Another childhood memory of mine#2

Well here I am in my mind again (kind of cold, dark and lonely in here, Just kidding or... am I?). Anyway, back in Trammel VA.
As the memories come to me a little at a time I'll try to sort through them as fragmented as they and my mind are. Some are smooched ( is that a word?) together with other memories.Some are all by themselves quarantined where they should be where they can hurt no one no one but me that is. If I can work this out it will probably be one of those memories.

It started one early morning at my great grandmother’s house. It was a nice white house that sat on a hill with some flat land and more hillside behind it. The house had a smoke house a chicken coop a nice little garden and I also remember a cistern on the concrete porch at the back door.

At the cistern is where I remember it beginning, but I won’t know where this stops till my memory unfolds and tells me. But going on. I was playing with the long stick that was used to measure the level of the water in the cistern so we know to conserve water. It was sunny and warm, I had been playing through the fence with the neighbor girl who liked to pull my face through the fence and kiss me, this is what was told to me by my mother so I believe her. Its funny how you can build a memory out of suggestion if it is told for long enough. But any how, there was a commotion at the gate and I saw my dad. He smiled at me but then immediately turned to my mother and frowned, she began to run into Her grandmothers house so I ran in also. She turned as I remember and pulled me to one side, as if she knew what he was going to do. Just then he grabbed the stick I had been playing with and ran it through the screen door like he was jousting from the back of medieval stead. I would learn later that he wanted me to live with him permanently. To live with him, that was nothing that my mother wanted nor did I. My uncle (don’t remember which one Norsey or Larry; Larry I think) but any how he came out and dad the coward that he was wouldn’t come after me while he was there so he left cursing and yelling that someone was going to die. Soon I would find out his meant what he said and he would be back.

Shortly after my dad had left I wanted to go back outside to play with sticks and get kissed. And the man in me wants to brag that it was mostly for the kisses but at the time that part was more of an interruption than a delight. (Man if I only knew then what I know now. Sorry digressing again.) As bad as I wanted to go out my mother and great grand mother would not let me for some reason. Boy oh boy was it some reason

Some time during that day I remember my great uncles Larry & Norsey decided to help my great grandmother paint her sitting room. They did this to cover some blood spatter from some of the on going drama that had been my parents. My parents didn’t live there but it always seemed that the fights ended up there after all she did raise my mom so she felt it was a safe place, but he didn't care about boundaries .It was safe at one time, but that was when my great grandfather, Frank McCoy was alive. He, that is my dad, would not dare raise a finger to my mom while he was around. They say that I'm a strange cross between my dad and Uncle Frank (that’s what every one called my great grandfather, even if they were not kin to him), but UNCLE FRANK was touted to be an uncommonly powerful man; in presence, personality, and strength, my dad nor anyone else ever fooled with him, but he was always good to every one, but he dealt sternly with those who needed to be.

Back to the story, they began painting this blood stained ugly wallpaper print I tried to help, but the adults didn’t think the fudge sickle I was eating matched the paint they were using. I know because good job and nice even strokes were not the words they were using to describe the job I had done as they were cleaning my masterpiece off the wall. I thought it was pretty good for a 4 year old. Picasso, I was not, but still quite accomplished. We all heard a commotion out side. I remember running to the window. It was the blue ford and out stepped my dad. Its funny how his face looked as black and dark as it did when he worked in the mines. As he walked toward the house it seemed to get all the darker the closer he got.

He had a look of determination on his face and one hand in his pocket. My mother went to the door to tell him to leave. He began screaming" the boy ","I want the boy", " I want him now “," I want him for good". Then he began a tirade of horrible filthy names and accusations aimed at my mother. The louder he screamed the darker his face seemed to get. I watched my mother stand up for herself for the first time in my memory. She screamed that she was not going to take this any more and that he should turn around and leave the way he came in. He did turn but then he snapped back around pulling his hand out of his pocket and in it a nickel plated colt 44.He pointed it straght at my mother's face. Breathing very hard and his face darker even still. My uncles jumped up and ran to the back room. I didn’t know why. As I turned from watching them leave. I saw the most amazing thing. My mother pulling a 2 shot derringer out if her purse I knew she had it, but it was never loaded. She was afraid I would get my hands on it, but I didn’t want to; there were no bullets in it what would be the fun in that. She held it tight with both hands, he began to laugh, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh, it was deep and frightening. He held his gun tighter and walked towards my mom holding it no more than an inch from her face and screamed "NOW" she told him she wouldn’t let him take me, just at that moment he cocked the hammer back with his thumb and smiled a really wide evil smile. I ran out to my mother as my great grandmother yelled for me not to. I tried to stand between them so he couldn’t hurt her. She pulled her hammer back as well knowing nothing could come of it. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him, fired the gun in to the air cocked it again and pointed at my mom again. You wouldn’t think that these kinds of thoughts would race through a 4 year olds mind, but I was staring at the gun and I remember thinking if I could get it I could kill him and this would all be over. Just then he picked me up and ran to the blue ford and threw me in the back seat, he never put me in the back seat, he always wanted his son to sit up front, but not this time. This time I wasn't his son, I was a trophy, a won conquest screaming for its mother as he drove away.

I was crying louder now, my dad was yelling for me to stop in that deep evil tone he used with my mother earlier but I didn’t then he did something he never had done before. As I was screaming for my mom I felt the sting of the back of his fist across my 4 year old face! I stopped crying immediately. I realize now that that was the moment that I felt a darkness in me that would try to rise up and kidnap me just like he did. He looked back to check on me because I stopped crying so quickly. He must have thought he knocked me out or killed me. When he saw that I was o.k., he smiled and commented "he's a true Phillips o.k.”, then he turned around and continued to drive. "I screamed I hate you dad!" That was the last time I remember calling him that, dad, to his face. He laughed again and said "now you sound like your mom."

He took me to where his family lived at the top of Phillips hill. A place no one went after dark. The Phillips' were very rough people (again something that would come up in me later as well). I remember very little about the time I spent on Phillips hill. They did the usual trying to spoil me trying to sway me, from wanting to be with my mother. Just like all families do who are involved in bitter divorces. Every thing they gave me I threwgh in the floor or broke it. I remember spiting in old man Phillips'(grandfather) face and every one laughing wildly as though they were proud of me for it, its obvious that evil can be a generational thing,( again to come later).

My mother couldn’t contact local law (there were Phillips on the force)because the sheriff was a Phillips. So she had to call the state police and they contacted the people on Phillips hill. They must have known the trooper as well because he called instead of coming to get me. Old man Phillips argued with him but seemed to finally agree with the trooper. They had bargained to let him take me back immediately. This is what he wanted so he could intimidate her again,and so he did.
As he returned, the troopers were parked in front of the house, but so were my uncles both of them holding shot guns, that’s what they ran to the back of the house for, but he left with me before they could load them. When he walked into the yard between the two front bushes an uncle stepped out from behind each of them holding a shotgun to his head my mother grabbed me and gave me a very tight hug, then stood with her gun now loaded at his forehead and told him if he ever came around me or her again she would make his life miserable. All this happened so fast that the troopers had just started to react and pull their gun before they did my mom pulled the trigger to fire her gun in the air. As he did before my uncles told the troopers to take him away and there was some argument about every one having guns, so every one but the troopers laid there guns on the ground as they escorted him off the property. I wouldn’t see him again for about 8 years. That’s another child hood memory. When the commotion died down and people stopped crying (not me for a long time I didn’t cry after he hit me, but seems lately I cant stop " what the crap") they took me back in the house and gave me another fudge sickle and let me go out side so the little blonde headed girl could kiss me, but I didn’t mind I had a fudge sickle. At foure That is true love.