The Smell of Determination, One Man's Journey For a Father's Approval (Part One)
It was the spring of 2006 and I was back in Alabama for the first time in two years. My father and I had decided to spend some time together. Our relationship had been strained since high school and finally it seemed we were both grown up enough to get along. I could smell the fresh air pushing out the cold of winter and the scent of freshly mowed grass made me think of spring training in football. I was anxious to see my father who had developed the hobby of landscaping/gardening and I really wanted to see the progress he'd made with his yard.
As I drove up to the house, I was struck with how beautiful Alabama can be. My father's house was right on the Tennessee river with mountains and blue sky right under the gaze of anyone who sat on his back porch. During my visit there I saw a bald eagle fishing along the river during the breaks between barges and tugboats navigating the waterway. Dad's yard however, looked like the fourth level of Hell in the Inferno of Dante. This surprised me since during my conversations on the phone with dad as I would periodically pay attention to make sure I wasn't missing anything important, dad would tell me about all the different flowers he was planting. Sure the Elephant leaves were big and green. Yes the grass was trimmed evenly all about. Of course the potted plants hanging from the house were all symmetrical and in line. Naturally the trees were pruned and allowing the perfect amount of shade. But, it was the flowers themselves that were awful. It was as if the yard's other attributes had all ganged up on the flowers out of jealousy and turned them into a hideous mutilated mockery. The contrast exacerbated the whole ugly phenomena. The azealias were like headless stalks on a medieval battlefield. The morning glory's looked as if they were hungover. The tulips were more like one-lips. And the sunflowers, my God! It seemed like someone had developed a sexual fetish for them!
"Dad!" I called in alarm as I ran to the front porch. No amount of the dead flowers had prepared me for the world weary look I saw in his face when he opened the door. His eyes were tired and saggy and red. His normally sunburned cheeks looked gaunt. He had always had crow's feet around his eyes but, that always seemed to me as a sign of his robust love of life from smiling and now...well now those crow's feet had athlete's foot.
"What the the hell happened around here?"
"Squirrels." He said tiredly."The bastards. They've taken over the yard."
My mind whirled trying to calculate the sheer number it would take of those fuzzy tailed beasts to cause this kind of mayhem. Visions of Vietnam flashed across my minds eye. All I could say to comfort him was "W-What?"
"They eat the bulbs, the seeds, whatever they can get their nasty little mouths on. They dig up the stalks. They got into the attic. Hell, they even chewed threw my brake lines after I tried to poison a couple of them." Worse than Charlie, I thought.
"Not the attic!" I exclaimed.
"It get's worse. They're having babies."
It was then that the whole grim reality hit me like a kick in the nuts. Something had to be done. I went inside and dad gave me the whole rundown. Because he was at work most of the day the yard was left defenseless. There was also the matter of his neighbor "Cliff". I knew Cliff to be an oafish brute incapable of empathy and the ability to be considerate. It seemed the slack jawed Cliff was feeding the damn varmits like pigeons in the park for his own amusement. No doubt to take a break from day time television. My ears started to burn and murderous rage welled up inside me. The only thing I could do was eat a piece of the cake sitting on the counter and contemplate how best to orchestrate sweet revenge. Action would come later.
Once the sugar hit my bloodstream and the insulin spike calmed me down I took stock of our situation. It seemed that dad had bought a .22 cal rifle (the smallest size bullet available) and had mixed success at best. Basically because of his chores around the house after he got home from work, the fading daylight, and general fatigue dad had only managed to more or less temporarily scare the squirrels up the trees for only a span of minutes at a time. It was then that he confessed to me that he hoped I would employ my military training as a special operations operative and take over his watch during the day. By "confession" I really mean he just handed me the rifle and said "Kill these damn squirrels while you're here."
I took the rifle and immediately checked the safety and cleared the chamber. This was the type of mission I was born for. I glanced over at dad who (disappointingly) seemed not to notice my dramatic steely eyed resolve. "Hey would you get me a beer out of the fridge?" He said.
That next morning I was locked and loaded and ready to kill without mercy. I grabbed my coffee, a book, and my rifle who I decided to name "Betty" to the front porch. Betty was a semi automatic Remington with iron sights and a nice walnut wood stock. She had a few scratches but, overall seemed well cared for. The squirrels ran around arrogantly oblivious to my presence. Naturally, I was insulted by their unintelligible chatter and carefree jumping from limb to limb. My attention focused on a particularly fat squirrel. No doubt his girth was the product of my father's labor. I put the sights square between his beady eyes. I slowed my breathing as I was trained to do and in between breaths I squeezed the trigger, felt the familiar bump and noise that comes with the discharge and finally exhaled. I looked on down the barrel expecting to have sent this yard demon back to the hell from which it came.
Vexingly, the only change in his routine was to stop chewing momentarily and then run up the tree to his left. Not many people know this but, squirrels will taunt you. I'm not kidding. They are little shit talking rodents who talk smack when they're behind their big tree limbs and trunks as this one was doing now. "Chit chit chit chit chit!" He leered. Many a good dog has been driven to near madness because of it. "We'll see who has the last laugh you fat bastard" I thought as I drank the rest of my coffee (it wasn't easy. Dad insists on drinking instant coffee which he describes as being "just as good as Starbucks").
I took Betty down to the river and set up a target in the sand at 50 meters distance. Obviously this was one of Dad's problems. The sights were off and needed to be zeroed in. The process to zero in a rifle is not a long one but, most people don't do it correctly. Also, most people don't know that everyone will shoot a little differently with the same rifle because each individual's point of view is different when they look down the sights. Shoulder placement, hand placement, and even facial bone structure have a bearing on how the sights must be adjusted. No doubt my strong chiseled features and firm jawline were a prominent reason for the errant round. I aimed dead center of my paper target and carefully squeezed off three rounds. The key for adjusting the sights accurately is to make sure those 3 rounds are grouped tightly. That gives you an idea of how much you have to move the sights. The first group was a full 6 inches to the right. Well no damn wonder I missed! I made the necessary adjustment and repeated the 3 round grouping process until I was putting round after round dead center. The reckoning was about to begin.
Just to be thorough, I cleaned Betty and inside and out before returning to my post. I looked for Fat Bastard but, I didn't see his unmistakable rotund belly. "No matter" I thought, and laid the sights on one of his furry brethren. A loud crack mixed with the familiar smell of gunpowder and the enemies' first casualty was marked up. Oh the bastards tried to run. But, not before I ended the day with 3 confirmed kills. I laid their bodies on the porch for dad to see when he got home. I didn't want to admit it but, a pang of guilt crept into my heart as I looked at their lifeless broken bodies. The feeling soon passed as Dad had brought home moonshine a friend of his had made. This together with his approval of my soldiering made me eager to set up the next day. War had been waged and I intended to take back my father's land.
CHECK BACK TO READ PART 2!
It was the spring of 2006 and I was back in Alabama for the first time in two years. My father and I had decided to spend some time together. Our relationship had been strained since high school and finally it seemed we were both grown up enough to get along. I could smell the fresh air pushing out the cold of winter and the scent of freshly mowed grass made me think of spring training in football. I was anxious to see my father who had developed the hobby of landscaping/gardening and I really wanted to see the progress he'd made with his yard.
As I drove up to the house, I was struck with how beautiful Alabama can be. My father's house was right on the Tennessee river with mountains and blue sky right under the gaze of anyone who sat on his back porch. During my visit there I saw a bald eagle fishing along the river during the breaks between barges and tugboats navigating the waterway. Dad's yard however, looked like the fourth level of Hell in the Inferno of Dante. This surprised me since during my conversations on the phone with dad as I would periodically pay attention to make sure I wasn't missing anything important, dad would tell me about all the different flowers he was planting. Sure the Elephant leaves were big and green. Yes the grass was trimmed evenly all about. Of course the potted plants hanging from the house were all symmetrical and in line. Naturally the trees were pruned and allowing the perfect amount of shade. But, it was the flowers themselves that were awful. It was as if the yard's other attributes had all ganged up on the flowers out of jealousy and turned them into a hideous mutilated mockery. The contrast exacerbated the whole ugly phenomena. The azealias were like headless stalks on a medieval battlefield. The morning glory's looked as if they were hungover. The tulips were more like one-lips. And the sunflowers, my God! It seemed like someone had developed a sexual fetish for them!
"Dad!" I called in alarm as I ran to the front porch. No amount of the dead flowers had prepared me for the world weary look I saw in his face when he opened the door. His eyes were tired and saggy and red. His normally sunburned cheeks looked gaunt. He had always had crow's feet around his eyes but, that always seemed to me as a sign of his robust love of life from smiling and now...well now those crow's feet had athlete's foot.
"What the the hell happened around here?"
"Squirrels." He said tiredly."The bastards. They've taken over the yard."
My mind whirled trying to calculate the sheer number it would take of those fuzzy tailed beasts to cause this kind of mayhem. Visions of Vietnam flashed across my minds eye. All I could say to comfort him was "W-What?"
"They eat the bulbs, the seeds, whatever they can get their nasty little mouths on. They dig up the stalks. They got into the attic. Hell, they even chewed threw my brake lines after I tried to poison a couple of them." Worse than Charlie, I thought.
"Not the attic!" I exclaimed.
"It get's worse. They're having babies."
It was then that the whole grim reality hit me like a kick in the nuts. Something had to be done. I went inside and dad gave me the whole rundown. Because he was at work most of the day the yard was left defenseless. There was also the matter of his neighbor "Cliff". I knew Cliff to be an oafish brute incapable of empathy and the ability to be considerate. It seemed the slack jawed Cliff was feeding the damn varmits like pigeons in the park for his own amusement. No doubt to take a break from day time television. My ears started to burn and murderous rage welled up inside me. The only thing I could do was eat a piece of the cake sitting on the counter and contemplate how best to orchestrate sweet revenge. Action would come later.
Once the sugar hit my bloodstream and the insulin spike calmed me down I took stock of our situation. It seemed that dad had bought a .22 cal rifle (the smallest size bullet available) and had mixed success at best. Basically because of his chores around the house after he got home from work, the fading daylight, and general fatigue dad had only managed to more or less temporarily scare the squirrels up the trees for only a span of minutes at a time. It was then that he confessed to me that he hoped I would employ my military training as a special operations operative and take over his watch during the day. By "confession" I really mean he just handed me the rifle and said "Kill these damn squirrels while you're here."
I took the rifle and immediately checked the safety and cleared the chamber. This was the type of mission I was born for. I glanced over at dad who (disappointingly) seemed not to notice my dramatic steely eyed resolve. "Hey would you get me a beer out of the fridge?" He said.
That next morning I was locked and loaded and ready to kill without mercy. I grabbed my coffee, a book, and my rifle who I decided to name "Betty" to the front porch. Betty was a semi automatic Remington with iron sights and a nice walnut wood stock. She had a few scratches but, overall seemed well cared for. The squirrels ran around arrogantly oblivious to my presence. Naturally, I was insulted by their unintelligible chatter and carefree jumping from limb to limb. My attention focused on a particularly fat squirrel. No doubt his girth was the product of my father's labor. I put the sights square between his beady eyes. I slowed my breathing as I was trained to do and in between breaths I squeezed the trigger, felt the familiar bump and noise that comes with the discharge and finally exhaled. I looked on down the barrel expecting to have sent this yard demon back to the hell from which it came.
Vexingly, the only change in his routine was to stop chewing momentarily and then run up the tree to his left. Not many people know this but, squirrels will taunt you. I'm not kidding. They are little shit talking rodents who talk smack when they're behind their big tree limbs and trunks as this one was doing now. "Chit chit chit chit chit!" He leered. Many a good dog has been driven to near madness because of it. "We'll see who has the last laugh you fat bastard" I thought as I drank the rest of my coffee (it wasn't easy. Dad insists on drinking instant coffee which he describes as being "just as good as Starbucks").
I took Betty down to the river and set up a target in the sand at 50 meters distance. Obviously this was one of Dad's problems. The sights were off and needed to be zeroed in. The process to zero in a rifle is not a long one but, most people don't do it correctly. Also, most people don't know that everyone will shoot a little differently with the same rifle because each individual's point of view is different when they look down the sights. Shoulder placement, hand placement, and even facial bone structure have a bearing on how the sights must be adjusted. No doubt my strong chiseled features and firm jawline were a prominent reason for the errant round. I aimed dead center of my paper target and carefully squeezed off three rounds. The key for adjusting the sights accurately is to make sure those 3 rounds are grouped tightly. That gives you an idea of how much you have to move the sights. The first group was a full 6 inches to the right. Well no damn wonder I missed! I made the necessary adjustment and repeated the 3 round grouping process until I was putting round after round dead center. The reckoning was about to begin.
Just to be thorough, I cleaned Betty and inside and out before returning to my post. I looked for Fat Bastard but, I didn't see his unmistakable rotund belly. "No matter" I thought, and laid the sights on one of his furry brethren. A loud crack mixed with the familiar smell of gunpowder and the enemies' first casualty was marked up. Oh the bastards tried to run. But, not before I ended the day with 3 confirmed kills. I laid their bodies on the porch for dad to see when he got home. I didn't want to admit it but, a pang of guilt crept into my heart as I looked at their lifeless broken bodies. The feeling soon passed as Dad had brought home moonshine a friend of his had made. This together with his approval of my soldiering made me eager to set up the next day. War had been waged and I intended to take back my father's land.
CHECK BACK TO READ PART 2!
