Part 1.
I can imagine him now. An eighteen-year-old boy in 1931
situated in the middle of a family with 13 children. Sitting there in his room,
forlornly staring at the worn and battered wooden floors wondering how he could
possibly help the family in the great times of need they and everyone they knew
found themselves in now.
It was in the middle of what they were calling the Great
Depression and Oklahoma was experiencing a drought the likes of which had never
been seen before. They called the whole area he and his family lived in The
Dust Bowl.
After years of drought the land was a barren wasteland of
nothing but swirling dust storms, one after another. Between the ravaging dirt
devils and the heat and humidity from hell, everyone he came into contact with
looked like tan colored dust bunnies with rivulets of mud coursing down the
length of their bodies, originating from each and every sweat gland they
possessed.
With all the topsoil long since blown away and no fertile
land left to grow precious food, they also had the look of refugees from some
foreign land. With the boys shirtless from the extreme heat, you could count
their ribs. It was getting harder each day to watch his own family wasting away
from lack of basic substance. They had long since tracked or trapped and shot
all the small animals within miles of their weathered home at the end of a long
dusty dirt road. With the constantly blowing dust incrusted wind, the only
defining markers left were the wooden fences along each side of the road, which
were leaning in great disrepair from lack of maintenance.
With no money left for something as basic as gasoline, it
had been weeks since any automobile had driven to their house. In fact even
seeing a truck out on the main roadway was a rare thing nowadays.
In the past, they could hear trucks coming and going down
there but with the dust now inches thick on the roadways, it was a silent
affair now. The only way one knew there was a truck traveling there was the
whirlwind of dirty air rising into the sky behind them like a ghostly snake to
finally dissipate in the gray drab sky above.
It was hard to believe everything had come to this for the
family. Most times, there was almost no one home because they were all out
trying to find either work or food. There was nothing left to do other than
keep trying to live on. They hadn’t gathered as a family in what seemed like
weeks. The dinner table being the normal meeting place was long left unused
now.
Guy was dog-tired having just returned from walking the five
miles into town in search of a job. The whole situation was getting desperate
in the extreme. He personally hadn’t eaten anything in the two days since their
father had arrived with some dried meat and fruit he’d traded for a hard days
labor at the railroad yard west of town. The work had been so hard; he’d come
home with bloody hands from the labor.
Guy was sitting on his bed exhausted to the bone, from the
walk and lack of nourishment. Looking down at his hands, they looked like the
hide of a long dead animal lying in the baking sun too long.
If crying would have been in his genes he would have broken
down right then and there but “A man doesn’t cry damnit” He thought with rising
anger in his guts.
“That’s it!” His thoughts continued. “I’ll be damned it I’m
going to set here and do nothing and watch my family slowly die of starvation.
There has to be something I can do.”
That’s when it hit him. Being born and raised in Oklahoma,
he like everyone else had a deep seeded sense of right and wrong but by god,
this situation threw all that out the window for him setting there with hunger
and desperation slowly taking the reins of his heart and soul.
So he got up and walked over to the closet he shared with
several brothers and on his tip toes reached up to the back of the high shelf,
where he had carefully placed it long ago. After a moment more, he felt it’s
metal certainty. After bringing it down, as he stood there looking at the 22-caliber
pistol he’d traded for a pig from a neighbor a couple years ago; he was amazed
at the poor condition it was in. Truth was, there was no good reason to own or
use a pistol, with rifles being the normal hunting weapon. Guns at that time
were only a tool to provide meat for the table or protect the farm animals from
wild predators. When he first saw it, he just thought it would be a nice thing
to have.
1 comment:
Don't let him turn that 22 on himself!
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