Chicken Shit Pistol

Sure, I’d always wanted a sister, but not this one. I was reading about Great Blue whales, trying to focus, but all I could think about was it would be inconvenient to kill her. Murder was out. I was pretty sure it would screw my chances of getting into college.

It was late fall, end of November in 1975, and finally cool enough to wear sweatshirts in Alabama. In this town, they were a solid color affair with no complex graphics, and certainly no alarming language or devilish images of winged, flaming skulls. Sweatshirts were for slipping on over summer t-shirts to rake leaves, change the oil or play tackle football. The rare logo on a sweatshirt would most likely be from summer camp or your favorite college sports team, a way to show solidarity, to brag or dream of better days.

My cranberry BAMA pullover hung on me like a talisman to insure my good grades and athletic talents would get me a full four-year ride to the university in Tuscaloosa, out of this house, out of this place to be a woman of the world. I didn’t believe in superstitions or luck, but this was me, crossing my fingers.

It would have been simple to slip out and get some much-needed fresh air. That would’ve helped. I could have walked one hundred yards and picked my way around the gritty edge of the big shinning lake, collected more arrowheads and counted the herons. I could have knocked on the door of my best friend, slouched on her waterbed and listened to James Taylor, daydream about the new boy with red hair and blue eyes. Just up the road, an easy stroll, the Char Burger perfumed the air with corn dogs, fries and hot, cheesy Wildcat Burgers dripping ketchup, mustard and jagged little pickles.

But not that day, no.

I was holed up in my room on a beautiful, golden Saturday afternoon. The rest of my family, including my full-grown, recently arrived and supposedly half-sister, were down the hall watching the Alabama-Auburn football game on the new TV. I couldn’t bear to stay in a space with her more than I had to, so I was in my room, MY room, long before she showed up and dad made me trade in my big bed for a set of twins. Traitor. I was his only daughter. She was a stranger come to town.

That morning, fresh from Kennamer Furniture’s After Thanksgiving Day sale, Dad sent a couple of guys to our side door to deliver the brown beast of a television before the big game. The best part, other than the large, crisp screen, was no one had to sit cross-legged on the shaggy green and gold carpet with a pair of needle-nosed pliers to change the channels so dad could monitor all the afternoon college gridiron wars.

Dad was lying there, holding the remote control in his clenched fist, and using it as a pointer to emphasize his wide swinging moods. In a few short hours, it had increased his sense of control and power; now he could flip to whatever program he liked instead of yelling for one of us to come change it.

I was pretty sure he was betting on them, a few bucks between friends.

Like that bet in Florida on our only family vacation, when he boasted about being brave as a kid. He said that my brothers and I were cowards and couldn’t take a few minutes with our backs to the moonlit ocean. He promised us a dollar for every minute we stayed turned away from the dark water, feet in the waves and looking straight ahead at the dunes covered in sea oats, bent by the constant tropical winds.

My brothers dropped out after thirty seconds of their imagined terrors of sea monsters, sharks and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but I planted myself knee deep in the Gulf of Mexico, and for more than ten long minutes, I stared him down.

The...