The Tarnished Shooter

by Charles James

  Lana and I made plans to build houses, eventually grow our own food, make money, and enjoy life one day at a time. Working side by side for almost six months on the remodel project we fixed up the old building and lived there for three years before I started building the house across the road. As much as I wanted to build a little gem like I had seen in the works of Frank Lloyd Wright it was like trying to copy a person’s handwriting.

  I had to find my own voice when it came to buildings. I drew up a plan for a gem of my own which included a block basement and a stone fireplace, even though I wasn’t experienced with masonry work. But I was determined to learn, remembering some of the tips my grandfather had given me before he died. To boost my confidence, I went to the library and read every book I could find about fireplaces and masonry. From the ground up, the whole house would be an experimental exercise in determination and creativity.

  When the two-thousand-plus masonry ten and eight inch block arrived for the foundation I wondered what in the hell I had gotten myself into. It was going to be up to me to put them all together along with a fieldstone fireplace. At first things went slowly as I familiarized myself with the whole process of getting the block laid out just right and the mortar mix to the proper consistency. Then once I started laying the block it felt so natural, almost as if I had done it before, like it was a long lost talent I had forgotten about. Sometimes it seemed as if my grandfather was right there helping me. When the basement was finished I couldn’t believe I actually did all that work. For the first time in years I felt good because I was finally building my own house. It was something I’d thought about doing ever since I was a boy.

  It took me three months to finish the complex masonry basement. The layout of the house had the shape of a four leaf clover. It was something I incorporated into the design just for purposes of luck. For some reason I’d started to believe in the Chinese concept of Feng Shui, a system of placing buildings on real estate for the purpose of attracting wealth and luck. The concept relates to the shape and placement of the structure, what direction to position the entrance (east being the most auspicious), and what materials will allow the best energy flow (called chi) into the structure, thus increasing the inhabitants health and wealth. It would take an entire book to explain everything I learned about the subject. But I enjoyed learning it and incorporating its ideas into my building.

  Lana and I collected piles and piles of fieldstone from her father’s fields to use for the fireplace. An old German who was a mason and friend of the family said my fireplace would be a smoker, but I disagreed because of all the research I had done. Fourteen months later when the house was finished I fired up the full masonry Rumsfeld design fireplace and was excited when it worked so beautifully. To build that house with its fireplace was another boyhood dream that had come true.

  In time, I’d realized I could make many of my dreams come true, despite all of the negativity and put downs I had endured while growing up. The naysayers were not going to destroy my destiny. It was almost as if I had been given a lifelong gift of creativity and determination for being so mistreated.

  A few years after we were married I started having problems functioning. At times I felt like I was going to have a heart attack and die at any moment. One day while I was working for an engineering firm, sitting at a computer drawing plans, I had a panic attack and decided to seek some professional help.

  Those panic attacks came on without warning. One day a few weeks earlier, Lana and I were walking into a department store when I was suddenly unable to breathe. I started to sweat and felt lightheaded. My heart was beating faster and faster. I needed to get out of there fast. I needed to catch my breath. Adrenaline was running through my veins at full speed. When I told Lana I had to get out of that store she was confused because we had just walked in the door. Then once we were back out in the car I explained I had just experienced a panic attack and that’s what happened when they came. The attacks came fast and without warning. Eventually the fear of another attack produced an endless cycle of more anxiety and more fear. She finally understood what I was going through.

  I had to do something. I couldn’t work and was paranoid about everything. I thought people were putting poison in my food—I didn’t trust anyone. Most days I felt dizzy and exhausted like my head and ass weren’t wired together. To get started on the road to recovery, I looked in the phone book for a doctor specializing in panic disorder and made an appointment. I needed some help. Fast! Three days later I saw a psychologist. The professional I went to told me he had many years of experience with anxiety disorders and I thought he seemed like he could help me. After a few weeks of counseling, the doctor diagnosed me as suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder—referred to as PTSD. He said I had been suffering with it for years probably since I was twelve or thirteen. He stated it was because of all the abuse I had taken from my father and then the Marine Corps added more to the mix. He explained that anytime a person experiences extreme fear and is helpless to do anything about the situation it can develop into PTSD. A person doesn’t have to be in a combat situation four thousand miles from home to develop PTSD. That answered the question about anxiety and panic attacks. PTSD was a disorder psychologists had only recently identified and it seemed to have life changing psychological effects on the afflicted. In time the panic attacks came less frequently. I continued to see the psychologist for six months as I worked out many other issues that needed to be dealt with.

  I managed to work again, but occasionally the symptoms returned—struggling with the PSTD for months and even years afterward. I remembered I got those kinds of symptoms when I was in my early twenties and went to see a doctor. The doctors always prescribed me Librium or Valium and after a while the drugs didn’t help. Sometimes with the ringing in my ear and the never ending anxiety fueled by adrenaline then panic—I thought I was going to go mad at any minute. I lashed out for even the smallest irritation. It seemed like I was always pumped up on adrenaline and was easily bored or depressed if things weren’t humming along to my satisfaction. I had plenty of energy though. I could go out at six in the morning and do hard construction labor till six in the evening and then go out for drinks at night. Then just when I thought things were going right, I would slump into a depressing funk. My moods fluctuated like changing wind directions. Those mood swings I believe were a byproduct of the PTSD.

  As the years passed I preferred to work on my own doing carpentry work. I would no longer let employers, or anyone have the control they liked to have over me. I taught myself how to build custom cabinets and fine furniture. I was happiest when I was building those kinds of things; always remembering the days when I helped the old man at his piano store rebuilding pianos. After I graduated from the engineering program I tried to work in an office as an engineering technician or draftsman, but found myself longing to be free, to be outdoors hammering a building together or spending time in my woodworking shop creating another masterpiece, from a pile of cherry or aromatic cedar. Many times I got the itch to do electrical work and hired on with employment agencies or electrical contractors. I helped wire and rewire schools, homes and municipal buildings. Those jobs were short lived, but I always loved doing electrical work or solving electrical problems. I could solve mechanical and electrical problems better than I could deal with the conundrums associated with the relationships of people. I was always like a rolling stone going from one job to another.

  Eight years after I finished building my first house Uncle Seth died of cancer—alone and in pain, suffering in a motel room near the VA hospital. He had only lived to age fifty. The years of hard drinking and smoking marijuana had done him in. He never worked after he was discharged from the Army; he got a government disability check every month and claimed to be a disabled veteran. The war in Vietnam made him edgy and angry so he was virtually unemployable. His size alone created a menacing sort of presence. Nobody was going to hire a guy who looked and acted like Seth.

  His b
ig brother and hero, Les, drowned on his watch, which brought Seth to the lowest form of self-loathing. Or it could have been guilt. There was nothing he wanted to do except ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle, drink beer and smoke pot.

  I once did some remodeling on a house he had bought and he nit-picked about petty little things just like the old man. I believe all those negative attitudes ran in the family and I hoped I wouldn’t end up like that. My youngest sister Jenifer was extremely close to Seth and she took his death harder than the rest of us. The last time I saw him was on a cold gray morning in November when he left my sister’s place driving a rusty old white van. As he drove out of her driveway he raised a hand to me as if to say goodbye. I couldn’t believe how grey, gaunt, and thin his face looked. It was obvious to me the ghost was preparing to leave his once big and strong body. We all recall him as the big, bad, bearded biker who could scare the pants off anyone who ever tried to mess with us. That cold November day, I wish he would have taken a couple of minutes to drive across the street and say howdy, but he didn’t. Somehow I knew it would be the last time I would ever see him.

  I remembered a time a couple of years after I got out of the Marines when Seth, Jack, Clem and I went to this little shit hole of a bar just before the three o’ clock happy hour. Seth wanted to play the jukebox so he passed his hat around to the other eight or nine bar patrons to add to the kitty. Ten minutes later his hat had more than enough money for him to play the jukebox and drink for the rest of the afternoon. When he passed the hat and someone didn’t want to contribute he just looked at them until they got the hint. Seth was a real character in the bar and those are the memories I carry of him. It’s a shame he had to die so young. But I remember when we sat around drinking beer and talking he said he never wanted to grow old. He didn’t want to end up like Grandpa sitting at a kitchen table waiting for his day to come. I guess it was a self-fulfilling prophesy.

  A week after the day I saw him, he passed away. His death would be the first time I remember shedding tears for anyone. He was the uncle who I always thought of as a big brother. For Uncle Seth there would be no funeral, no visitation. His siblings and his daughter didn’t think he was important enough to make a big fuss over his death. He was the baby of the family and they had had enough of his self-centeredness. I couldn’t imagine a family of Christians who cared so little for someone who carried the same blood and sat at the same table during meal times. It made me know how uncaring my family lineage could be. It didn’t surprise me, but it hurt and made me sad that those people who were my family didn’t care about one of their own. To this day, I do not know where he was buried or even if he was buried. A guy like Seth would have liked to have his ashes scattered across the plains.

  The funny thing is that Uncle Seth never saved a dime—he usually spent money before he had it, often on some shady deals buying pot or fencing stolen merchandise. But while he was ill with the cancer, he saved ten thousand dollars to give to Jack a few days before his demise. He wanted Jack to have the money and not his daughter or his sisters who had disowned him for fifteen years. His nieces and nephews were the only people he had left, and Jack was his favorite. Greed and legal wrangling by his daughter’s lawyer caused Jack to have to give up the money. Seth’s last wish on earth couldn’t be granted because of greed. The same kind of greed that runs so rampant on this earth is everywhere. Greedy governments, greedy relatives, and greedy financial institutions all steal the joy out of those who have so little left to give, but want more and more and then begin to simply take and take until ruin and failure finally runs its course.

  ****

  I sold the first house I built shortly after Uncle Seth died. Then we sold the old dance hall. I built another larger house a quarter mile away on a building lot we’d bought from one of our neighbors. On my fiftieth birthday I invited Parker over for a birthday and house warming celebration. He had changed so dramatically I hardly recognized him. The years of hard drinking and night-life had finally begun to creep up and showed on his face. He toured the new house, then gave me his professional approval citing the architectural correctness of the design. Although he appeared aged he seemed to have an attitude of a man still living life to the fullest. One year later I learned he died in the hospital from complications due to alcohol consumption. He couldn’t have been older than fifty-five. In my mind he was a genius and a very talented individual who had succeeded, but paid the ultimate price for his love of the bottle.

  A few years after I finished my second house, Leland died of an overdose from a powerful synthetic narcotic called Fentanyl. That car accident in Texas years before had left one of his legs all torn up and he was given a prescription for painkillers. It didn’t take long before it turned into an addiction. Ten years later, once back home, he visited every doctor in town and had so many friends who fooled around with prescription drugs it was easy for him to get the pain-managing narcotics. Eventually he got busted for illegal possession. Nobody cared about the pickle he was in. It was all about silly rules and regulations—the war on drugs. He got caught up in all the legal government bureaucratic bullshit and received a two-year sentence to serve at a drug treatment center miles away from home. He learned it was more like a prison. I believe he didn’t want to do the time and was just plain tired and worn out, so he gave himself an extra dose of the powerful narcotics knowing or praying he would never wake-up. He could sleep in eternity and never again feel any pain.

  Leland was in jail when he met a preacher who had served as the jail Chaplin. He was one of my junior high school classmates and also a former Marine. Leland took a liking to the preacher and had listened to what he had to say about straightening out and accepting Jesus as his savior. The preacher was giving Leland the kind of help no government institution could possibly provide. Once Leland was released from jail he seemed like he was making an effort to get his addiction under control.

  My mother was always in denial of Leland’s drug use. The rest of us knew someday his luck would run out—he would end up in prison or dead.

  When I tried to hook-up with him and talk about the word of God, I would say, “Learn the promises Jesus makes by gaining strength through faith—you can break the habit.” At that time I was listening to a couple of those TV evangelists and I actually thought they made sense. So I tried using their messages on Leland. Sometimes he played the yes man and other times he told me to stay out of his business. When he was a young boy, I had watched over him just like my old man ordered me to do. His death made me feel guilty for not being able to help him escape the monkey on his back. After his girlfriend of over ten years threw him out of the home they had fixed up together, there was nobody he wanted to trust or confide in. I could see time catching up with him almost as if he knew something was going to end. His face looked years older in a matter of a few months.

  Jake found him in his bedroom that fatal morning folded over on the floor with a needle stuck in his arm. He was not moving or breathing. Jake assumed he was dead and called the police. At the time of his death, Leland and Jake lived at Joe’s house. Leland, lying on the floor dead, must have been a horrible site for Jake. They were only a few years apart and more like best friends than brothers.

  The morning his lifeless body was discovered, I was in the public library looking at some books about life after death. It was a subject I had become fascinated with after my father had drowned. My cell phone rang. It was Joanna calling to tell me the bad news. When she told me he had been found dead, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had just left Joe’s house minutes before and wondered where Leland was. Little did I know he was lying upstairs dead, while I had been sitting one floor below in the same house.

  His funeral brought back many of the old partiers from the lake house days. Leland was the glue who had held that bunch together. The preacher he met while in jail was the one we wanted to officiate at the funeral. He gave an extraordinary heartfelt eulogy to a full chapel of teary eyed friends and family
. In family portraits Leland’s shining face is right in the center. He almost looked saintly with his natural bleach blond hair and good looks. I believe he played an important role by bonding the Barker family and his friends together during some of the most trying times just because of his positive attitude towards others. His friends came from across the globe to see him laid to rest. Some of the girls he dated who still held a flame in their hearts for him stuffed love notes in his shirt pocket. They couldn’t fight the tears in their eyes as they passed the casket. I laid my hand on his stiff, lifeless shoulder and said, “Good bye, Leland. I hope I see you in heaven someday.” His death was truly the saddest day of my life.

  Neither Clem nor Dusty came to his funeral. If anyone would have come, I expected they would have. Dusty was almost like a father to me; I couldn’t figure out why he stayed clear. I knew he was back in town. Years ago he’d divorced his wife then started living with another woman he’d met at an outing. When I tried to communicate with him, he seemed happy, but said he didn’t want to get caught up in the past. I guess his past with us wasn’t important enough. He had turned into a kind of religious fanatic; which makes me think he was paving the way towards retribution. Clem hadn’t even sent a card or called with his condolences. He was like a brother to Leland. Heck, they might have even done a few drug deals together. Michelle, Leland’s once high school sweetheart flew from Rome, Italy, to see him off to the spirit world. Funerals are always a trying sort of event for most. Everyone will attend a funeral at some time in life to say the final goodbye to a loved one or a family member. It is there where we say our final words to the departed.