The Broken Window
When I was still young I had a BB gun like all the boys my
age had. It was a Red Ryder lever-cock model, the most popular of the day. My
buddy, who lived next door, Gene Carr, also had one, so he and I would often go
back in the “New Roads” area and shoot birds and whatever else we could find to
shoot at. We both hated it when my brother Danny, Delmar Rucker, and Donnie
Burcham and other friends of theirs would sneak and follow us, because we
wanted to do “secret stuff” back there, stuff that we didn’t want known. After
they followed us several times, we soon learned to hide in waiting on them.
When they got real close, we’d jump out and scare the hell out of them, and
then as they ran, we’d shoot them in the butt with our BB guns. I got in more
trouble doing that, but it was the only thing that worked. Dad peppered my butt
big-time every time I did that, but two or three days later, I’d be right back
doing it again. I finally stopped one day after I embedded a BB in Delmar
Rucker’s butt from close range, and his dad had to dig it out with his
pocketknife. Delmar’s dad threatened to shoot me with my own BB gun, and to
also beat my dad’s butt if I didn’t quit immediately, so I finally stopped, but
not until the boys promised me they would stop following me all the time.
Actually, the main reason I stopped was so that I could continue living. Dad
promised me instant death if it ever happened again, and I knew beyond any
doubt that he was deadly serious.
Sometimes
as a different sort of entertainment, Gene and I would get Danny, Donnie
(Frog), Delmar, and other friends of theirs down in Gene’s basement, and have
them put the boxing gloves on. We’d stage our own Olympics, in a manner of
speaking. We did this several times until Dad got wind of it, and then it was
red-butt day all over again for me.
I know
there have been times in Danny’s life when he felt like he owed me a lot in the
way of paybacks, and actually when I reflected on it myself, I had to agree that
maybe he did. There were times when we got a little older that I slept with one
eye open, not sure what he might attempt to do to me in the middle of the
night. I knew the building of hate when I saw it, so I decided I had to do
something nice for him so he’d forget any hostile actions he might be
contemplating against my physical being. One day the chance arrived when I
could do something to make him feel better about his big brother.
Several of
us boys were playing football in our empty lot next to the house. Danny
accidentally kicked the football right through Mom’s double-kitchen window on
the north side of the house. Danny was scared to death that Dad would kill him
when he got home from work, but I thought Dad would surely understand a simple
accident had happened, so I told Danny not to worry. I would claim that I did
it and take the blame for him. He dropped to his knees in pure gratitude,
willing to kiss my feet or do anything else I wanted him to do. I became
Danny’s instant hero.
I
approached Mom and took complete responsibility for the broken window, and I
helped her cover the opening with cardboard. She told me Dad would be mad, but
she’d try to keep him under control. Late that night when Dad came home from
work, Mom told him of the accident I had with the football, but she told him I
did the right thing and voluntarily confessed to it.
I played
like I was asleep, but Dad came over to my bed. “Would you please step out to
the back porch area for a minute?” he said in a very soft voice. There was no
anger in the tone of his voice at all, so I bravely went to the porch. This
next part of the story is really very ugly, so I will just say that I had a
very red, extremely sore butt for the next several days. The neighbors heard a
lot of screaming.
Today, the
police would arrest a father for doing what he did to me in the way of
discipline, but all the kids in our area pretty much got the same treatment
from their dads. My Grandfather Meredith
gave my dad a leather razor strap years before to sharpen his straight razor
on. It was a quarter of an inch thick, and Dad used this on me on those rare
occasions when he felt I deserved it, but never any harder than on that
occasion when I got it for something I never did. I nearly folded and told the
truth on Danny, but I felt he couldn’t survive what I was getting, so I bit my
tongue and endured. I’ve had a lot of bad whippings, beatings, or whatever the
proper name is for them, but never a worse one than that one. I will never
forget it as long as I live, but you know what? I never blamed Dad for it. He
had told us several times not to play football or baseball in the lot because
we’d break a window.
I think Dad
did the only thing that was possible to make me a better person at the time,
because even I realized I was bordering on being out of control at certain
times. That beating made me wake up to the fact that I would never in my life
ever take the blame again for somebody else, and possibly I might not ever even
confess to something I actually did. It was a pretty severe lesson. It was the
worst beating I ever had to endure, but it also was the last one.
Paul R. Meredith
1988
No comments:
Post a Comment