Putting Up With Torina the Terrible

Torina the Terrible

What Was in it for Him?

Everyone wondered how this sweet-natured good-looking man put up with Torina the Terrible. Torina owned this huge clubhouse on the golf course with its restaurant and bar, spa and the works. She reminded me of Catherine the Great - same looks, same bombastic overbearing personality, and the voice of a drill sergeant, to complete the picture. I also pictured her as Aida in the opera.

How she humiliated him. He was required to be present fawning on her every evening at the casino, at the restaurant, everywhere. She called him a gigolo, she called him her boy... what didn't she call him? He was always all dressed up for these nightly appearances. His clothes were perfect, his posture was perfect... even his teeth were perfect. He reminded me of the groom on a wedding cake.

Torina the Terrible is a client of my lawyer client and I am a court reporter following Mr. Lawyer to Torina's restaurant where he will confer with her as the guest of honor at Her table. Court reporters are machines; they don't register as real people when they have that Stenograph in their hands. It is truly amazing what a person can chat about frankly one-on-one, and what one can learn that way, from medical examiners, employment counselors, soil mechanics engineers, revetment wall design engineers, gangsters and drug dealers and stunt men whilst waiting for the proceedings that brought you together like ships in the night to begin.

One day I got my chance, when everyone else was busy doing something, to ask him how he endured Monster Lady... and why. He knew I dabbled in Tarot. She was not in any of the questions he wanted to know about. He wanted only to know about his golf game, whether he would ever get good enough to be a pro golfer. He already knew: He was almost. He was resigned to that.

This man lived for golf. Golf was his love, his only love. Here he could play on a pro level course all day - yes, all day out there seven days a week from sunup to sunset doing what he loved best in utter ecstatic privacy practicing his game to his heart's content. Even with the best of jobs he would not have the money and the time to do His Game like this.

Did Torina know he was cheating on her with the iron in his hand? I suspected she did and did not care because that is what brought her such a lovely victim. Torina very much wanted to impress my client, a hard-boozing coke aficionado who had been a bomber pilot in one of the better wars of his country. His clients lately tended to be the muscle end of the mobs.

Perhaps we should occasionally ask ourselves 'What's in it, really, for him or her or them?' Or ourselves?

Where else can you support wildlife in natural habitat and discover your best strategy to deal with a situation? Who should you be, why are they acting that way, and what is your best approach? Accurate analysis of this succinctly, that you will remember.