Memories...Part Three.

It’s really amazing how some events in your life are seared in your memory while others seem to waft around in the ether.

Unfortunately for me, some of the best experiences of my life are downright cloudy when I attempt to remember them while really BAD experiences are somehow burned into my consciousness so vividly that, I couldn’t forget a single detail even if threatened with a painful death!

I hate that.

I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with me.

Oh well…

The story continues.

I distinctly remember telling Steve and Grunt that I wanted to handle the situation personally and that they were supposed to only act as ‘peace keepers’. In other words, I wanted to take my revenge while they made sure that I didn’t get my ass beaten by several people for the THIRD time that week!

Hell….I thought that was pretty damned reasonable since I had suffered a broken left wrist, a few busted ribs as well as numerous and sundry superficial injuries during the two previous ass whippings!

I was willing to fight those guys one handed as long as I had my ‘posse’ keeping the other rednecks off of me! My theory was that I was a tough guy and I could kick their asses one at a time albeit one handed as long as I wasn’t ‘ganged up on’ in the process.

You know….John Wayne style.

Side Note:

Have I mentioned that I was a USDA choice friggin’ MORON back then? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly a genius THESE days but DAMN I was stupid back then!! It’s really quite amazing that I survived some of the dumb crap I did back then. I’m not proud of it but I really didn’t grow a semblance of a brain until I was almost forty years old.

Michelle will readily testify to the fact that I’m no Nobel laureate even now but….I finally got a bit smarter with time.

Anyway…..the following account is proof positive of my abject stupidity that night. I learned a valuable lesson that fateful evening.

Here it is....

"The best laid plans of a blithering IDIOT are after all…… the best laid plans of a blithering IDIOT!!"

Back To The Story…..

We pulled up in front of the house and Grunt turned off the engine. We were trying to be stealthy so, of course, the old car kept running for at least a full minute after the key was turned off! Finally, after chugging, spitting and coughing for a long time, the motor finally quit with a sound reminiscent of a pair of huge dice rolled down a twenty foot wash board.

Remember that? It’s funny…. cars don’t seem to do that anymore but, back then, it happened all the time.

See? I remember all kinds of weird details about the bad times!

Anyway….once the car finally finished it’s death rattle, we disembarked and stood on the sidewalk facing the house.

“Okay boys, let’s go kick some ass!” Steve said adamantly.

“No….Steve….I’m gonna kick some ass!” I said. “Ya’ll just hang back and let me handle things…OKAY?”

Grunt and Steve grinned and nodded in agreement.

Steve walked to the back of the car, popped the trunk and pulled out a sawed off shotgun which he presented to Grunt.

Grunt took the shotgun and jacked a round into the chamber while Steve examined a large revolver he had also taken from the trunk.

Steve reached into the trunk AGAIN and produced a silver automatic which, in later court proceedings was determined to be a .45 caliber pistol.

“Here dude, you might need this.” He said.

I remember thinking that I shouldn’t take the pistol but, I didn’t think that for very long because I not only took it but I chambered a round and took the safety off.

I was definitely…in the moment.

Without speaking again, we walked to the front porch and marched into the house through the open front door.

There was definitely a party going on and we were hardly noticed as we strolled into the house. Much to my surprise, who should be standing just inside the front door but the red headed dude!

“What the f……..” was about all he said before I back handed him on the left side of his head with the heavy pistol in my right hand.

He fell over a chair and landed on the bare floor of the living room. Before he could move I kicked him in the ribs.

Have I ever told ya’ll that I was a damned good kicker back in the day?

Had his kidneys not been trapped inside his torso, the kick would have been good from fifty yards out! I drilled his ass.

Anticipating a revolt by the party goers, Grunt did what any brain cell deficient thug would do at a time like that…..

He fired the shotgun into the ceiling!

As plaster dust filled the room and my ears rang, I could see out of the corner of my eye that the big, fat, hideous woman who had repeatedly kicked my rib cage in the other night was waddling straight for me with a menacing look on her face!!

Of all the events of that night, I must admit to ONE singularly guilty pleasure and incredibly fond memory.

I fully realize that this is wrong on SO MANY levels but, for the life of me, I can’t regret what happened next.

Never before and certainly never since, I hit a woman.

Let me rephrase that.

I drilled a woman!

I saw that fat cow lumbering toward me wearing that same diabolical expression she wore when she repeatedly kicked me in the ribs a couple of nights before and…. I simply LOST it!!

Without a single thought of remorse, I hit her so damned hard that I’m sure her grand children will be deformed for generations!

Joe Frasier would have been awed.

Actually, I’m damned lucky I didn’t kill her. Seriously….her head snapped back and to the left and she went down in a heap and didn’t move a muscle. We all watched her as she lay there on the floor and a dark stain began to form on her massive ass!

Have you ever heard the expression, “knocked the shit out of someone”?

Well…..needless to say…it DOES happen.

Immediately, I was terrified that I had actually killed her but, before I could muster another thought, Red Head guy was grabbing me around the waist attempting to stand up…or pull me down….I don’t know which.

Reflexively, I punched him on the top of his head and he went down just as Grunt fired yet another round into the ceiling!

I remember turning toward Steve.

“Take that fuckin’ thing away from him!” I shouted.

Steve looked at me and then looked at Grunt who was standing there sweating profusely, bare chested and brandishing a smoking twelve gauge sawed off shotgun.

He gave me a ‘what the hell’ kind of look.

“YOU take it away from him!” He said.

I stood there in the middle of the room trying to figure out what to do next.

Slowly, it dawned on me that I really hadn’t figured out an end game for this act. What the hell was I going to do NOW?

As I began to realize that there was NO good resolution for this scenario, the short James Dean acting asshole began shouting at me.

“You’re dead man!” He screamed. “You’re DEAD!!”

I remember feeling that there was no way out of this situation and…like any trapped animal, I reacted.

I walked over to him and leveled the .45 at his forehead. He stiffened and backed up to the wall. I followed and pressed the barrel of the gun directly between his bushy eye brows and pushed HARD!!

Looking back on it now, I was only two pounds of pressure on the trigger from becoming a resident on death row. Seriously…it was THAT close.


It’s damned frightening to think of these days but the absolute truth is that while I’m now fifty three years old…..my life could have ended years ago in an electric chair in the state of South Carolina.

It was simply THAT close.

“Who’s dead now asshole?” I asked as I moved the pistol three inches to the left of his face and fired a round into to wall.

The report of the .45 in the small room was horrendous and I remember the guy falling to the floor. For a brief moment I thought the bullet had ricocheted back into his head but, the truth was that he was simply doing what comes naturally when a large caliber pistol is discharged inches from your face……

He fell into a fetal position and was whimpering like a small child.

As my eyes scanned the room, I made an executive decision….

IT WAS TIME TO VAMOOSE!!

To Be Continued.

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