Tag Archives: no hill for a stepper

Dad ain’t pleased and I’m payin’ for it

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Dad’s been drinking. He sways his way over to me with a look on his sorry-ass face that says, “Ya best answer this next question the way I wanna here it. Where’s Zexie?” He didn’t ask where Pooch was. He could see him lying in the shade by the house.

“What?” I say, trying to keep my axe swinging in the right direction.

“I said where’s Zexie?” he yells.

Unlike Dad, time is standing still and sober like at the picture show, when the film has snapped and nobody knows what to do with themselves. All I know is, I’d been doing what I was told. I was chopping and sharpening, chopping and sharpening all day, the sharpening part being my idea. I have enough wood stacked up to make it through a blizzard.

I say back to him, “I don’t know, haven’t seen her. Been chopping wood all day.”

“Get the gun,” he says. “We’ll follow the trap line. See if she got caught up.” I run inside and get the single shot .22 off the chester drawers and run to catch up with Dad.

Sure enough, Zexie is lying in the first trap we come to, poor little thing. She’s been gnawing on her own leg to get out of that trap. I know I didn’t have anything to do with it. Dad set that goddamn trap, not me. I was only doing what I was told.

Dad pulls the trap open and picks her up, cradling her in one arm like a baby. Then he walks over and slaps the living hell out of me with the other. I stumble back but this time, I don’t fall. I make myself stand up straight.

Dad sure does like dogs.

He hands me the .22 to carry back and starts walking towards the house. Just as I’m thinking, “Don’t turn around you sorry son of a bitch ’cause I’m gonna shoot you in the back of the head,” he turns back around, grabs the .22 right out of my hand, and take the bullets out.

“Here,” he says, and hands the pistol back to me.

He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust him. That’s about the sum of it.

I know exactly how it feels to be caught in a trap, and I’ll be damned if I gotta gnaw off my foot to get out of this one. I also know there’s a way to have supper without feeling poisoned. I just have to figure out where that is and which direction I need to go to get there. I’d follow those railroad tracks anywhere about now.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

Author note: This is a true story and I need to tell my readers that Zexie recovered.

Pleased

Unraveling the meaning of “an eye for an eye”

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Young Cono Dennis

Mr. Pall thinks he’s tougher than a pair of old leather boots, probably because he used to be some kinda wrestler or something. He isn’t nearly as tough as Dad, who last week had beaten a man unconscious on Main Street just because the man spouted off to him. I walk into his office, where’s he’s sitting behind his desk looking puffed up with importance.

“Cono, were you smoking in the schoolyard?”

“No sir, I wadn’t.”

“Were the Allridge boys smoking?”

I think, Why didn’t ye just call them in here like you’ve done me?, but I don’t say that. Maybe it was Mr. Pall’s brother-in-law, who Dad had beaten up last week.

“I have no idee, sir,” I say. “I reckon you ought’a ask them.”

His right eye stares a hole in my left eyeball. His left one kinda wanders around on its own, like it’s been punched one too many times. Maybe he grunts with Mrs. Berry on occasion.

He opens up his desk drawer and pulls out a rubber hose. He thumps it on the desk a few times and says, “Well, I need to whip you with this hose.”

I stare back into his bad eye with both of my good ones and say, “Go ahead, sir. But I jes’t half to tell ye that my daddy said if you ever laid a hand on me, he’d have to come up here and whup you.” I say it real nice though.

He sits real quiet in his principal’s chair, like he’s picturing himself drawing a crowd on Main Street while my dad beats the tar outta his one good eye. While he’s chewing on that idea like a piece of gum, I’m busy staring at him, thinking that his front teeth stick out so far he could eat an apple through a keyhole. After that picture in my mind, I’m not scared one little bit.

Finally, he says, “Git on outta here, Cono.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, ’cause there’s no sense in not being polite.

At lunchtime I’m eating my sandwich, minding my own business, when Tommy scopes me out and says, “Cono, what’cha got fer lunch?”

Even though he’s five times bigger than me I say, “It don’t make no difference ’cause ye ain’t getting none of it.”

“Cono, you shouldn’t a’ stuck that knife in me that time.”

I look up at him with a face as serious as Dad’s and say, “Tommy, if ye mess with me in any way, shape’r form, I’ll cut yer head plumb off with the same pocketknife I used before.”

And just as I’m picturing his dead body without a head like Wort Reynolds, Tommy Burns walks away.

School’s out for the day, and it was another discouraging one. I grab Delma’s hand and start walking back home, now having a little time to think about what happened.

The Allridge boys had been smoking like a bunch a chimney stacks, but I ain’t one to rat on somebody else when it’s none of my business. And, I like to think that Dad would beat the tar outta Mr. Pall if he laid a hand on me. But Dad never said that. If Dad ever finds out that I lied, I might as well curl up in a ball and prepare myself—or maybe just grab my axe.

Lying isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, we have to lie in order protect ourselves and the people we care about.

An “eye for an eye” is what I did today. Maybe that part of the Bible makes sense after all.

From No Hill for a Stepper, the story of my father growing up in poverty during the Great Depression.

Unravel

Never give up

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Ike, my great-grandfather, and Cono Dennis, my dad

Even though I didn’t get a donkey or a new guitar, I knew Aunt Nolie was in my corner, wiping off my brow between rounds and telling me to “Get up!” at the same time. I’ve since learned how to “get up” from many of the folks around West Texas. In that rugged terrain, if you don’t stand your ground, you’ll be bitten into hard, chewed on for a long time, and finally spit out just like Granny Dennis’s snuff. You don’t give up in West Texas, you get up.

It’s strange the ways people stick up for others and how they don’t. Sometimes they do it with yelling words, soft words, or even no words at all. Sometimes they do it by fighting, like Punk Squares did. But most of the time, the people in your corner just tell you to suck it up and go back at it. That’s what I’ve learned to do.

On that no-account day I did get a good reminder of what Ike taught me later on. Never trust anybody but your own self. I’d decided that from then on, I was going to protect my hard-earned money, hold on to it real tight in one hand and clutch the handle of my axe even tighter in the other. An honest day’s pay should be just that and nobody—nobody—should ever take that away from you.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story.

Be Tenacious!

Denying Religion

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Almost every time I get to one of those revivals, the grown-ups say, “Cono, don’t you want to be saved?”

“From what?” I say.

“Why the Devil hisself,” they say and then they add a bunch of amens to go along with it.

Unless they’re thinking about Dad being the Devil, I just say, “No thank you.”

“But what are you waitin for? We could baptize you right now and all your sins would be forgiven and you would have eternal life.”

As far as sinning goes, I guess I’ve done my fair share of it, Amen.

“What’s ‘eternal’ mean?” I ask.

“Well, it means you’ll live forever with Jesus right next to you.”

I picture Jesus standing right next to me, while I’m thunk, thunk, thunkin’ on a woodpile forever and ever into eternity, and it doesn’t appeal to me one iota. Last year when we lived with Aunt Nolie, I didn’t have much chopping to do. But now, I have to chop all the time, Chop, chop, chop to make sure Mother has enough wood for the cookstove at the Tourist Court. Chop, chop, chop so Dad won’t lay into me.

Anyway, I’ve heard stories about how some churches take a poor person’s last dime so they can put more gold up by the Jesus statue. Then, a pennyless old woman with only one shoe and five starving children crawls away with her head all covered up, as if she’s ashamed of being broke. It doesn’t make no sense to me whatsoever. It seems to me that Jesus would want you to keep most of your money so you don’t have to starve and die and can at least make it to church to pray. What gets me is watching them churchgoers and knowing that they talk all big about Jesus, but when they get home, they just keep doing their sinning anyway, like they’d forgotten every word they’d learned. Maybe all you have to do is say you believe in Jesus and then you’ll be saved no matter how you act. But what do I know? I ain’t been saved yet.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story.

Denial

Calf Slobber

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Cono Dennis

My father is a worthless, sorry son of a bitch, no better than calves’ slobber. I’ve tried to find reasons to believe otherwise, I really have.

How can a piece of apple pie be so good and so bad at the same time? Maybe it’s like Ike’s jalapeno, the price for eating one is steep. But at least Ike got a little satisfaction from those hot bites, the taste being worth it.

I think about Hicks Boy, how I never could beat him, and I wonder if it will ever be me who is standing up at the end of a round with my right hand held up by a referee. “And the new boxing Champion is Cono Dennis.” The crowd cheers.

I want to look down at the calves’ slobber lying bloodied on the boxing ring canvas. I want to spit down on my father and say, “There ain’t nothin’ worse than bein’ woken up in the middle’a the night to the feelin’ ’a yer balls bein’ squeezed, and hearin’ the sound of a pocket knife bein’ opened up at the same time.”

I want to walk away from the ring, the crowd still cheering.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story

 

A minimal meal

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Cono Dennis - An Unlikely Hero in the Making

Cono Dennis, his sister Delma & Pooch – late 1930s

For a week, the whole house feels pain of one kind or another. Delma’s in one bed crying, Dad’s moaning and cussing in his. But the only sickness Mother and I feel is a mean rumbling in our bellies from lack of food. Since Dad’s been bedridden, we don’t have any gambling money to spend on groceries.

Mother walks over to the kitchen cabinets and looks inside. No salt, no pepper, not even a lousy piece of stale bread is sitting in there. No sir, there isn’t a dang thing to eat. She goes to the last cabinet. There, all by itself, sits a medium-sized onion. She takes it out, holds it in both her hands and stares at it like she’s thinking a roast was fixing to pop out of it. At least that’s what I’m thinking, when my mouth gets all watery.

She peels that onion real slow, like it’s a prized Hereford being slaughtered for steak. She slices it up just as slowly as she’d peeled it. She puts it in a skillet and adds a little water, looks at it and adds more water.

The onion soup doesn’t taste like onion or even warm water. It tastes like cold hunger seasoned with poverty and sprinkled with fear. And the stuff that settled on the bottom of the cup? That’s anger. I drink it anyway. I feel like a Devil’s Claw, stacked up and falling back down on my own self. It’s like being slapped without even having a hand laid on me. Maybe it’s because the slap I feel is on the inside instead of the outside, a slap like a burning face just as uninvited.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, a story about my father.

Minimal

That Fightin’ Instinct

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My Dad

I yelled, “fall out!” But, there’s one in every crowd. His name was “Johnson,” an ex-merchant marine with big old biceps who thought he could fight a circular saw and come out ahead. He pulled the cover over his head as if that was gonna protect him from someone who knew better.

Everyone was watching me, so I knew I had an impression to make. I walked over, and said, “Well, aren’t you smart?” Then I took that cot and flipped it right in the middle of him.

He stood up, towering over me like a big gorilla, stared down at me and drew back. Now, the thing about big ole boys like Johnson is that they might have a lot of muscle and power, but for a lightweight class like me, they move like molasses. So that’s the last he saw. When he drew his big arm back, my fist landed square on his chin before his pea brain could register what hit him. He dropped like a loose button, out cold as a cucumber.

When Johnson started to stir a bit, he looked at me with surprise and reached up to feel his mouth, like he was making sure all his teeth were still there.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I know a couple of folks without any teeth and they can still eat almost anything.”

He sat there glaring at me and I kept talking.

“And if you keep puckerin’ like that, pretty soon you’re your face is gonna match your asshole. Now get up!”

Everybody laughed except for Johnson. I guess he didn’t think it was funny. But he did stand up and, so far, Johnson and the rest of the cooks barracks have been looking at me in a different light. I don’t count on Johnson looking down on me ever again. Besides, he couldn’t fight the gnats off his butt.

I suppose the fighting Instinct was born in me, like red is born into a beet. Maybe because I started fighting in first grade when I had to stick that pocketknife into the thigh of Tommy Burns so he wouldn’t take my marbles.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story

 

 

 

A Boxing Tradition-Thanks, Daddy

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So recently, my one-year-old granddaughter came to watch me box (see picture below). As many of you know, I love boxing. Not competitively, of course. I do it for fitness. We hit pads and bags, practice defensive, etc. We kick, too, but being a good kicker is not in my DNA. Let me explain.

My paternal grandfather was a carnival boxer in the early 1930’s. That meant he would seek out the carnivals and would box the “main” contender. If he won, which he usually did, he earned 5 buckeroos.

In the later 1940’s, my Dad boxed for the Army as Kid Dennis. I still have his boxing bag, gloves, and trunks that read “Kid.” (The story of Dad’s boxing retaliation against my grandfather is a major plot thread in my novel, No Hill for a Stepper.)

Dad quit boxing when he married my mother but continued the sport by becoming a referee. When my sister was born, he gave her little blue boxing glove rattles. After my parents died, and when my sister and I had to sort through the house, I found them! I told my sister, “I’m keeping these!” (she didn’t fight me for them).  Now, I keep the little rattles in my boxing bag for inspiration.

Here’s my granddaughter holding one of the little rattles.

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Baby and Me

Do I think my granddaughter should continue the tradition? It matters not. What does matter is that she learns to defend and stand up for herself. And, as Dad often reminded me, “pay attention to your surroundings at all times.” Sound advice.

Thanks, Daddy.

From Arid to a full belly

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1940: Fresh Air and Dusted Britches — Last weekend Mr. Green asked Delma and me if we wanted to spend a night with him and his wife. I think maybe he’d heard a few things about what was going on at my house, about how Dad was treating me. Either way, it sure was good to get away for a night.

Mrs. Green made us corn on the cob with fried chicken and I ate every bit of mine. Then we played checkers, and even taught Delma how to play. It was like a vacation from the desert with no water into a place with fresh air and cold iced tea. It was a full belly.

The next morning before we were about to leave, Mrs. Green hugged Delma, turned to me and said, “Now Cono, you keep sittin’ on the shiny side’a that star.”

It sounded like a real nice thing to say, but I’m still trying to figure out what in tarnation she was talking about.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

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Arid

Searchin’ for the “Funny”

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Dad never owned a car long enough for him to learn how to drive, or for that matter, long enough for me to learn to drive. Until we moved to Temple, that is. Dad was the odd man out, never having an interest in cowboying or even getting on top of a horse like the rest of the Dennis’.

Dad tried to ride a bull once. Maybe it was a low point for him. For for me it was anything but. We were living at the Dennis ranch when Dad came home drunk and decided it was time to act like a real rodeo star. I was standing outside the corral, where we kept one of our two-year-old bulls. Dad saunters over to me and slurs, “Cono, grab that bull o’r yonder. Hold’em still ‘til I get on. I’m gonna ride that son’a bitch”

“Sure I will, Dad.”

It was better than watching a picture show. While I was putting the rope around the bull’s neck, Dad went over and fixed Ike’s spurs to his shoes! Not to his boots because he didn’t even own a pair of boots, but to his shoes! Then he slapped on Ike’s chaps. I helped him get on top of the bull and stood there holding his rope.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.

“I’z ready,” he Slurred.

I let go.

Dad put one hand up in the air and said, “High, ho, silv……”

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That bull didn’t even buck. He just turned around real slow like he was trying to see what kind of idiot would sit on his back. Well, that slow turn was all it took. My Dad fell right off that lazy bull and straight into the dirt, Ike’s spurs dangling from Dad’s shoes.

I turned around and looked in the other direction. I didn’t want Dad to see my shoulders quivering from laughter.

Dad got up and staggered back to the house mumbling something about killing steak for dinner.

Some things sure were funny back then, but other times? You couldn’t find “funny” anywhere you looked.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper