a tree to tell a lie, than stand on the ground and tell the truth. We were married for four years and it took another two to complete the divorce because he played the system like a fucking Stradivarius. I have never used his name because I was afraid that, like Beetlejuice, it would cause him to appear in my life, and that was not something I wanted. Ever.

He has a public reputation as an honest man, and a good man. This is the opinion of people who only know the public facade. They weren’t there to see him kick me under the table when I said something he didn’t like. They weren’t there when he told me that if sex was something I wanted in a relationship, I should take a lover and leave him alone. They weren’t there the night our home was broken in to, and I arrived home while the mud was still wet on the floor, and he wouldn’t come home to help with the police report or calm my fears because it was the night he was getting inducted into Iron Arrow, and what would people say if he didn’t go to the football game to be presented with the other inductees at half-time.

Last week karma caught up to him. I don’t know anything about this case, only plenty about the man. He is guilty as charged, no matter what happens in court.