Well, I came home from the Army. Not really, I decided to you know do a surprise visit. Really, I was looking to give the old man a little poke being I had been in the Army going on 2 years and let’s just say, I do believe my life was more together than it had ever been.
Just to give a little history my Pops and I never really got along. I honestly thought he would wake up in the morning, go pee, look himself in the mirror and say, “How can I mess this kid up a little more today?” I know that may sound harsh to some, but I truly believed it, this is why I I ran away from home as a child the first time when I was 14, stayed gone a few years, and only went back mainly to bury my younger brother Sean before I was gone again. Joining the Army was in a sense my way of showing Pops that I did have value and maybe deep inside I hoped he would tell me that he was proud of me. Have you ever seen that meme with the skeleton on the bench with something like, “Me just hanging out waiting for my sister to call”? I think you get the picture, my Pops was not one to pat anyone on the back, but I’ve gotten past that. I was a big boy, E-4 in the United States Army, “hooah” and all that.
So, I thought I would just pull up at 6pm knowing that Pops would be home. You see, after he stopped drinking many years ago you could just about set your watch on what he was doing. He’s up getting ready to go to work, well it’s about 6:30 am. He’s sitting in his recliner telling everyone to be quiet, well its 6:00 pm and he’s watching the Nightly News, and Mom, well since three of my brothers had died, she’s at home most of the time. Come to think of it, she’s always been home taking care of us, what’s left of us anyway. So 6:00 pm would be a good time, no wait… better make it 6:30 pm, I don’t want to interrupt the Nightly News.
I was heading that way after leaving my high school sweetie’s house, not that we went to high school together. She went to Jefferson High School and let’s just say I should have been going to Holmes High School. We met while we were both working at a burger joint during those years and the rest is history, and when I say history, I mean history. Not to get off on a rabbit trail, but when I left for the Army, I told her I was going to marry her, and your word is your word. See in the Army, the pay wasn’t really too good, and I was always looking for ways to make more money, so when I found out that if I lived off post, I would get a separate housing allowance…well, to live off post you had to be married. This gets even better. There was also this extra money I would get for food. Yep, I got married. Now the fact was that Judy, my new wife, had lived a very sheltered life with a dad who was a bean counter and a Hispanic mom who never worked a day in her life, which really wasn’t that shocking during that time in history. Judy always wanted to get away from San Antonio, and her mom, dad and her very annoying little brother. I know this may sound weird, but she had never been out of the city of San Antionio, Texas in 19 years – her whole life! Once I took her to make out on the dam at Canyon Lake, 30 miles outside of San Antiono, but I think you get the picture. A match made in heaven, except it cost more for rent, electricity, water, sewer and cable – way more than what the Army was giving up. You might be thinking well that’s a tough one, at least I had a wife to fulfill the wifely duties and all, but you would be wrong. Six weeks into the marriage and let’s just say Judy no longer thought that very annoying little brother was that big of a deal and she went back home to the beautiful city of San Antonio. I did notice my monthly food allowance seemed to last longer once she left.
Anyway, leaving her place and on my way to surprise my folks, you know I had a strange feeling, not really a feeling like I shouldn’t do this surprise visit, but more like maybe I should make a quick call just before I got there, you know to settle the waters a bit. I can already hear the old man, “Well it would have been nice to have a little heads up.” There goes Archie Bunker for the night. I did call, and boy am I glad I did. Mom was hysterically crying and it was hard to even understand what she was saying. My parents never really seemed to know real love, it really just seemed that they tolerated each other most of the time and I always wrote it off to my dad just being my dad, and the fact that they buried 3 children, and how does one even deal with that? I didn’t know it had gotten so bad. I had been gone probably close to 5 years and looking back I can’t remember where my youngest brother was, but I know he wasn’t there. Which was usually his thing, not being there. I’m sure it was mostly self-preservation, anyway, I was making out a little of what Mom was saying or really asking, demanding that I come quick and get all of the guns out of the house. Now she never really said exactly why, but I got it, it was like Sitting Bulls’ last stand and not knowing what tomorrow would bring. She had the sense to just get all the fire power out of the home. Giving it a quick thought, I was thinking well, this is a little weird. I mean I have always been the I’m not going to say black sheep, but my track record was not very good. At any rate, I showed up, and no Pops (good).
I started to round up the guns in the house, thinking it would be maybe a pistol and a shotgun. Nope, not even close. Two shotguns, four pistols, three rifles, a Derringer and enough ammunition to hold off Santa Anna’s army. It took me two hours to load everything up and remember, back then most pickups were just two doors with a single seat (bench style). There were no extended cabs or club cab styles. I had a little Nissan two- door, bench seat, pick-up truck. Everything of course had to go right where a passenger would have sat and then I was off.
You must remember this was the late 70’s and well the gun laws in Texas were nonexistent. I was 19 years old, had my Army fatigues on and yes, they were bloused up. That’s when I started to think “It’s ok to take these guns to Fort Sill Oklahoma, right? Wait, I’m going to cross a state line…” and then suddenly smash! I got hit head-on. I had only driven two blocks from the house I grew up in, with Army fatigues on, 10 firearms of various sorts, and enough ammunition to…well, you get the point. It turns out that the lady that ran head-on into my now smashed truck was drunk and I mean drunk. I’m thinking “Ok, well this is going to take the spotlight off my rolling gun safe, maybe.” I call the police and report the accident and being outside of the city limits just a bit, sometimes it’s a wait for the Sheriff to show up. Not this time. They must have been just around the corner. Well, you are not going to believe this. Even though it had been many years since I was, you know in the neighborhood where I had built a reputation of sorts, let’s just say the Sheriffs in the area knew who I was as a young teenager and sure enough it was Officer Deputy Billy, who was always mad. He doesn’t recognize me, but one look at my driver’s license and all I heard was “Kevin? The Kevin Hyland?” and you guessed it, he remembers me. This is not going to go well. All I could think of was “the Hyland curse,” but that’s a whole other blog. Believe me, when I say this, I was shocked when Officer Deputy Billy asked, “Kevin did you rob a gun show?” and my quick reply, “No sir, Mom was a little upset with my Pops and she just thought it was a good idea to remove the guns from the house” and then he stopped me. “Son, I have been to your house three times in the last 60 days. I think that’s probably the best idea I have heard all week. Look at you all grown up! I heard you went off to join the Army – another good idea! Let me get you an incident number and oh by the way, the old gal that hit you, well, she’s going to jail.”
I’m not going to say I was happy she was going to jail, but I was definitely happy that I wasn’t.
