3 - The Crash (Part 1)

In the summer of 1979, my world turned upside down and shattered into a million pieces. I didn’t see it coming; kids never do.

I remember sitting in the living room of the house my dad built with his own two hands, just a few years earlier. Montana was forged by hardscrabble pioneers, all staking their claims and making a go of it in the American West – ours was a half-acre lot, out on the east edge of town. The "town" was Billings, so the “east edge” meant we lived in Lockwood. And no one lived in Lockwood unless you had to.

When I was growing up, Lockwood was all trailer parks and starter homes, full of working-class families just trying to get ahead. Now it’s got more refineries and truck stops and used car lots and RV repair centers. But five decades later, it’s still basically the same place.

Back then, the trees were all small, newly planted in front yards, except for the big old cottonwoods that grew along the irrigation ditches. In reality, we were still dirt poor. But we had a house! We were living in the biggest city in Montana! And because we lived on the outskirts of town, there were miles of open hill country right behind our back fence – with coulees to explore, caves to dig, and ditches to swim in! From my perspective, we were rich.

Lockwood was a good place for kid like me to land (fresh off a pig farm in eastern Montana). This was my first home, the first place that was ours, the first place where I felt like I belonged.

But now my parents want to talk – with me alone, separate from my siblings. So here we are, sitting on that couch in the living room.

This can’t be good.

It’s the same couch dad's been sleeping on for the past few weeks; I remember finding it odd at the time, but I'd shrugged it off; he probably just stayed up late working again and fell asleep there. (In fourth grade, you still steer clear of alternate explanations.)

Mom starts, “Your Dad and I have decided…”

She pauses, reaching for the right words. But sometimes there aren't any right words, and you just have to say it:

“We’ve decided we are getting a divorce.” My world falls apart.

(Q: Why does time slow down when terrible things happen, when the world as we know it comes crashing down around us? For example, Mom says “We” but she’s the one doing all the talking; Dad’s just sitting there looking empty. How do I remember that, after all these years?

I remember when Dad looked full, sitting around the table after dinner, with him telling jokes and all of us laughing.

He was a traveling salesman then, so he heard plenty – if you want to sell someone something, you’d better learn how to shoot the shit. Jokes are a key ingredient in that time-honored tradition.

And Dad learned fast.

He had this old favorite about The Lone Ranger. Now, a good joke takes its time unfolding; half the humor is in the setup. In this particular case, The Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick are being chased by Indians(the term was still current in western diction back then). There are Indians right behind 'em! More Indians up ahead! Indians on the left! Indians on the right!

When the desperate truth finally dawns, Mr. Ranger turns to his old friend and says: “Tonto, it looks like we are surrounded by Indians!”

Tonto then calmly replies – and Dad would cock an eyebrow and do his best solemn, Indian deadpan here – “What you mean ‘we’, white man?”

We kids would roar at that punchline. But it doesn’t feel so funny now.)

What do you mean ‘we’, Mom?

Mom plows on. “Nori, Jake, and Nick are too young to understand.” (How old were they then – 7, 5, 2?) “But you’re old enough to decide.”

"So… Which of us do you want to live with?”

What do you mean, ‘I have to decide’?!?

I am 10 years old. My world is exploding. Everything is slow motion. I want to live with everyone, as a family!

(I still wonder: Why did Mom give me the choice? Did Dad fight for me to have it? Was she confident I would choose her, just one more twist of the knife on her way out the door? Or was she trying to do what was best for me? I don’t know. After all these years to think about it; I still haven't had the courage to ask.)

What comes out is simply: “I’m staying with Dad.”

Never mind that it's technically impossible, since he’s a traveling salesman who spends all week on the road. It just feels so wrong, so unjust. It’s on my lips in an instant; I don’t need to think about it:

You’re giving me a choice? I choose him!

(It’s odd, really, because up until this moment – at least as I look back and remember it – I’ve always been closer to my mom. Now, in an instant, my loyalty and allegiance changes. We’ve never been close since. I’m not saying I like it that way… that’s just how it’s been. Since I was ten.)

It’s equally odd to consider how different life would have been had I chosen otherwise. But how could I have chosen otherwise?

Just like that, it's over. The marriage. Our family. My golden years.

I’m not sure how long it took from that moment we sat on the couch until the paperwork was official – Weeks? Months? Certainly not longer. But I suspect the things leading to that dissolution had been brewing for years. Still, for me, it all happened so quickly; much of what comes after remains blurry.

All I know for sure is this: at the start of summer, we were a happy family; by the end of summer, Mom was gone and the kids with her.

Five days after the divorce was final, she got married again.

(Was it really just five days? I’ve believed it was that number for as long as I can remember, but it feels so impossibly fast. Sometimes I say it was two weeks, just to be safe. Would that make it any better?  It certainly wasn’t longer. Still, details are fuzzy and I lack the courage to ask for clarification. What does this say about me? How does any of this help?)

My world was still upside down. Nothing would ever be the same.

None of this happens in a vacuum.

Looking back, I am surprised at how many significant childhood memories take place in the year leading up to The Crash.

Star Wars came out the previous summer (1978). That may have been the first time I saw a movie in a theater, on the big screen. In my mind, Indiana Jonescame out a year or two later. (In fact, it was 1984. There’s a world of difference from third to ninth grade – yet in my memory, these two movies happened back to back. Why do our minds reconstruct the past? What else do I misremember?)

Both movies bore similar fruit: I wanted to be a hero, an adventurer. I was already good friends with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. But after the summer of 1978, I was all about Star Wars. My world was rapidly expanding.

I started fourth grade that fall. Fourth grade is the year I got glasses. I don’t recall exactly when it happened, but they sure did make a difference.

Suddenly, I could see again – and there was so much I had been missing!

(One of the benefits of those glasses is they help me date all those old childhood photos. Me with no glasses? Pre-fourth grade. That album cover on Life In The Wilderness, where I’m rocking a red flannel shirt with my orange Lockwood Superette baseball cap? Post-fourth grade. Because I’ve got glasses. And it was probably June, based on the snowpack in the background…)

Fourth grade is also the year I shot my glasses. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s when it happened.

My best friend Mark lived a few doors down. We used to prowl around the neighborhood together, with slingshots or BB guns, looking for stray dogs or old tomcats or any bird that managed to sit still for long enough for us to get off a shot. We weren't allowed to shoot songbirds (no robins!) or state birds (no meadowlarks!). Dad was very clear on that – we might live in Lockwood, but we weren't rednecks! But sparrows, starlings, magpies and crows... those were riff raff in birdland, and fair game if you could get 'em.

Mark and I got our fair share.

But Mark’s BB gun was better than mine. His had a pump forestock; the more you pumped it, the harder and further it would shoot. Ten pumps was like lightning. Plus his could shoot pellets, which flew straighter and cut a swath when they hit their target.

My BB gun, on the other hand, was just an old Daisy Red Ryder, the kind with a lever-action like you see in A Christmas Story where Ralphie Parker shoots his eye out. (What kind of kid shoots himself in the eye with his BB gun? Probably the same kind of kid that would shoot his glasses with a BB gun).

The only advantage to my BB gun was that it held hundreds of BBs. So, while Mark’s BB gun had a lot more oomph up front, I could get off ten shots to his one by using my Daisy lever-action.

All that was fine for shooting at your neighbor’s house in the dark. (This was great sport to be sure: we’d sleep outside on warm summer nights, hiding in our sleeping bags behind the bushes. Once it got good and dark around 11 PM, we’d start surreptitiously squeezing off rounds at Mr. Rollerkampf’s metal chimney, because his dog barked at everybody and no one liked him anyway. You could always tell when you hit his chimney because of the metal pinnnng! caused by the BB ricocheting off through the night. There was an art to it - just enough to make him notice, not enough to get caught.)

My BB gun was fine for shooting at chimneys (which wouldn't fly away). But when it came to live game, you usually only got one shot. So when shooting at real, live targets… my BB gun just stunk.

I would pull the trigger and (literally) see my BB arcing lazily toward its target, only to swerve wide and miss. I was like a baseball pitcher with great movement, but no speed and no control – one shot my BB veers four inches to the left; the next time it goes wide to the right. On the rare occasion I managed to hit the target (plunk the batter), it packed all the wallop of a wiffle ball.

Except one fateful day, when a sparrow landed on the fence.

Now, while Mark was trying to grab his gun and get a BB into his chamber and quietly start pumping, I just worked my lever-action and fired off a round. Pow! For once (Lord have mercy!) that BB actually flew straight as an arrow, across the yard, where it smacked that bird straight in the chest. Bam!

What happened next?

Absolutely nothing. The BB bounced off. The bird flew away. (Wiser, to be sure: no need to fear that kid’s Red Ryder!) I was livid.

“My. Stupid. Gun!" I raged. "It's terrible! It's pathetic! It’s so weak it won't even kill a sparrow! Why, it wouldn’t even break my glasses!”

“Yeah it would,” said Mark. (He had spent enough time around farm kids to know just the right inflection).

“No way!” said I. "Watch."

Then I took off my glasses, set them on the ground about ten feet away, cocked my gun, squinted, and fired. Bam!

It was a direct hit. My glasses shattered.

“Ooooh!” cried Mark, shocked and little bit giddy. “You are dead! You are in so much trouble!” He paused. “What are you going to tell your folks?”

That was my first major moral crisis.

I had done something that I knew was both wrong and foolish (and very costly!). Worse, my crime was written all over my face – or would be, as soon as I put my glasses back on.

I was in deep trouble, and I knew it.

I thought real hard. What would Luke Skywalker do? I had no idea. But Tom Sawyer? I figured I could make a pretty good guess...

So I picked up my glasses, and looked meaningfully at Mark. Then I let them go. They fell harmlessly to the ground (still shattered).

“I dropped them,” I said. Which was true (technically). But I was lying, and I knew it. To this day, this remains the first and only time I remember lying to my parents.

But the amazing thing is… They bought it! Hook, line, and sinker.

I had told my first lie, and I had gotten away with it! Stretching the truth might be no big deal for a kid like Mark (a year ahead of me, and wiser in the ways of the world) – but it was heady stuff for me as a fourth grader. My conscience luxuriated in the newfound potential.

I had gotten my first taste of the Dark Side, and it wasn’t half bad. At least not until Maxwell went and spoiled it.

Max was a cousin of mine, several times removed. His folks lived on the west end of town (the nice side). But we were related, and we attended the same church, so that made us friends.

Every so often, our parents would coordinate a weekend sleepover. This Friday afternoon, it was his turn at our place. So after school, his mom drove him all the way across town, dropped him off at our house, and we promptly got busy catching up. I told him my secret about the glasses. And he thought it was hilarious!

Don’t worry, he said, your secret is safe with me!

But I had forgotten that Max had a tendency to start yapping. And Dad was really good at getting people to let down their guard.  

That night as we sat around the dinner table, we were all in high spirits. We were old friends reunited. We were witty and clever. My dad had just told one of his jokes (maybe about The Lone Ranger). Max was laughing so hard he was almost crying. Everything was funny. Everything was fine.

Until Max forgot himself, and suddenly blurted out: “Christian, I can’t believe you shot your gla…”

He froze mid-word, realizing his mistake.

It was too late. The entire table went (deathly) silent. Everyone looked at Max. Everyone looked at me. My siblings looked on in excitement. (Remember, farm kids love accidents.) As for me – I just jumped up, rushed downstairs, and hid in the basement.

It was very quiet for a long time.

Eventually, Max came tromping down the stairs, his head hanging. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your folks said I’ve got to go home.” Then he tromped back up the stairs, and it was quiet for even longer (while Max’s mom drove all the way back across town to come pick him up again). After what seemed like hours, I heard the gravel crunching as her car pulled into our driveway, then again as she drove away.

And then came Dad’s heavy tread, as he tromped down the stairs…

I don’t remember what he said. But I do remember the spanking. And his disappointment. I’ve had a hard time lying ever since.

>> Next up: The Crash (Part 2)...