EPISODE 121 VIOLENCE THEME: PRINCE OF DARKNESS : WHY I HATE GUNS

Dad Startled us one Christmas when I was  15 and Eric 14.   He bought us a Red Ryder  BB gun.

That was the only Christmas present he had ever bought us and he used the usual scam…i..e He put

a dollar downpayment and left the rest to us.  Or, rather, to mom since I do not remember how the financing

was resolved.

The gun had a very short life…one day and it died ignominiously smashed against the Manitoba Maple in our back yard.

That one day still embarrasses me now that I am 82.  What an asshole I could be at times.  If you judge my seeming Voltaire

like innocence as some kind of fairy tale Prince of Light marvelling at the world around him.  Then you are not getting

the true picture.  I am also a Prince of Darkness who has  done things of which I am not around.  The BB gun caper is my best example.

Dad set himself up as an example of proper BB gun behaviour that Christmas Eve, 1954.  We opened  the paper bag 

and found the new gun.  Mom frowned.  She loved her husband but could not always control him.  She had no idea

he bought this ‘dollar down’ Red Ryder special.  Mom disliked guns.  “Give me one god reason why we should

have a gun,” she said.

Dad took the gun right away and set himself up as a sniper in our little second floor kitchen.  “Leave the goddamn light out.”

The window was small.  Just enough room for mom to hang out the clothes to dry on the revolving clothes line.  There was

a clothespin pocket on the line where mom forced dad to keep his Limburger cheese.  Strong stuff.  Maybe his cigars as

well…White Owl Invincibles that he could only smoke outside the house.  Best lit boldly at the racetrack. Lit at home slyly

in the back yard only.   So dad was familiar

with the little window located high above the back fence.  Perfect sniper eyrie.

Our cat Tinker was a bit of a loose woman, so to speak.  She had lots of lovers when she came in heat.  Other families

had their pets ‘fixed’, something we could not afford or, more accurately, something of which Tinker disapproved.

A couple of Tom Cats made the mistake of serenading Tinker that evening.  They got a stinging BB for their efforts.

IF he even hit one.  Long distance from kitchen window to back fence.

Christmas Day 1954 or  might have been1955.  That day we went to the farm likely by Gray Coach bus since we did

not have a car.  Uncle Frank met us at the Fifth line  with his team of horses and the big bob sleigh or with his well used

Model A Ford that smelled of cattle dung.

Eric and  I took turns carrying the BB Gun … as if it was some kind of sacred artifact.  As the oldest I got the  first

shot out between the house and the barn.

“Eric, walk about fifty feet away and keep you bum facing me. We’ll see if

a BB can sting you through your breeks”

“Yow!  That hurt, Alan.”

  I think that act of stupidity was the moment Eric lost confidence  in  me as  an older brother…as  a mentor…

as someone worthy of admiration .

About that time our cousin Ted Freeman arrived in a decrepit Model T Ford that George Johnson had got working.

Not a top of the line model.  More like a car en route to the scrap yard but out for one more time.

Eric and I hopped in the back.  I had the gun.   

Here  is how  I used it.

1) As we drove down the Fifth line I took pot shots at drive shed and barn stable windows.   

Seemed like fun.  George and  Ted must have been flabbergasted.   Word went up snd down

the line afterward and I did pay for a few windows I think.  Not sure because I tried to wipe the

memory.

2) Walking back to Grandma snd Granddad’s farm after George headed home I was pleased to

see Angus McEchern passing  by with his red half ton. “Watch this, Eric!”  I raised the gun

and  took one shot at the back window of the truck.  Angus put on the brakes. Got out.

Looked at the little round hole in his window.   He did not say a word.

How could I be so stupid?   The amazing part was that I was forgiven.  Some of the 

talk on the line  must have gone like this,  “Did  you hear what that city boy Skeoch

did on Christmas Day.  City people  don’t know any better, they live in a jungle.”

That night, when we caught the Gray Coach Bus back to Toronto the BB gun

met its demise.  Smashed  against our Manitoba Maple.

Eric came out of the adventure as pure  and honest as the driven  snow.

…with a little red mark on his bum.   I had to do a lot of apologizing

…but I was forgiven.   Dad?  No one snitched on him.   Payment?

I think mom put up the rest of the money owed on the gun.

alan skeoch

Sept/   2020