Dad vs Deer (The Farmhouse Stories Pt.2)

    The north and west side of the College farm was bordered by property owned by Red River Army Depot.  Beyond our fences was nothing more than acres upon acres of thick pine forests with fire lanes cut through them.  On a few rare occasions we would see army tanks rolling down these wide paths, making test runs we all assumed.  More than not it was just a lot of wild animals.

    My dad would sit on the back porch with a case a beer at his feet and a rifle in his hand.  He would watch for coyotes mainly, not wanting them to get near the sheep.  I would sit with him sometimes and watch.  Dad would just scan the field and sip his beer.  A coyote would slink across the pasture, trying its damndest not to be seen.  When he eyed the wild dog trying to sneak, he would slowly raise his gun, take aim and fire.  Most of the time, the coyote would be taken off its feet and knocked back a few yards.  There were those instances where the beer had gotten the best of his judgment and vision.  If he missed he would quickly jam another round in the chamber, find his target and squeeze the trigger.  If the dog was not dead then, it was definitely running in the opposite direction.

    Any time there was a confirmed coyote kill my dad would hop on the three-wheeler and make his way to the dead animal.  All of the coyote carcasses ended up as some sort of deranged fence ornaments.  He would hang the bodies over the back fence to sort of ward off any other coyotes in the area.  I am not sure this did anything but feed the vultures.
    My dad also liked to hunt deer from that very same spot on the back porch.  This helped fulfill his need to be a self-sufficient outdoorsman, I guess.  I do know it helped put food on the table for a handful of hungry kids. 
     Most of the deer killed on that property where killed illegally but there was absolutely no one around to tell on us and I’m sure that if there had been my dad would have not given a fuck either way.
    It was barely past dusk and he was already six beers deep into his cheap aluminum fold-out chair.  He eyed the field with the last remaining bits of sunlight assisting him.  All of us kids played our games in the front yard.  We spun circles looking up at the evening sky until we couldn’t stand any longer.  Those of us who enjoyed the feeling more than the others, went off to live harder lives.  We all bolted straight up from where we were when we heard the report of the rifle. 
    Dad came from around the back and leaned his rifle against the side of the house.  “I got one!  Who’s coming with me to collect?” he hollered excitedly at us.  We all hopped up out of the grass and gathered around him.  I know I was a proud son.  “Ya’ll get in the truck and I’ll be right back.”  We all ran and jumped into the cab of the trusty rusty Chevrolet. 
    My dad grabbed his rifle from where he left it and went inside.  He returned shortly, half-skipping towards the truck while he adjusted a newly bought belt-holster.  He got behind the wheel of the truck, cranked the engine and let the old beast lurch forwards.  There was a gate almost straight ahead that led to the pasture where the deer was lying.
    Once again the golden rule of farm life, ‘the one closest to the door opens the gate’, rang true.  I jumped out just as excited as my father.  I opened the gate and let the truck pass.  I was sure there were no cattle in that area but closed and latched the gate anyway.  I rejoined the group in the truck and we took off through the tall grass with nothing but two hi-beams and my dad’s half-drunken arrogance to lead the way. 
    We made heavy tracks in the grass as we made our route. We came to and circled around his latest kill.  He backed up to the body and killed the truck.  The lights stayed on with none of that incessant noise that comes with new cars.  We all piled out of the truck.  My dad made his way to the rear.  Curious me, I climbed out of the door and onto the toolbox in the back while the other kids ran to the front of the truck to dance in in the high grass and hi-beams.
     I watched as my dad slowly walked up to the creature with his right hand at the butt of his gun.  It was a .38 that he had even let me try out.  My first bout with the gun was a tough one, but I held firm.  My confidence began to waiver by the fact that I could not hit anything to save my life.  My only reasoning led me to believe that if I brought the gun closer to my face would I be able to get a clearer view of my target.  That was my mistake.  Although I was clear on the recoil aspects of the gun I was more than over confident in my forearms.  The hammer of the pistol reached back just far enough to kiss me on the bridge of my nose.  I was left with a trickle of blood, a single tear, and a few of my dad’s buddies having a good laugh.
     He came around to the side of the deer and watched it closely.  There seemed to be no life left in it whatsoever and apparently he thought so as well.  The hand on his gun butt began to relax.  With a stride only hubris and alcohol could provide, he walked towards the truck and lowered the tailgate.  He gave me a small wink and turned once again to what had really brought us out there.
     He swaggered over, bent down with nothing but legs, and ripped the thing from the ground.  He had a hold of it by all four legs and I watched him as he sauntered over carrying its full weight.  With a squat and a sudden thrust, he threw the deer onto the cold metal of the truck bed.  In an instant the deer came alive.  We were both shocked as shit.  I leapt from the toolbox to the ground and ran towards the other kids.  I craned my neck over the body of the truck and saw the deer standing completely upright in the bed.
     Hooves came down on my dad.  He raised his arms in that defensive motion that is natural to all things that fear death.  With the rain of hoof beats on his forearms, he managed to wrestle it out of the truck.  The deer hit the ground sideways and jumped up for another round.  My dad was almost done with. Those few dozen fast punches from something sharper than any man’s hands, had taken its toll. I could tell the faintness he was feeling from yards away.
     In a last ditch effort my dad drew the gun he had been toting.  Fire flew from the barrel as the deer struck him with everything it had.  It looked like a series of S.O.S. flares going off with no one near enough to save him. We all ducked for cover not knowing exactly where the bullets would land.  Finally, with the last bellow from the .38, the doe hit the ground hard.  My dad quickly re-holstered the weapon and held his arms where he could see.  The flannel jacket that he had been wearing had been ripped to shreds.  Shallow trickles of blood seeped out and colored the cotton red.  He shook it off as only the men of yesterday could.
     Shocked and pissed, he reached down, grabbed the deer and hoisted it once again into the bed of the truck, this time with no fight.  All of us that were only witness to the situation neatly gathered in the cab of the truck and rode silently home, with the man that fought the deer.

The Farm Stories Part One Bobby's Feet

    My father was a man by the time he was sixteen.  By the time I came along, he was already one child deep and trying to half-way figure out what to do next.  Parenting is hard, that is why I choose not to partake.  At the age of twenty two, he landed a job some would dream about.  I know if I had the capabilities and confidence my old man had, it might be something that I would be willing to seek today, but the men of today are not the men of yesterday. 

    He was granted the position as ‘live-in caretaker’ of the Texarkana College farm.  There were three hundred and sixty-five acres of various things including a three bedroom house and a school room of the same sized next door.  There was a sheep barn that housed anywhere from thirty to fifty head of sheep.  There was an orchard that spawned pears and apples almost all year long.  Three humongous pastures for grazing cattle and haying, with at least two hundred head of cattle at any given moment, dominated the majority of the land.  Set way away from the main house was a hog barn.  I don’t honestly recall ever hauling any pigs to market, but they were always there needing to be feed and cleaned.

    Their cells ran side by side at a downward angle where we could just come in with a garden hose and spray away all the new shit and piss and it would run beautifully down this little trench and into a pond a hundred or so yards away.  That pond was filled with nothing but hog waste and maggots.  It was a horrible stench but one you got used to rather quickly.

    My dad woke all four of us kids up bright and early one morning.  He was expecting a load of feed from the mill in town he did all his business with.  We were all instructed to put on long pants and shoes.  This seemed like a relatively easy task one did not normally have to instruct another to do, but my father was keener towards childlike behavior than anyone of us could have guessed.

    Bobby, not the brightest of the bunch, decided to ignore the latter of the rules thinking it would be less harmful than being late.  We all hopped in the blue Chevy and no one thought twice to look at Bobby’s feet.  It seemed he was comfortable and we were none the wiser.

    We drove down the old blacktop road until we reached the gate to the hog barn.  I, being the closest to the door, which was always the rule, got out and opened the gate.  I did as I always did and opened the gate, let the truck pass through and then lock the gate as I had found it before re-entering the truck.  We made it to the barn and all piled out.

    Us kids hopped into the back of the truck and began to play games that let our imagination run.  We had been good at that.  With so much land and opportunity to get outside, we were always coming up with stuff to do, even if it seemed like work sometimes.  Bobby bragged about being able to climb to the top of the feed silo.  We all doubted him and then of course he didn’t try.  After a few minutes of games and calling each other out, there was a large honk, the kind you only get from air horns on big rigs.

My dad made his way up, from whatever he was doing, and told us all to get down.  He told us to go stand by the fence and he would be back in just a minute.  Obediently, we all gathered around the nearest fence and wrapped our hands tightly around the bars behind us.  This was conditioning.  When he said do something we all became alert and did exactly what was asked of us.

                We stood there in a row along the fence as the blue Chevy was followed in by a much larger eighteen wheeled truck carrying a massive segmented barrel.  The truck driver moved in like a pro, pushing that hulk of a machine right next to where he needed it.  My dad parked the old truck yards out of the way and let the man do his job.

    Within minutes, the driver of the semi was out and assembling this large chute directed towards the top of our silo.  He then climbed the narrow ladder welded to the side of the silo and unhinged the large cap.  His feet touched the ground without the slightest stammering.  He then stood outside of his truck, pulling levers, and fed the beast that was our silo.

    We all watched in amazement, not sure of what was going on.  The games had ceased and we were left in wonder. 

    Once everything was filled, cap on and the chute retrieved, a small transaction of paperwork happened between the truck driver and my father.

    The truck made its way back out as my dad approached us all along the fence.  The paperwork he had in his hand quickly went to his back pocket and he presented us with nothing more than a smile and a question, “Ya’ll ready?”

    Half of us, including myself, jumped to attention.  The other half was left mumbling lazy curses.  After a few huffs from the other crowd it was decided by Him that we must all partake in the next job.  This was the cleaning of the cells we all anticipated.  We knew what was about to come and we all hated it.  But this was a part of the life that we, us children, somewhat agreed to without knowing the full terms.  It wasn’t all sunny Sundays in the meadows. 

    I had gathered from previous experiences that manning the hose was by far the easiest and the most fun job there was.  Although I had to put in more time than everyone else, I didn’t find myself with a shovel in my hands scraping up the drier, harder shit.

     I watched as the stream of water from my hose began to unhinge the cakes from the concrete.  There was little to no effort.  I watched it all go exactly where it was meant to go.  All of the feces and urine that was caught by my water, made a safe trek to the carved out, downward tunnel meant for such foul things.  I watched and sprayed.  I watched as I splashed the other kids with water or loose hog shit.  It was all in fun and games.  Soon my job was over and everyone was standing to the side.  I blasted a few more squirts from my hose directly into the mouth of the drainage ditch.  It was almost sickening watching that greenish brown soup run like a river towards it destination.

     I did a lousy job wrapping up the hose and merely tossed it to the side.  I joined the rest of the kids on the left side of the ditch and waited for dad.  He was making some last minute calculations in his head about the price of food and the cost of keeping pigs, I was sure.  It was here we all noticed that Bobby wasn’t wearing any shoes.  A few remarks were made to him but nothing seemed to phase.  A few moments later, dad hopped out of the truck and approached us all.

    “Ya’ll wanna take a little walk?” he asked.  I was sure that all of us kids, excluding Bobby, were thinking the exact same thing but none of us spoke up.  Bobby hadn’t been wearing any shoes at all that day.  What kind of repercussions could that bring?

    We all agreed to dad’s little walking tour and I felt it was important that I fall behind for some reason.  Nothing was made of it at first until I truly got a glimpse of what Bobby was facing.

     Regardless for the need or want for shoes, he chose the exact wrong places to walk.  Somehow, in his brain, he thought it was a better idea to walk straight down the concrete drainage ditch.  This was a ditch that no matter how hard you sprayed with pressurized water, the maggots still reign supreme.

    With each footstep of his I could see a trail of blood.  This was scary for me.  I was trying my damndest to let Bobby figure out what he was doing wrong but I was torn by the need to send the message ahead.  After a few more steps I realized I could not take it anymore.  I shouted for my dad in the front of the line and he immediately craned his head in my direction.

    “I think we gotta problem with Bobby”, I sort of spit out.

    “What do you mean?”  Both he and Bobby froze immediately.  Bobby began to step out of the trench and make his way to the fence.  I could see my dad rushing towards us.  “What the fuck is the problem?” he yelled.

    “I think you need to take a look at Bobby’s feet.  Something just ain’t right.”

      Bobby was cowered along the fence too scared to look at his on feet.  Dad stumbled over to where Bobby was and Bobby began to cry.  He fucked up and he knew it.

    “Let me see your feet boy!” my dad said in a hateful tone.  Bobby slowly picked up one foot and showed it to my father.  It looked as if there was no skin left, just the bloody silhouette of Bobby’s foot.  The first few layers of skin had been eaten away by the flesh hungry maggots he walked through.  It is a sight that will never leave my mind.

    In a semi-panic, my dad snatched the boy up and ran towards the truck.  Just like the obediently children we were, we followed suit.  We were in the back with Bobby in the front and dad driving.  We quickly made it to the house.  My dad grabbed Bobby, the same as before, and rushed him inside.  Luckily his wife, Bobby’s mom, was studying to become a nurse.  There were always a lot of gauze and bandages around.

    He sat Bobby at the dining room table and made a mad dash for all the things he would need.  We kids gathered around the table to witness the horrific sight.  He had both feet in the air and there was a steady stream of blood flowing from each one.  My young mind immediately went to all those similar images in all those cheap horror movies.  When my dad returned we all scattered.  A few words where said in the other room between him and Bobby but I will never forget the look of those feet.

    It took a while but Bobby’s sobs eventually turned to cries then whimpers.  I felt it was relatively safe to re-enter the dining room.  I crept around the corner from the hall and I could see immediately.  Everything that was red was now that soft baby pink.  The pink you can only get from fresh, new skin.  I walked around to my dad’s side and looked even closer.  The tears where still rolling down Bobby’s cheeks as I was sure it was not only painful but embarrassing as well.

    Once all the blood was washed away, the horror was gone.  I studied his feet for a few seconds while he sniffled and my dad opened numerous packages of gauze.  What originally looked like a scene out of some sadistic slasher flick amounted to nothing more than a severe foot scrub.  The maggots had mainly just eaten all the dead, callused flesh that was already there.  Although I am sure they went a little deeper than even the most extremely obscure Asian foot cleansing ritual, it felt as if I was looking at nothing more than a couple well-manicured feet.  Although I was sure that they would be tender and Bobby was going to have a tough time walking for the next few days, I kind of laughed at the idea of catching him down there again; pants rolled up to his knees, leaned back against his own arms, staring up blankly, softly soaking his feet in pig shit just for that super soft feel.  After all this was Bobby.

Just A Piece

I tossed the bag of beer on the faded orange loveseat that sat on the front porch.  It was a discarded remnant of past tenants that made a perfect summer evening drinking spot.  Fantasies of alcohol consumed my mind.  The thoughts of words once said by Bukowski rang so true on days when that loveseat got the most use, midsummer days, fighting humidity and alcoholism, ignorance and ego.