As children we can often recall that pinnacle moment when the power between the child and the parent shifted. For some of us, it has never happened, but for those who can recall that place and time it is often revered as life changing.
My mother’s father, Lorne Brennan, was a tortured man. He decided to trade in his lucrative career on the CP railway to acquire a small gentleman’s farm in Caradoc Township. The end result was questionable at best. What the hell was he thinking?!
Fast forward… My mom, Mary Jo, was the 12th and last child…her mother, Ethel, was a stoic farmer’s wife…there was never a lack of food or love ..perhaps more for some than others; but every family has it’s unique dynamics.
Mary Jo was brought into the world on February 12th, 1934…it was a bitter cold morning with snow dusting the inside of the master bedroom window sills where her elder sister, Loretta, was the acting mid wife. Ethel was 42 years old and this birthing experience was not new to her, but in fairness..thankfully, it was her last. The delivery was unremarkable and Mary Jo, nicknamed MJ, was wrapped in a blanket and trotted down to the kitchen and tucked neatly into the warming oven. Ethel informed her second oldest daughter, Loretta, (already a mother herself) that she would tidy herself up and be down shortly to nurse the newborn. My mom would recall years later that her mother’s philosophy was that if MJ didn’t survive and had passed on in the warming oven Ethel would have been sad but in her next breath would have said: “we will bury her later, there are chores to be done.”
MJ’s life was fair but difficult. She felt her mother loved her but her memory of her father is conflicted. “I was one more mouth to feed and girls were helpful, but in his mind, boys were the true asset of a troubled and aging farmer who required their manly toil on the land.”
At the tender age of nine MJ was seasoned to her father’s hot Irish temper. She recalled her dining room error when she inadvertently reached for a piece of pie before her elder brothers had had an opportunity to have a second piece…a house rule. In a split second Lorne pushed back from the table and grabbed MJ by the shoulder. On the wall in a very conspicuous location he reached for the family hickory switch. With the skill of Zorro, Lorne switched my mother’s legs until blood filled her shoes. Everyone was frozen in fear. Even her elder brothers, who were larger than life, remained firm in their chairs. A memory MJ remembers with puzzlement.
The next day her older sister (by 4 years) Elyse lent her younger sister her treasured nylons to wear to school so the evidence of her whipping would be hidden from her fellow classmates. It took weeks for the scars to mend but the emotional wound would never heal. MJ was determined that her father would never bring physical harm to her again. She was prepared to take an “eye for an eye” and she felt Lorne knew his rage was unjustified and reprehensible….but the reoccurring question was…where was her mother in all this chaos? A question that has never been answered…MJ does recall that her father never raised a hand to her mother and that her father’s rage was channeled for the most part at her and her elder sister Jean who she recalls Lorne saying: “She is not welcome here anymore.”
It was mid afternoon in late August of 1945 and MJ was home alone with her father. He was busy in the barn while she was tidying up the kitchen and washing garden vegetables for her mother who was away that sunny summer day visiting neighbours with sister Elyse.
MJ could hear a loud commotion from the barnyard and raced out to see what was going on…to her dismay, her father was wielding a large mallet and threatening a stubborn hog that was being difficult to load on the trailer. Maybe the pig new that it was a fateful trip…Mary Jo ran between the frightened animal and Lorne..eyes locked, she firmly told him to put the pig back in the barn and if he bludgeoned the helpless creature it would be his last act of rage…MJ gave him the ultimatum..”put the hammer down, put the pig back in the barn, take it to the butcher another day!” Lorne complied without speaking a word – the sword had been drawn and for the very first time she saw fear in her father’s eyes.
Mary Jo recalls that in her heart she was prepared to kill her father that afternoon rather than see him torture the stubborn pig. And from the tender age of eleven the scales of power had shifted and their relationship would change forever. Lorne had met his match in this feisty young girl…..and her life as she knew it would never be the same.
Dan Fraleigh resides in London, Ontario Canada. He is a real estate agent by day and at night and enjoys writing poems and stories. His writing has appeared in Literary Yard as well as Istanbul Masticadores.
Please share this post to give it maximum distribution. Exposure is our contributors’ only compensation. Don’t forget to back link to this.
Financial donations through either our GoFundMe or Buy Me a Coffee accounts will help expand our global reach by paying for advertising, more advanced WordPress plans, and expansion into more extensive Content Delivery Networks.
There is a Polaroid of my cousin Nathan and me standing in front of the coal shed. The coal shed is bare plank wood with a corrugated tin roof. Written on the back of the picture in blue ink is Philip and Nathan, 1972. I was 6, Nathan was 12. I’m wearing a four-color horizontally striped t-shirt and maroon pants; he’s wearing a plaid button-up collared shirt, denim bell bottoms and a Mid South Mack cap—the bulldog logo still discernible in the center of the crown. Our arms dangle at our sides after my mother, who took the photo, told us to uncross our arms. Both of us are squinting in the sun, making our smiles look forced. The photo is very faded after fifty years. I only know that my pants are maroon, not the pinkish color in the photo, because they were my favorite pants.
Nathan came to live with my family before I was born. His mother was unable to care for him because she was sick, but we were never told what her illness was. It’s not unusual to see extended families in Eastern Kentucky—cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents all living under the same roof—but when Nathan’s mother recovered Nathan had already been with us for so long he stayed with us after she moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. When I was brought home after being born at the Pineville Community Hospital, Nathan kicked a hole in the living room wall and ran to his bedroom.
Nathan spent his allowance money on wrestling magazines and cut out the pictures of his favorite wrestlers to pin up on the bedroom wall. He had an autographed picture of his most favorite wrestler, Ric Flair, that he often stared at in bed before going to sleep. He told me many times I was never to touch it. When I was three, I was moved out of my parents’ bedroom and into Nathan’s. “I’m your big brother,” he told me. “I was sent here to take care of you.” He would tell me stories as we lay there in the dark; stories about monsters in the woods behind our house, stories about man-eating fish in the river that could jump out of the water and get you, venomous snakes hiding in the weeds. Those stories made me afraid, but they didn’t make me afraid of him. Until he told me the story that did make me afraid of him.
When Nathan was six years old he killed our grandmother. “One night I just did it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” he said. “I think I was really mad about something. Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“You better not.”
“I said I won’t.”
* * *
I never met my grandmother, I knew her only from the old black and white portrait in an oval frame that hung on the wall in the living room along with portraits of other family members. Her portrait, like many of them, looked like those old west photos of women with pulled-back hair and masculine facial features. The day after Nathan told me he killed our grandmother, I walked over to the Highway 119 General Store where my mother worked as a cashier and stocker. “What happened to mammaw?” I asked.
She put the last bottle of Nehi in the cooler and slid the glass lid shut. As she stacked the plastic bottle crates she said, “Philip, God called her home when it was time. She’s in heaven with Jesus now. It’s best forgotten. I don’t want you to talk about it no more.” She went to the front of the store to ring up the purchase of someone with a Moon Pie and an RC Cola. She came back to take the bottle crates to the rear of the store for the delivery driver to pick up the next day.
“I just want to know what happened,” I said, more quietly than the first time.
“It’s something that shouldn’t be thought about. Run along back home and play. I have to work now.”
* * *
For my eighth birthday I got a Rubik’s Cube and the next day I found it under my bed with five of the colored stickers peeled off. That Christmas I got a Shazam action figure and a few days later it was in pieces after the rubber bands inside had broken. When my bicycle seat had been slashed I showed it to my mother. “Think of all the poor children in the world who don’t even have a bicycle at all,” she said.
Nathan was quick to anger and I did my best not to provoke him. Whenever I did he would punch my shoulders or pinch my ears. My parents trusted Nathan enough to leave me in his care, even letting him take me fishing to the river a half mile from our home. If I caught the first fish I risked another one of his lashings, so I learned how to secretly remove the bait from my hook before my first cast. His anger never lasted very long, within a day or two he would go back to telling me stories and reassuring me that I really was his little brother and he was there to take care of me. “You know you don’t deserve it,” he said. “but I’ll still take care of you.”
When Nathan was fourteen his face broke out in huge red boils and white pustules. He would spend evenings after supper in front of the bathroom mirror popping them, leaving pus splatter on the glass. The white cream that a doctor had prescribed for him wasn’t working and it frustrated him. One Saturday afternoon after watching a TV science fiction show where one of the characters was a swordsman, he began leaping about and parrying with a leatherman’s awl that he had taken from my father’s steam trunk and yelling, “Look! I’m Lieutenant Sulu! Prepare to swordfight!” He was jabbing the thing close enough to frighten me, but he kept telling me he was just playing and wouldn’t hurt me. Then he jabbed the thing right through my left cheek.
I howled for hours as my mom tried to stop the bleeding both inside and out. The next day as she was driving me to the Daniel Boone Clinic I told her Nathan had done it on purpose, that he was mad because his face had broken out and he wanted to mess up my face, too. “No, he didn’t sweetheart, it was an accident. You have to play careful.”
Nights in our bedroom he would repeatedly apologize and ask to look at the stitch in my cheek. He would lift the gauze and pick at it with his fingernail even as I was telling him it hurt. It was a month before it healed enough for the doctor to remove the stitch. The scar was a pink elliptical.
* * *
My father was asked to pull the float for the 119 General Store in the upcoming Mountain Laurel Festival parade. Every year Mr. Ingalls, the owner of the store, pulled the float but he had passed away a few months ago and his widow asked if my father would like to do it. My father broke the news to us as we sat at the supper table. He told me I could ride on the Massey Ferguson tractor with him in the parade like he sometimes let me do as he plowed our field. However, the day before the parade my father told me he was going to let Nathan ride with him instead of me.
“But why? You said I could ride with you.”
“You can ride next year. Nathan’s going to be 17 next year, so let’s let him ride this year.”
My mother, sitting next to my father, rose from the sofa and went to the refrigerator for a bottle of Coke to mollify me. I had been telling everybody at school I was going to be in the parade. I refused to accept the pop. Nathan, seated in the wicker chair next to the coal stove, smirked and shrugged his shoulders at me.
The volcano of my rage erupted. “He’s a murderer!” I screamed, pointing at Nathan. “He killed mammaw! He told me all about it!”
Nobody said anything, nobody’s expressions changed. My mother returned the bottle of Coke to the refrigerator.
* * *
Things happened pretty fast after that. My mother packed an old Amelia Earhart suitcase with my things and I was sent to Aunt Dorothy’s to live. Aunt Dorothy was 65, widowed, and addicted to cooking sherry. “It won’t be long,” my mother said as we walked over. Aunt Dorothy’s home was just fifty yards away across a creek and up a small hill. “Nathan’s had a hard life, Philip. I hope you understand.” No, I did not understand. I was her son and she was abandoning me. And to Aunt Dorothy of all people! Her home was a moldy shack and she hadn’t bathed or changed her clothes in nobody knows how long. She looked like a bowling ball with stick figure arms and legs.
My father had telephoned ahead, and as soon as my mother and I went in I was sent to the kitchen where a bag of Fritos and a bottle of Sprite awaited me on the round wooden table. They whispered in the front room for about five minutes or so and then came back to the kitchen. “It’ll be just for a little while,” my mother said, patting my wrist. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning to get you to go watch the parade.” I told her I didn’t want to go. “All right then.” She patted my wrist again and then walked back home.
I spent almost that entire summer at Aunt Dorothy’s. Sunday nights we had supper at my mother’s, and while Nathan and I both participated in the conversations, we never spoke to each other.
On the last Saturday night of August, Aunt Dorothy and I were watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island like we always did. She was reclining on the sagging sofa holding a plastic tumbler of sherry on her belly. “You and Nate will be friends again, Phil,” she said after a sip. “You’re like a little brother to him.”
“No we won’t,” I said without taking my eyes off the television. “And we aren’t brothers.”
“Of course you are. He loves you and you love him.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “He killed mammaw! He’s the murderer and I’m the one that gets kicked out!”
She sat up on the sofa and set her tumbler on the cluttered coffee table after another sip. “Lord amercy, where do you young’uns come up with this nonsense,” she whispered, jiggling a cigarette out of its pack. “First of all Phil, you ain’t kicked out. We go over there once a week, sometimes more.” She paused to exhale and rub her weary eyes. “This was all so long ago. Nathan was only five or six years old at the time. Pappaw was drunker’n hell like he always was. Mammaw’d had enough and told him to get his drunk ass out of the house. He took the poker from the fireplace and commenced to beating the tar out of her. She was on the floor unconscious with blood coming out of her ears, nose, and mouth before he finally stopped. Pappaw knelt on the floor crying for her to wake up, wailing to high heaven that he was sorry and that he loved her. It wasn’t til Herschel came home that they was found. The whole kitchen floor was covered in mammaw’s blood. Nathan was hid behind the ice box, he saw the whole thing. Mammaw died the next day in the hospital.”
* * *
The weekend before the new school year started, Nathan moved to Chattanooga to be with his mother. I moved back home and had the bedroom all to myself. I wiped the booger smears off the wall next to Nathan’s former bed with a paper towel and Formula 409. Our family grew over the space that Nathan had left almost like he had never been there.
Almost five years to the day after Nathan left us, we attended his wedding in Chattanooga. During the long drive down, I wondered if he’d forgotten me, but upon our arrival I received the heartiest greeting of all when he stuck out his hand saying, “Phildo! How the hell are you little brother? Long time no see.” We stayed overnight at Nathan’s mother’s house, which he and his bride also lived in. My mother kept Nathan’s wedding portrait on her nightstand until the day she died. It scarcely resembled a wedding portrait, Nathan in a cheap Botany 500 suit, his bride Angelina in a Kmart casual skirt suit. Nathan is smiling with his lips closed, Angelina isn’t smiling at all and no matter how long I look at it I can not make out the expression on her face.
When I cleaned out my mother’s home in 1999 after she died, I found all of Nathan’s cut outs of pro wrestlers, including the autographed one of Ric Flair. I telephoned Nathan in Chattanooga to see if he’d like me to send it to him.
“I never had an autographed picture of Ric Flair,” he said.
“Sure you did. You always used to tell me not to touch it.” He insisted he’d never had an autographed picture of any pro wrestler and launched into a story about catching a 30 pound channel catfish in the Tennessee river over the summer. One fish tale led to another and as he talked, I listened for any evidence of what he’d seen as a child, listened for any trauma that might still be living within him. After his final fish tale I asked again if he wanted me to mail him the picture.
“Naw. Just do whatever you want with it.”
I fingered the small pit on my left cheek as we said our goodbyes and hung up.
Hugh Blanton’s latest book is Kentucky Outlaw. He can be reached on X @HughBlanton5.
Please share this story to give it maximum distribution. Exposure is our authors’ only pay. You can also help our contributors gain exposure by back linking to them and to RFM’s homepage.
I found her, an older beagle mix, but more white than brown or black, lying in the ditch next to the dirt road. I was about ten at the time, so almost half a century ago. I don’t know the road’s name, but I do know it turned North off Stripling Chapel Road and ran for about a quarter of a mile before ending in a thick copse of red oaks. My Aunt Eunice and Uncle Benjamin lived down a rough dirt and rock driveway in a rough and sagging house in those oaks.
I knew the beagle was a female because her teats were long and dark from being suckled by many litters. I had seen her before in the road and in the red and washed-out yards of the poor black families that lived on that nameless path. All their dogs and the children were gaunt, almost equally so. The children stared at me when I walked by, but they never said anything. Well, one little boy, maybe four or five, did call me a “cracka,” and throw a handful of pea gravel at me one time. His throw came up a bit short, and he turned and ran away and joined the other older kids who laughed at his effort.
I was clear on what had happened. The beagle had gone to the blacktop, maybe looking for something to eat, and had been struck by a passing car. The exposed roots and washed-out ruts made the nameless road a slow medium for travel and thus safe for both animals and children. In contrast, the cars on Stripling Chapel were a menace.
A small stream of blood ran from her nostril, and though the November climate was crisp and breezy, she panted as if burning up in the August sun. I reached to stroke the small heart-shaped patch of dark fur on her head, and she snapped at me, not particularly viciously but sufficiently to make me withdraw my hand and take a step back. I reached towards her again. She growled. I could hear a wet gurgle in the raspy snarl. I recalled my grandfather making a similarly wet gurgle not long before the adults made the children leave the room.
I decided to leave her in the ditch.
I walked back to my uncle’s house. I told him about the beagle. He informed me that even sweet dogs will bite you if they are hurt badly enough. Uncle Benjamin was old, very old. He leaned far forward when he walked, his legs as stiff and straight as planed lumber. Rheums and agues plagued his dotage. His hands shook so badly that very little of Eunice’s tomato soup made the journey from his bowl to his mouth.
He agreed to walk with me to see the dog. Before we left, he reached under his sagging living room chair and produced a small black Iver Johnson revolver with ivory grips. Eunice brought a ragged string quilt and handed it to me. I don’t think either item made sense to me at the time. I understood that Uncle Benjamin usually concealed the revolver somewhere in his faded Duck-Head overalls. The purpose of the quilt was less clear.
Uncle Benjamin walked so slowly that it must have taken us twenty minutes to make it up the driveway and the road to the broken beagle. I’m not sure what I expected my uncle to do. I knew that a dog that seemed unable to move most of its body was pretty badly hurt.
Uncle Benjamin reached down and stroked her head. She didn’t offer to bite him. She didn’t even growl. I guess she had lost the strength or the will. As a general rule, I hate personification, but the dog’s eyes seemed to be pleading for help. Benjamin told her, “girl, yo back’s broke, ain’t nothing I can do for ya.”
He then pulled the Iver Johnson from his pocket and aimed carefully. His hands, for once, were completely steady. I turned my head when the shot rang out. I waited for a few seconds before I looked back. When I did, she was still, no more ragged breaths.
I took the string quilt and wrapped her in it. I picked her up and we took her to one of the houses where the black kids played in the yard. They watched in silence. I laid her on the sagging wood porch. The oldest of the boys, maybe thirteen or fourteen, walked up, opened the quilt, and looked at her. I said, “we didn’t have no choice; her back’s broke.”
By now the other kids had circled us. The bigger boy’s eyes welled up with tears. Some of the others cried openly. He said, “thank y’all for taking care of her.”
My uncle and I walked back to the road. I stopped and looked back. The bigger boy was carrying the dog away, toward the woods. The smaller children followed behind. One was dragging a shovel.
Alan Caldwell has been teaching since 1994 but only began submitting writing in May. He has since been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Level: Deepsouth, oc87 Recovery Diaries, Black Poppy Review, The Backwoodsman, You Might Need To Hear This, The Chamber, Biostories, Heartwood Literary Journal, and American Diversity Report.
I found her, an older beagle mix, but more white than brown or black, lying in the ditch next to the dirt road. I was about ten at the time, so almost half a century ago. I don’t know the road’s name, but I do know it turned North off Stripling Chapel Road and ran for about a quarter of a mile before ending in a thick copse of red oaks. My Aunt Eunice and Uncle Benjamin lived down a rough dirt and rock driveway in a rough and sagging house in those oaks.
I knew the beagle was a female because her teats were long and dark from being suckled by many litters. I had seen her before in the road and in the red and washed-out yards of the poor black families that lived on that nameless path. All their dogs and the children were gaunt, almost equally so. The children stared at me when I walked by, but they never said anything. Well, one little boy, maybe four or five, did call me a “cracka,” and throw a handful of pea gravel at me one time. His throw came up a bit short, and he turned and ran away and joined the other older kids who laughed at his effort.
I was clear on what had happened. The beagle had gone to the blacktop, maybe looking for something to eat, and had been struck by a passing car. The exposed roots and washed-out ruts made the nameless road a slow medium for travel and thus safe for both animals and children. In contrast, the cars on Stripling Chapel were a menace.
A small stream of blood ran from her nostril, and though the November climate was crisp and breezy, she panted as if burning up in the August sun. I reached to stroke the small heart-shaped patch of dark fur on her head, and she snapped at me, not particularly viciously but sufficiently to make me withdraw my hand and take a step back. I reached towards her again. She growled. I could hear a wet gurgle in the raspy snarl. I recalled my grandfather making a similarly wet gurgle not long before the adults made the children leave the room.
I decided to leave her in the ditch.
I walked back to my uncle’s house. I told him about the beagle. He informed me that even sweet dogs will bite you if they are hurt badly enough. Uncle Benjamin was old, very old. He leaned far forward when he walked, his legs as stiff and straight as planed lumber. Rheums and agues plagued his dotage. His hands shook so badly that very little of Eunice’s tomato soup made the journey from his bowl to his mouth.
He agreed to walk with me to see the dog. Before we left, he reached under his sagging living room chair and produced a small black Iver Johnson revolver with ivory grips. Eunice brought a ragged string quilt and handed it to me. I don’t think either item made sense to me at the time. I understood that Uncle Benjamin usually concealed the revolver somewhere in his faded Duck-Head overalls. The purpose of the quilt was less clear.
Uncle Benjamin walked so slowly that it must have taken us twenty minutes to make it up the driveway and the road to the broken beagle. I’m not sure what I expected my uncle to do. I knew that a dog that seemed unable to move most of its body was pretty badly hurt.
Uncle Benjamin reached down and stroked her head. She didn’t offer to bite him. She didn’t even growl. I guess she had lost the strength or the will. As a general rule, I hate personification, but the dog’s eyes seemed to be pleading for help. Benjamin told her, “girl, yo back’s broke, ain’t nothing I can do for ya.”
He then pulled the Iver Johnson from his pocket and aimed carefully. His hands, for once, were completely steady. I turned my head when the shot rang out. I waited for a few seconds before I looked back. When I did, she was still, no more ragged breaths.
I took the string quilt and wrapped her in it. I picked her up and we took her to one of the houses where the black kids played in the yard. They watched in silence. I laid her on the sagging wood porch. The oldest of the boys, maybe thirteen or fourteen, walked up, opened the quilt, and looked at her. I said, “we didn’t have no choice; her back’s broke.”
By now the other kids had circled us. The bigger boy’s eyes welled up with tears. Some of the others cried openly. He said, “thank y’all for taking care of her.”
My uncle and I walked back to the road. I stopped and looked back. The bigger boy was carrying the dog away, toward the woods. The smaller children followed behind. One was dragging a shovel.
Alan Caldwell has been teaching since 1994 but only began submitting writing in May. He has since been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Level: Deepsouth, oc87 Recovery Diaries, Black Poppy Review, The Backwoodsman, You Might Need To Hear This, The Chamber, Biostories, Heartwood Literary Journal, and American Diversity Report.
