Jeff Thompson was not the kind of guy you could forget about once you met him. "Mayhem" to his friends, he was over seven feet tall with shoulders nearly that wide, long curly hair and an impressive beard. But although his physical presence was striking, it was his kindness and gentleness that made the real lasting impression.
I had the privilege of working with Mayhem at Scarborough Renaissance Festival in 1994. I played a member of the Scottish court, while he was the king of the Scottish games over which I presided each day of the festival. Watching him toss the caber, launch stones and throw hammers, his physical strength was impressive. He often put that strength to use giving the biggest hugs of my life, lifting my feet off the ground in dizzying greetings.
Those hugs are my main memory of Mayhem, as well as one night while we sat around a fire in the Faire campsite, his arm around my shoulders, content in the presence of good friends, singing songs and enjoying the company. Jeff was a real gentleman and I always felt safe when he was around. Most of us did.
In the autumn of 1994, I went away to university and in ten years of travels from Austin to Boston to London, I rarely saw Mayhem any more. So I was stunned when, ten years later in December 2004, while reading the news during my lunch break, I clicked an article about a shooting at a Damageplan gig in Ohio and read that their head of security, Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, was among the four dead.
I didn't have to read any of the subsequent articles to know how Mayhem died. He was the guy who, if his friends were in danger, would do anything he could to protect them. I knew before it was confirmed in the press that Mayhem had rushed the gunman. But even 7'1" of strength and heart can be felled by a tiny bullet.
I do not believe that the killer's motives were ever established. I do know that he was mentally ill, and that he had a gun. That gun allowed him to take my friend away from me. I will never have another hug like that.
Gun violence touches all of us, from those of us who feel empathy and pain with victims' families to those of us who have lost loved ones to senseless acts. The answer is not more guns but fewer. The answer is treatment of mental illness rather than stigmatisation. Gun control laws won't bring Mayhem back, but they will make America safer for my family, my friends, my loved ones.
I didn't know Mayhem. I am still touched by his death, because so very many of my friends did know him. I feel sad that I never had the privilege, because of how much knowing him seems to have effected people I respect.
ReplyDeleteViolence, like all of our actions, ripples outward. It touches the people involved, and the people who know them, and outward to people who don't even know the names of the actual victims but only that the people in their lives are suffering.
I would like to add a line here to say that I am glad that you are blogging. I love reading your entries. Thanks for giving the folks back home your perspective. I am a better informed and more rounded person because you are sharing.