Up a tree

UP A TREE
I had heard all the old folks talking about "our boys over there", and how they were kicking old Tojo's ass, and that German Hitler's too, for many months.
         It seemed like they had been "over there" for a long time, to me. My older brother Tom was a soldier, and my brother-in-law, Jake was a sailor.
         They were fighting those damn Germans and Japs, and probably winning the war all by themselves to hear Mamma tell it. She also prayed a lot for them so they wouldn't be killed, she said.
         It never occurred to me that you could get killed fighting Japs and Germans! In the movies our soldiers always won, and killed all the enemy soldiers, even though they may have gotten shot or blown up, they always lived to kill more Japs and Germans.
         I knew the movies couldn't be wrong about that, because the cowboys were always killing the Savage Indians, and sure enough, all those Indians were sure as the world gone, so I guess that proved the movies were usually right about what they said! At least they were to me and my sister, Tootsie, who sometimes was allowed to go with me to the movies on
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Saturday mornings for the matinee. I always watched the news reels when they came on, and it looked like we had just about killed all the Japs and Germans in the world.
         There was no television in those days, and we were too poor to get the newspaper, so we got our news from my Dad's radio. Only he could turn it on, because it might break if one of us kids touched it.
         I listened to "Let's Pretend" every Saturday morning, and "The Lone Ranger" every Saturday night. I was always the Lone Ranger when I played cowboy, until I found "Hopalong Cassidy" at the movies.
         I liked to be Hopalong Cassidy, and I always hopped when I was playing at being him. I was really good at hopping. My Mom said I looked like a fool, hopping along like a damn rabbit!
         I didn't care. Hopping was the one thing I was good at, and besides, how do you thing Hopalong Cassidy got his name? It sure wasn't from standing in the corner!
         The movies were pretty cheap. For a quarter you got a hot dog and coke, and in to see the movie. The name of the theater was "The Brownie Theater." Downtown Middlesboro!
         It was very dirty, with people spitting tobacco juice down from the balcony and all, so my sister and I sat in the
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balcony to be safe. We could also spit tobacco juice down on people, but we had no tobacco, so we spit plain old spit, or chewing gum juice. I couldn't wait to learn to chew tobacco!
         What fun that was. I would lean over the edge and find a good target, and spit. Whoever got spit on would turn around real fast trying to see who was doing it so they could go and beat him up.
         I never got caught, and if I came close to getting caught I would run out of the theater and head for the hills! I would gallop like I was riding a horse for a while, and then start hopping along for a while.
         I eventually would get home, which was about six miles from town, by going up the L&N railroad tracks through the hollow where my Aunt Grace and uncle Bob Turner lived.                    Sometimes I would stop to visit and get a biscuit and bacon from Aunt Grace. She was a better cook than my Mom, who just happened to be her sister.
         I lived in a fantasy world, according to my Mom, but I didn't know what she meant then, and still don't know. I wore any hat I could get my hands on, so I could pretend it was a cowboy hat.
         I wasn't ever going to get a cowboy hat, no way, because my Dad said he "wouldn't waste money on such a thing
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when he had to feed so many kids." There were only eleven of us kids then, and that seemed like a normal size family to me. Mamma had two more kids by the time I was fourteen.
         My favorite hat was the miner's hard hat my Dad wore to work. It had a place to attach a carbide lamp that oozed and spit like a demon when you lit it with a match. It looked just like an army helmet to me!
         I wore it whenever I could get my hands on it. My Dad worked what they called the "graveyard" shift at Blue Diamond Mine, from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM, which meant he got home early in the morning and went to bed.
         We had to be quite so we wouldn't wake him up, since he "needed his sleep," my Mom said. Dad always laid his helmet on the dresser by his bed, so it was easy for me to get it after I heard him snoring.
         My Mom didn't mind, as long as I didn't touch the miner's lamp that went with it, and as long as I had the helmet back on the dresser by the time Dad woke up.
         This morning I woke up early at about first light, as soon as the Sun came through the window. I slept on a pallet on the floor, and my two older brothers shared the bed.
         I saw that my brother Paul was up and gone to his job of loading coal, so Tom was alone in the bed. I had to be
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careful not to wake him, as he was a light sleeper, and woke at the smallest sound. I tiptoed over and looked at him sleeping. I went into my Indian Chief personality!
         "I, Big Chief Settum on Log, have sneaked into your fort, white soldier, and taken the scalp of your general Custer, and now I am sneaking out with all the defense plans hidden in by breech cloth."
         "Soon I will return with my warriors and destroy you and your white man fort." I was good at pretending to be an Indian Chief, since I had to play by myself, or with my sister, or my cousin Juanita most of the time.
         I sneaked through the door into the kitchen to see if I could find something to eat for breakfast. "YUK." All I saw on the stove were some cold beans and potatoes from Tom and Dad's breakfast when they got home this morning.
         My mother had gone back to bed with Dad, and my sisters were all still asleep. "Holy Moses." Sitting on the kitchen table was a whole box of wooden kitchen matches!
         "What luck, I thought to myself, now I have some fire arrows to shoot at Carl's fort that he had down the hollow." "I can burn him out just like Red Cloud did those soldiers in the movie last week."

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If I was lucky I could burn Carl's fort, and maybe even Carl and his stupid brother, too. They thought they were so smart because their dad let them have some nails to built that dumb old fort with, and they didn't even know it was ugly!
         I could have built a much better fort if I had any nails, I was sure of that! There wasn't much to his fort, just some logs stacked up and nailed together, and some old tires which he got in to shoot his slingshot at me and my sister. Carl was a smart aleck!
         I couldn't shoot him back because he would duck down into those tires after shooting at me, the coward. "Now I can burn those tires up and he will have no place to hide"
         I thought to myself with pleasure and anticipation at the idea. "Where did you get those matches, David? Mom is gonna tan your hide good when she finds out." My little sister, Tootsie, had walked right in on me with a lit match in my hand while I was planning my revenge on Carl.
         Some Indian I was, huh? "I ain't doing anything, Tootsie. I am just looking at them, I would never take them to burn Carl's fort down, in case you are going to tell Mom and Dad."
         I had not meant to say that, and figured I was losing my mind from being caught with matches. What if it had been
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Mom or Dad, or one of my older sisters, instead of my little sister, Tootsie? I would be purely and completely dead!
         "I wont tell, even if Mom cuts my head off," She said. Besides being my little sister, she was also my best friend and most loyal fan.
         She would always help me when I got in a fight. She would circle behind the boy I was fighting, pick up a big stick or a rock, and clobber him from behind. "BAM"
         She was like a wildcat, screaming, kicking and hitting the boy with every thing she could find. I was the terror of the whole hollow because of her!
         She had saved my butt many times. "Besides, she added, I would like to burn Carl's fort down, too." Did she really?
         "Let's play coal miner," she said. "All right", I answered. "Wait til I get Daddy's helmet." I tiptoed to the bedroom and looked in the room. My dad was alone in the bed, sound asleep. This was the perfect opportunity, by golly!
         His pants and shirt were hanging over a chair. "Where is mom?" I thought to myself as I looked at the dresser where Dad kept his helmet. The lamp was still attached to the front of it, just begging me to take it, too.
         I could hear that carbide lamp talking to me, saying "come on, David, play with me, you wont hurt anything, and
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nobody will know." I did not look at the big miner's belt hanging on the hook on the wall. My Dad had never spanked me with it, but he had looked at me and tapped it with his finger at the same time.
         As if to say "just give me the chance, boy, and I will wear your butt out with this belt." I gave my sleeping dad a quick appraising look, and decided to take the helmet and lamp at once. I had to be careful, and sneaky.
         He would never know I had played with his lamp, and I now determined I would not try to light it, so help me God, even though I had the matches to light it with.
         Once I had the helmet and lamp in my hands, I knew I was in big trouble, but I could not stop myself, and I was ready for the consequences, whatever they may be. I promised myself again that I would not light the lamp!
         Some promises just beg to be broken, don't they? I tiptoed back out the door to my sister. "Where is Mom?" I asked her. "She went early to give Granny her bath, David. Don't you know that Granny gets a bath every Saturday?"                    "Lordy, I bet she is the cleanest old woman in these hills, the way Mom and aunt Gracie bath her every week," Tootsie said.

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Mamma and aunt Gracie would fill up a big old washtub with water from the creek, and heat it over a fire out in the back yard for Grannies bath every Saturday.
         Granny would scream curses and cry they were "killing her" all the time they bathed her, but she was too weak to stop them, so she got a bath every Saturday, like it or not.
         I could wait no longer to light that lamp, so I struck a match, turned on the valve and put the flame to it.                              "WHOOSH" out went the match. I adjusted the valve, and struck another match and the lamp blazed into glorious fire light. It sure did stink! That carbide smell was terrible, but I enjoyed it, somehow. It had the smell of DANGER!!!
         I placed the miner's helmet on my head where it immediately fell down in front, over my eyes. I took it off and looked at the inside of it, trying to see how to make it fir my head without falling over my eyes.
         "I don't see how Daddy can wear that thing on his head all night. It smells worse than a Billy goat," Tootsie said. "Well, it smells OK to me," I said, placing the too big helmet on my head and walking around carefully to keep it from falling off.
         I squatted down and duck-walked under the kitchen table. "look at me, I'm in a cave under the ground, "
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I whispered to Tootsie, who had followed me under the table. "Shoot, David, this ain't dark like a cave or a coal mine. How can we play coal miner if it ain't dark?" She asked me.
         I thought about her question, and decided she was right, that the kitchen was not dark enough to be a good cave. "I guess you are right, Tootsie. Let's get in Mamma's cupboard," I said to her. Still duck-walking, we made our way from under the table to the cupboard, which was just a closet that Mamma called her cupboard.
         She kept food and dishes in that cupboard, which had no door. My Mamma and older sisters had made a curtain out of old potato sacks to hang over the opening, and I thought that was a fine door, since it was easy to open. I think all doors should be potato sack doors, actually!
         We pushed the curtain aside and crawled in with the sacks of potatoes and flour and sugar. "Lordy, this is really a cave," Tootsie said as I adjusted my helmet again to see better.
         It was very dark in there, and my sister and I were crammed in close together, making it hard to move, but the lamp was making things much easier to see now, because I had it adjusted too high, I think.

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Things were getting brighter by the minute, even though I had not adjusted that lamp any more. Suddenly we realized why things were getting so bright in our cupboard cave.                    "Look!, Tootsie managed to say, with her eyes big as saucers. "The door is on fire." I looked up and saw the whole curtain was burning. "Oh, Lord, not a fire!"
         "Come on, Tootsie. Lets get out of this place." We scrambled out of that closet, dropping the miner's helmet in the process, which was still burning merrily as it fell into the potato sacks.
         I felt it fall, but could do nothing about it. I had only one thought in mind, to get out of that house. The house had not caught fire, yet, but those potatoes would surely ignite the house, I thought.
         We would probably all be burned alive! "Fire! Fire!" I hollered as loud as I could. "This house is on fire!" I screamed as I ran for the door to the yard.
         Tootsie was already outside screaming as loud as she could, but saying the same thing over and over, "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy." She couldn't seem to think of anything else to scream.
         

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"What in hell? Goddamn, the house is on fire! Pap, Pap get up. The house is burning!" It was my big brother Tom, the light sleeper, who had been awakened by me and Tootsie screaming. The "you know what" had hit the fan now!
         Now I saw my Dad up and running around in the house, back and forth. Dad was in his longjohns and looked comical, but I wasn't about to tell him that!
         "Water, water, Tom, get water." My Dad hollered. Tom ran to the well and drew a bucket of water, and my Dad did the same, and threw them on the fire.
         I saw my sister Leona come out of the house with Mamma's newest baby, Billy, in her arms, and she was really jumping up and down with excitement and fear.
         Suddenly my Mom and her sister, aunt Grace, were running into the back yard, from Granny's house behind ours.          "Where's the children?" Mamma screamed. Leona said, "I have Billy, and there are David and Tootsie, in the yard." By now the fire was under control. It was time to get away!
         My Dad and brother walked from the smoking house and looked around the yard. He looked right at me and Tootsie, and suddenly straightened up. That was a very bad sign, so I slowly began  to edge toward the woods.

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"Come here, children," he said. When Dad said "children" to you, he was about to kill you, so I edged even closer to the woods, trying to plan my escape route should flight become necessary. I knew it would become necessary!
         "Come here, you two, right now!" he said. "I didn't do it, Daddy," Tootsie said, crying big tears and looking like she was innocent. She was a girl, after all.
         I edged closer to those woods, which were looking more and more friendly to me by now. Tootsie had broken down completely now, and was babbling about caves, and coal mines, and David using Daddy's lamp and matches.
         And oh, Lordy, she didn't do it. I could see where things were headed, all right, because my brother Tom was sidling towards the woods, thinking to cut me off if I ran.          "Come here, little boy," Dad said to me. "I wont hurt you too much." Dad said to me with what I imagine he thought was sincerity but I knew was a pure lie.
         I made my move for the woods just as Tom ran to intercept me, but he was nowhere near as fast as I was. Especially when I was scared.
         With visions of my Dad's miner's belt before my eyes, I ran like the wind. My feet were fairly flying as I entered the cover of the trees.
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I didn't slow down even when limbs and branches were slapping my face and scraping my head. Finally I thought I had lost anyone who was still chasing me, and sat down under a tree. Was I safe yet, I asked myself?
         The woods were dark and thick, and I now looked around me to see if perhaps a bear might be somewhere around, but saw nothing. I always suspected bears were in those woods!
         The woods were my friend, however, when I was trying to hide from someone! "I'll never go home. They will look for me, but they won't find me. I will live in the woods last the "Last of the Mohicans."
         "If a bear eats me, Mom and Daddy will miss me, and probably cry." I felt justified in my decision to become a mountain man and live in the woods, even if I were to get eaten by bears.
         I had a little shiver of anticipation as I thought about my parents crying over their little bear-eaten boy. After all, I didn't mean to burn up the old house, it was an accident and not my fault, at all. Anyone could see that!
         I lay on my back and watched the clouds in the sky. Those clouds all had shapes that you could imagine if you looked long enough. They began to look like so many bears to me, and all of them looked hungry.
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My resolve to live in the woods began to weaken. I was hungry, too, since I had missed breakfast due to burning up the house. I started to feel sorry for myself, starving.
         Where could I find something to eat? It was already past blackberry picking time, and we had cleaned all the fruit from the old orchard that grew nearby long ago.
         Now I started to think about starving to death seriously, which might be a good way to die, since it took a long time. It would be better than a bear eating me.
         "I will starve to death like a man, before any bears can eat me up," I told myself. Then I had a great idea!
         "I can sneak back home, steal some food from the house to take with me, since they are probably all out looking for me." The house should be deserted by now.
         I needed my slingshot, also, if I was going to live in the woods, to kill squirrels and birds to eat. I got up from the ground where I was laying down and started home, using my best Indian sneaking approach.
         That meant walking as quiet as I could, which was hard since the leaves were dead and made all kinds of noise when you stepped on them. I made it to the big oak tree that marked the beginning of our yard, without anybody seeing me, and hid behind it.
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I could see our house, and it wasn't burned up at all! The kitchen area was black from smoke, though.
         I saw my Dad's car was gone, so I figured they were gone to the sheriff to get a search party to look for me. I would be safe to slip into the house and get some food and supplies while they were gone.
         I sneaked to the smoke house that we dried meat in and hid behind it. Nobody in sight still, and that was good. I was safe. I could be in and out in no time, with supplies.
         I started walking toward the house, saying to myself, "Big Chief safe from white men, now steal food. Big Chief one smart Indian." "Also a very brave Indian."
         "WOOO, WOOO," I hollered, which everybody knows is Indian talk they do when they are happy, like after scalping a bunch of people.
         "Come here, boy!" Oh Lord, it was Mamma. She had been hiding beside the smoke house until I got close enough to grab, so she could kill me. She was coming toward me fast.                    "Oh Lord, Mamma, don't kill me, I screamed as I started running. "Stop, you little long headed devil, or so help me I will chop your head off, and skin you alive" Mamma yelled.
         I ran faster. Now I was going around to the back of the house. Suddenly I heard my brother Tom's car coming up the
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lane to the house. That escape route was now cut off, where could I run to? I looked around for an escape route wildly!
         There was a fence at the back, and Mamma would catch me if I slowed up to climb it, and my brother would surely catch me if I ran toward him.
         I sure as heck wasn't going to run toward Mamma, who was right behind me. At the rear corner of the house was an old elm tree. The limbs didn't start until it was above the roof of the house, but that didn't stop me.
         I climbed that tree in a jiffy, like a coon, until I reached the limbs! I felt a little better, now.
         "Come down from there, boy. Come down right now and I might let you live," she yelled at me. She had a switch in her hand and she was so mad she was dancing up and down.
         No way was I going down that tree to face a crazy woman like my Mamma was right then. She was mad, mad, MAD. "I aint never coming down, Mamma, I will die up here."
         "I aint never coming down, and you are too fat to climb up here, you would break the tree down and get killed too."
         "If you will go in the house, I may come down, though," I said. "You better get down here right now, or I will chop that damn tree down with you in it," she screamed.

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"Mamma, you cant chop no tree down, you got a bad heart and chopping down a tree will kill you for sure," I had her there, at least.
         "Paul, Tom, get around here and bring that ax right now," she hollered to the front yard. Oh No, I had forgotten my big brothers, who could chop a tree down in nothing flat.          They walked around the house together and looked up at me in the tree. Tom was grinning, but Paul was dead serious, which was the only way he knew to be.
         "Looks like you done treed a little skinny possum, Mamma," Tom laughed. "I'll possum you, boy, if you don't get that ax around here to me and start chopping." She was, as I said, really, really MAD.
         My older brother Paul had already run to get the ax. He would enjoy this, because I had teased him about his speech defect that made him stutter.
         Now was his chance to pay me back. "You better come down, David, or me and Paul will chop that tree down," Tom said to me, in his friendliest way.
         "You aint got the nerve to chop this tree down, cause you and Paul and Mamma will all go to the electric chair for murder, because it will kill me," I screamed at them.
         
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Paul began to chop at the tree furiously, which made me mad and nervous at the same time. I had to get even with Mamma and my brothers before I died, but how?
         "Why don't you kill me and scalp me," I hollered, cupping my hand over my mouth to give my Indian war cry. "WOO, WOO, WHEE, WHEE, Injun Mamma, Injun Mamma."
         "Hey, everybody, come look at my Mamma killing me, her own little boy," I screamed at the hollow, which had absolutely nobody to hear me.
         I had to hold on with both hands now, as that tree was beginning to shake and move back and forth. It wasn't a very big tree, and it would not last much longer under Paul's chopping. Old Paul sure knew how to chop a tree!
         "All right, Paul, that's enough. He is too crazy to come down and I don't want you to really chop it down, anyway," Mamma said to Paul.
         "Aw, Mamma. It wont kill him, and even if it does, didn't he burn the kitchen up? I want to chop it all the way down," Paul said, but he stuttered when he said it.
         Mamma said Paul was tongue-tied. All I knew was that he talked funny, and talked even funnier if you got him mad, which I did a lot. He didn't like me much because I followed him when he went down the hollow courting girls.
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When he chased me off from following him, I mocked him. "What's the matter, Mamma? Are you a big fat chicken? Let old Paul chop it down," I taunted her from my perch.
         I didn't think she would let him, so a few jibes wouldn't hurt and would salvage some of my injured pride.
         "I aint afraid." "I'll come back and haunt you all," I said loudly. Paul was staring up at me. Mamma was standing with her hands on her hips contemplating her next move.                    "Let's pour gas on that tree and burn it down with him in it," Paul said to Mamma and Tom. Now I began to get nervous. I knew if they thought too long one of them would remember that Daddy had a ladder stored on Granny's back porch. Perhaps they would not remember that ladder.
         They could come up after me on that ladder if they did! Also, Mamma looked as if she were seriously considering the "burning the tree with gas" idea Paul had suggested.
         I moved up higher in the tree to get as far away as possible from any gas they might use, which was my first major mistake.
         The movement started that tree shaking more and more, from Paul's chopping a big hole on one side of it. "Oh Lord. Please don't let this tree fall down now," I prayed. Too Late! The tree leaned slowly toward the roof of the house.
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"Oh my God. Its gonna fall, Mamma screamed. "We have killed David for sure." "Jump, David, Jump," my brother Tom hollered to me.
         Jump where? I couldn't jump from that high without really killing myself, I thought, as the tree leaned further and further toward the house."Holy Cow, What now?"
         CRACK! The old tree fell just as pretty as you please onto the house top, throwing me on the roof. I landed just as gentle as if I had jumped from a limb to the roof.
         "Thank the Lord. I am not dead" I thought as I heard my Mamma screaming hysterically, and wringing her hands and crying. "Hey, she really thought I might die," I thought.
         I jumped off the roof to make my getaway to the woods when Paul tripped my feet from under me and caught me as I fell. His grip was way too strong for me to break, and I was caught at last.
         "Gotcha, you crazy fool. Now you will really get your butt kicked good. Mamma will beat you to death, this time," Paul snarled at me.
         I thought he was probably right, and this was my last foray as an Indian Chief. I gave up and prepared to face my fate, no matter how terrible it might be.

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Paul was also holding me so well that I had no hope of escaping, and he was enjoying every minute of my impending doom at Mamma's hands.
         "Get a good switch, Mamma. I will hold him for you so you can beat his butt," Paul cackled to my Mamma.
         "Let him go, son. I just don't have it in me to get any more excited than I already am. I am afraid I might have a heart attack or something."
         "Besides, your father will be home soon, and when he sees the roof I don't know what he may say, or do. I'm going to lie down until he gets home," Mamma said.
         My brother Paul reluctantly freed my arm as Mamma walked slowly toward the house. She was shaking her head and talking to herself, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I looked at Paul, with his red face and red hair.
         "Paul, when I grow up the first thing I will do is beat your old red headed tail" I said just loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough for Mamma to hear.
         I didn't want to get her out of her melancholy mood and focused back on me, not while she was walking away and I was not getting killed with a switch!
         Before Paul could react to what I had said, and grab me and kick my butt, I turned and sprinted for the woods.
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I stayed in the woods until almost dark, when I decided it would be better to go home and face my dad than to stay out in the woods at night.
         There might be some wolves left alive, even though I had been told by my dad that my relatives, the Turners, had killed all the wolves and bears long ago.
         You never could tell about such things. Also, there were certainly ghosts and spooks out in the woods at night, I was sure of that!
         God only knew what dad would do to me for making that tree fall on the house, even though I had a pretty good argument that the damage was actually done by Mamma and Paul and Tom chopping that tree down.
         Therefore I was not to blame. The only problem was that I knew my dad didn't always listen to such arguments, no matter how good they were. Especially from me.
         Coming down the path to the house I could see dad's car parked in the front yard. I quickly crawled under the house. From there I could listen through the floor to what was being said. And maybe make up an excuse that dad would buy into. Probably not, knowing Dad. He could smell a lie!
         I could hear my brothers telling dad about the tree chopping incident, and Tom seemed to think it was funny!
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Paul sure didn't think it was funny, and was telling dad how it was all my fault, plus I had almost made Mamma have a heart attack.
         "Shoot, I will never get out of this without a whipping," I agonized to myself. The three of them walked out of the house and around back to see the damage to the roof of the house.
         My dad said "damn it all," and nothing else, as he looked up at the roof. I saw them all three clearly from where I had scooted under the floor to the side of the house. They came back around to the front and in into the house silently, through the front door.
         "Now, Bill, don't get upset," I heard mamma say. "Paul and Tom can fix that roof as good as new tomorrow. Besides, it aint hurt all that bad anyway."
         "Woman, I am not worried about that damn roof. We can fix it, but I do wish you would calm down and try not to kill the children," dad said to her.
         She meekly hung her head and said "I will try to control myself, Bill."
         I knew I had gotten off the hook again, without a whipping now or later, because mamma would be on her best

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behavior to please daddy for a while, and she would forget me until the next time I did something to get her attention.
         In the meantime, I still had old Carl's fort to think about destroying with fire and sword! I would wait until tomorrow, and get Tootsie to help me scout it out. Who knows what we can think up for old Carl?

The End.