Saturday Evening Outpost

LIFEBOOK: Everything Goes to Heaven

I was raised in the country in a small town in Ohio. Our little house sat about five miles out from the edge of the city limits. It was a small piece of land, enough to grow feed for a few animals, have a big garden, and plant some fruit trees. It was surrounded by sweeping views of flat fields where corn, soybean, wheat, or hayfields would sprout depending on the crop cycle. In the way-back, which, when we were young felt miles away, there was a stand of trees that we called the woods. I fell in love with the earth there, laying on her leaf and twig and moss strewn floor, where wafting musty mingled with fragrant wildflowers and where the sun-dappled leaves danced at the edge of the sky. I have so many stories from that time. I went there to be alone, or to built forts with my brother, or dig for Native American treasures. I went there because the trees always seemed to be calling me. They seemed to never expect anything from me but a warm hand clasped onto an outstretched limb, and then they would lift me to the sky.

I also hunted there, with my dad and my older brother. We’d trudge back just before first light and find a spot up against a giant maple, waiting for a squirrel or a deer or a rabbit, depending on the season. I always prayed silently that we’d never see anything, I was only there because my old man thought he was teaching me to live off the land…and teaching me to be a man.

One morning as the dew dripped like torture on my brow and barely a wisp of wind rustled the leaves above us, a squirrel popped out of its nest. My dad shook me urgently as if to wake me. “This one’s yours Timmy, get it!” he whispered urgently. Without thinking, I took aim and shot, hitting the hindquarter with buckshot. To my horror, the squirrel fell and dragged itself down into a hole in the forest floor.

“Sonofabitch!” dad cursed, you missed him.

I was shaking. “Sorry, Dad.” I dropped the barrel of my gun down and popped open the chamber, clearing the spent shell.

Before he could respond, we heard an awful screaming above us and another squirrel came rushing out of the nest, running down the tree and right past us into the same hole. I sat down on the ground, barely able to breathe. “It’s the mate trying to save ‘em,” I choked out.

“What in the sam hell?” Dad sat his shotgun down, looking dumbfounded. “Go back to the house and get the shovels, boys,” he said solemnly.

“Why!?” I spit out a yell. “Leave ’em be!”

“We can’t let him suffer,” he said. “We got to dig ’em out and put him out of his misery.”

“But we caused the suffering!” I stifled a sob.

“Go!” he growled.

“Come on.” My brother grabbed my arm and turned us toward home.

The walk there and back felt like an eternity. Peppered by my mumbles of how unfair it all was and my brother telling me to just do what he says. “He’s not wrong,” he defended him. “It’s the right thing not to let ’em suffer.”

“Shouldn’t had ta shoot ’em in the first place,” I couldn’t help but spit out, “when’s the last time Ma even made squirrel!?”

I remember the first strike of the rusty shovel tip into the soil and the thud of the tree roots reverberating up through my arms. Every strike hit roots and found its way to my clenched jaw. As loose pieces of roots got in the way, I dug with my hands to remove them, the musty smell of earth I once cherished now permeating my senses as the inevitable dankness of grief.

My brother and I dug together, slamming our shovels over and over to chop at the roots. “Hole’s deep, Dad,” he said huffing. “Maybe too deep.” Leaning against that big Maple, Dad didn’t say a word as he watched us.

I couldn’t stop imagining the squirrels down there together, comforting each other and tears began to roll down my dirt-stained face. I mumbled, trying not to cry, apologizing to the wounded squirrel and its mate.

“Stop crying,” my old man finally yelled at me. “Stop being so damn soft. This is life, this is what happens. You are doing the right thing. You are taking responsibility for your actions.”

I hated hunting and I hated his guts. Those were the thoughts that pierced through my sorrow. He made me shoot that poor squirrel. He was heartless. I’d probably get a beating for being so soft when we got home.

It felt like hours had passed and my young arms grew tired and felt rubbery. The once rusty shovel tip gleamed from the scrubbing friction of dirt and chopped roots. “You’re almost there,” my dad’s words interrupted the blurred frenzy of staccato stabs as my digging had become almost trancelike. “Get your shotgun ready, they’ll try and run. At least you’ll have two squirrels to take home from all this work.”

I stopped digging, emerging from my haze. “What?”

He knew what I meant. “You gotta get ’em both.”

I gripped the handle of the shovel so hard the blisters that had formed shot like fire through my hands. “No,” I mumbled. “No, no, no, no!”

“The hell you say, son!?”

“Not killing them both,” I stammered.

“Then I will!” he shot back.

“The HELL YOU SAY, DAD!?” My voice became a plaintive wail and I threw down my shovel. I knew I was inches away from an ass-whooping. That was how all back-talk got handled in our house. But, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him kill both of them and I know he heard it in my voice.

To my surprise, he turned to my brother. “Finish digging them out.”

My brother, always the “father whisperer” quietly and calmly replied, “Dad, it’s not my squirrel, it’s Timmy’s squirrel. Shouldn’t he get to decide?”

Dad grabbed the shovel from my brother but I stood defiantly in front of the hole. Making my father angry always meant a world of hurt, usually by way of a leather strap. I was shaking, not for fear of that, but from exhaustion, emotion, and rage.

“You can beat me dad, but I’m leaving them BOTH down there. My squirrel, my decision.” I steadied myself, teeth gritted, as he stared at me. The anger and contemplation, like dark and light clouds of a midsummer thunderstorm, moved quickly across his eyes. Retribution always happened quickly and I was well prepared for the bone-rattling thunder, which always preceded the lightning strike.

But, it was a quiet statement, not the angry, booming showdown I had anticipated. “So you’ll let him suffer?”

I shook my head quickly. A brief, but determined defiance. “I’ll let ‘em die in peace…” I muttered, and my voice shook for a moment, “…together.”

He stared at me, searching my eyes for something, weakness maybe. I always collapsed under his glare but this time was different. He didn’t find the weakness. He picked up his shotgun and turned then, not saying a word, and walked back to the house without us.

My brother put his hand on my shoulder and nodded. It was a ‘you won and it will all be OK,’ nod. I stared at him silently, my eyes stinging from the black dirt that had been rubbed into the corners as I tried to rid them of tears. I started to fumble around the forest floor, looking for a few twigs.

“Whaddaya looking for?”

I didn’t answer him right away. All I could think of was that it was me that had made these creatures suffer. God would surely be angry at me. I needed to make it right.

“Timmy!” his voice penetrated my thoughts.

“Gonna make a cross, Johnny.”

He leaned his shovel up against a tree and went off to find me a tall piece of grass. My hands were shaking as I was trying to bind the twigs into a cross. He took them from me and slowly wound the grass around them, securing them together. “Here. You got a couple good ones. That’s nice, that’ll work.”

I nodded and took the twig cross from him, knowing I needed to say something out loud to the squirrels but not wanting to cry again.

“He might make it,” he tried to comfort me.

I shook my head and began shoveling dirt and debris back into the pit we had dug, trying to leave the hole as we had found it. “We’ll leave the hole big enough. I know…” my voice cracked, “I know one’s never comin’ out, but the other one…” I didn’t dare try and look in. I didn’t want to see them if they were close to the edge of it. My brother joined me then and we spread leaves around it. We kneeled down and he continued to scatter leaves and I made a small mound of dirt on the backside of the opening.

When it looked just right we stayed there, knee to knee. “Do ya…do ya think we should say the Hail Mary?” I asked him.

He lowered his head and said softly, “sure.”

As the rote prayer fell reverently I pushed the twig cross into the dirt mound. I knew I would never forget this moment. My heart filled with such overwhelming sadness. This was my fault. I caused this. I took a life. “I’m…I’m…so sorry,” and the tears fell silently. “Forgive me.”

“Come on, let’s leave ’em be.” My brother grabbed me by my coat and pulled me up. As we walked toward the edge of the woods and the morning had just left for the day he nudged me. “It’s OK ya don’t like to kill things.” I couldn’t look at him. As we stepped into the field and headed toward the fencerow he nudged me again. “You think they go to heaven?”

I nodded, my spirit so heavy my mumbled words fell like a fog around us, “I think everything we kill goes to heaven…but will we?”