snappin turtles

A rustic kitchen starts to fill with sound in a farm house in Chillicothe, Ohio. The air is thick with the sweet scent of homemade blackberry cobbler. It almost drowns out the bitter stench of the paper factory in town.

My attention pulled from watching the sun reflecting on the spoons hanging in the kitchen window by a loud slap of a screen door slamming. I got up to walk to the back porch out toward the woods. The day was early inside the house, but what was on the other side of that porch seemed to be the heat of a midday battle. A flurry of voices and ramble of my cousins were seemingly having full on fits to the sound of Conway Twitty pouring out of the open door of a pristine Chevy Caprice Classic.

The dust was stirred up so much it seemed like a cartoonish visual. Watching humans fight air made me feel a mix of fear and fascination, a witness to the darkest depths of my family's insane wrath. I could feel, not just see the seething rage that fuels their actions in play, a violence so deeply rooted it becomes a part of their very essence. One of my cousins screamed "Uncle Bobby getcher gun Uncle Bobby they coming for the house!!" Any other child may have been frightened, but somehow this level of intensity was programmed in me before I could tie shoes. Like the Marine he once was, my dad, a rugged and hardened man in his forties marched down the hallway as if he was in Korea again. It was like magic watching him walk into his boots while simultaneously grabbing one of the shotguns that were always part of the room, any room. As if he was folding a shirt the thing quickly made the unmistakable sound of racking. "Stay" he growled as he kicked the screen door with the tip of his boot on the way out, making it slap hard again against the porch.

I recall looking down at the long sleep shirt I had on and wondering if I would need to join the battle thataway. I watched my dad immediately swat his free hand in fury, holding the gun in the other as the chaos churned around him; he was still- watching. An incessant buzzing filled the air and amplifying the tension now to the tune of Willie Nelson singing about Poncho and Lefty. "RoyLee done kicked up some dobbers toward Nick- we was all out here smokin when he done it" Aunt Janet was hollerin towards my dad's direction.

He looked so stoic in that swirling production of violence and fear when my cousin Sonia screeched out "I BEEN STUNG REAL BAD UNCLE BOBBY" as she fell to the ground. To this, he had a reaction... he started laughing. He pulled that one arm up, pointed that gun about 4 feet above that girls head and she in turn pulled herself in the fetal position and he shot the gun. The smell was fantastic and him laughing as Willie Nelson wrapped up his soft ballet filled me with remarkable pride for some reason. Nick yelled at him from about 30 feet away "In the air Unc INNN THE AIRRRR" to which immediately my Aunt Janet responded "you idjit' he knows howda use a gun boiiiii". I swear she was trying to be funny even though it didn’t look like it- her running over past the car to hide.

"Fuck you mama" Nick yelled and pulled out his own handgun, I do not know what it was- but he shot off 4 rounds into the sky while yelling like a ban-chi- somehow more focused on being in control of attention instead of himself over the hornets. At that my eyes went right back to my dad, who only slightly turned with a crooked smile and 3 or 4 of them hornets attached to his head he pointed that shot gun again- and Janet from behind the Caprice yells, "Don't do it bobby he ain't right for that" just as the Oak Ridge Boys 'American Made' pours from the car. What started out as a brawl with pestilence became a full on fist fight and gun fire amidst the still swarming winged savages.

I can still feel it in my throat as I watched my ol' man B-line towards his cousin with those hornets still on his head- his eyes darken, a sinister resolve etching itself onto his war weathered face. The chaos of the scene morphed into a haunting symphony of familial violence, where blood runs thicker than reason.The crack of knuckles and the sickening thud of fists merging with jaws and relentless buzzing of the hornet, as if orchestrating an eerie symphony of brutality played on as my mother, about 19 at the time, if I was 4- come around the porch with the hose and the handle of an old flat headed shovel that we sometimes would club snapping turtles with. FEROCIOUS VOICE (snarling) "Roylee, you better finish what you started!" my dad bolted his voice out as if his words were bullets... the song hits the slow bit and RoyLee (coldly) shoots his mouth back "Oh, don't worry, I plan on it" and the two men collide. The radio goes quiet for a second between songs and it is like everything is slow motion and so many things are happening at the same time. I remember thinking I wish my ma had not come out, and also I wish she would just turn on the hose. What was once dust started turning into mud as 4 grown men and a teenager were rubix cubing one another’s expressions. A loud ad for a local tire dealer filled the air and it was sorta like everyone felt the music stop as the blast of water came upon em.

Everyone started slowing down a bit and the women of the mess started their blame yellin. I heard the man on the radio say 'Chillicothe' real clear as my dad was telling his cousin to get up and pick up his hots. I loved hearing that word. Chillicothe- like it meant somethin that day. Like this was what Chillicothe was, every time we come down to this place there was everyday extremes, in weather and in people. As my mom fixed the hose on the spot where the dobber come up, my Aunt was fussin with my Dad to get a stinger out of his head and as the music started back up, Sonia, now on her feet and muddy like the rest of em, looking at the ground said "You did get one Uncle bobby-- look'itcheer that's just the front end of one..." and a few of the men started over to look and see, like a bunch of kids. My mom never put that shovel handle down, even as everyone collected themselves and started filing in the house to eat. Mom and I looked at each other a second and she just sorta tipped her head a bit for me to walk back in the house... but I stood there a bit and looked at her. She sorta had a flat affect standing there in cut offs and an old Pepsi Free t-shirt... but somethin told me she was really thinking hard about snapping turtles.