The Giant

Six foot eight. Two hundred pounds in weight. That’s the first image that came to folks' minds when Big John’s name was spoken.

 No longer were giants reduced to old-country tales; of Finn MacCool, or old Patrick Cotter, who had stood heads above his kinsfolk. 

No. When you saw Big John walking out of his house in the morning light, ducking into his rusted pick-up, and saw the vehicle ebb up and down under his weight as if an Atlantic wave had passed underneath it, you believed in giants. How could you not? For there was one before you.

Hair combed and thinning with a wiry, untended beard. Eyes merely beads buried in a face of deep lines and pockmarks and scars. And the jowls on him. 

And then you think of other men of such stature and how typically they are good men - civil big men. Hard-working and keep their head down and keep their friends and their kin safe. Puts his strength to use on the construction sites, you might think. 

That’s what the big un’s do, for the most part. They lumber around, avoid trouble, and keep to themselves. They work and they tend to their family. And if there’s food on the table at the end of the day for their wife and the young’uns then you may consider that day a success. 

But the more you hear Big John and the more you see of him, the more you realize that this illusion is merely that. An illusion.

You hear the pick-up rattle to a stop outside of his house at midnight on a Wednesday and you pull the curtains back and watch this behemoth stumble from the driver’s seat. He falls clumsily along the fence and the fence moans under his weight and he crashes through the door into the house. Not an hour passes until the arguments start. It doesn’t matter if you live eight houses along - you can still hear it. 

Bull in a China shop. 

Glass breaking. 

The infant crying. Like the shrill howls of a newborn lamb.

Shadows against the window-light with their arms all flailing.

The young girl has the right idea. She sneaks out the back door and across the field as soon as she hears him coming. A spectre against the moonlight, barefoot across the grass. 

Like a ghost, she is there and she is gone. 

The mother and the son aren’t as crafty. Try to resist him. 

For a second you might think of rushing across to help them. You get a rush of blood to the head. Then you remember who Big John is. The stories. What he has done. What he could do.