Tulsa, Oklahoma - 1957, October

Tulsa, Oklahoma - 1957, October

Reckless snorted and crow-hops at the bush, almost like he was afraid of it, but I know he was just messing around. It must be because of the weather outside, crisp, cool and breezy air. He’s a young horse, so of course he wants to just run. I also love to gallop so, to let him know I'm the boss, I slide my left hand down the left rain till it's inline with my knee and firmly but gently bring his head around so that my hand is inline with my hip. Then I squeeze with my left leg until Reckless releases and starts to move his back end in circles. His front feet staying in one place. It basically feels like I'm drifting, but on a horse. As soon as he settles, I give him a squeeze and he takes off, galloping through the woods. 

As soon as I can see my house and barn, I slow Reckless down to a trot for about five minutes, then bring him down to a walk for a cool-down. Just outside of the barn I hop down and lead him in. 

My little sister, Julia, is in there feeding Ol’ Red and Prince. Julia is about 5’2” and leen and has long, dark brown hair.Prince is her horse, and Ol’ Red is our older brother, Dally’s horse. Dally is about 5’11”, muscular, and has black, short hair. He is also mine and Julia's legal guardian because our mom died of cancer and our dad killed himself with alcohol, (after Mom died.) Julia rides Prince quite a lot but Dally doesn't ride very much at all. “Hey, Uriah. How was your ride?” Julia says. “Good. How you doin?” I say. She just shrugs and tells me she has been having a rough time at school. I ask if she has talked to her teachers about it, and she says,“Nah. It would make it worse.” I don't think much of it at that moment. We finish doing chores together, then go into the house to get ready for school. I run upstairs and change out of my work/ridding clothes into more school appropriate clothes, as in, they're not filthy. Then I go down to the kitchen to find something to eat and see that Dally has made me and Julia some eggs and toast. I wolf my food down and go run through the house to find all my school books and shove them into my back-pack. When me and Julia are ready to go, Dally gives us a ride to school in his truck. He is 23, so he is out of school and has his license. When me and Julia get into the school, I go left and she goes right. I'm in 10th grade and she is in 8th. 

I kinda just go through the day empty minded other than thinking about the really good long horse ride I will go on this afternoon. (This morning's ride was barely anything.) 

When I get home from school, I get my riding clothes back on, then go ask Julia if she wants to come on the ride. She says yes. We get the horses tacked up, then get going. I notice that when Julia puts her helmet on, she leaves her hair down, covering most of her face. I'm a little confused because she hates having her hair down, but I don't say anything. Later into the ride, when we are on our way home, we decide to gallop across a really flat, straight trail. As we are running, Julia attempts to stifle a grone, but it makes its way out of her mouth. A glance at her and make a double-take. Her left jaw is covered in a blueish-purple bruise, and her face is contorted in pain. I can't stop thinking about what could have happened and when we are done untacking the horses and cooling them off, Julia starts to walk to the house. I say, “Hey, Julie, come here.” (I call her Julie when something is wrong with her.) She turned back and walked back into the barn, stopping in front of me, her head down. I reach my hand out and gently brush her hair from the left side of her face and look at the bruise. She looks up at me, tears running down her face. I pull her into a hug, and hold her there, gently rocking back and forth, quietly saying,“Hey. It's ok. You'll be ok.” when she pulls back, I ask, “what happened? Did you start it or did a little sonofagun start it?”

 She sniffs and then starts the story: “Conner, Dillen, and Jacob. 9th graders. They have been bugging me all school year. They like to corner me and taunt me. Today Conner- he's the leader, kinda. Well, he came at me and punched me in my gut. I think I broke his nose. But, when I started punching, Dillen and Jacob joined in. They got me pretty bad.” Furious, I say, “what the hell! Why have they been doing this? What makes them think they can bully MY little sister?” More gently, I say, “why did you not tell me? How bad are you hurt? Can you breathe ok?” “I didn't want you to be mad at me. And, to tell the truth, I'm having a hard time breathing.” “Damnit. That's not good. Julie, why would I be mad at you? I'm pissed at those boys. Turn around.'' She turns and I lift her shirt to look at her back. I curse under my breath. It's that bad. It looks worse than her jaw. Her back is bruised and the skin has even been broken. She was probably kicked a lot. I brush my fingers over her ribs and she winces. Probably broken. “We're gonna have to bring you into the hospital. You're pretty bad.” “Are you going to tell Dally?” “You want me to?” “umm… does he have to know?” “Julia! You need to go to the hospital. He's gonna find out. I can tell him you got bucked off prince if you want.” “Might as well tell him the truth. Thanks though.” We go inside after I feed and water the horses. Julia hangs out in the barn and watches me spill an entire bucket of water down my boot. And then get hay in it. She starts laughing at me but quickly stops, because it hurts too much.

***

Later that night, after dinner and Julia is in her bedroom doing homework, me and Dally start to clean the kitchen. I figur I might as well tell him about Julia getting beat up. “Hey… ummm… Dally?” “Yeah? What's up?” “Umm. well… Julia needs to go to the hospital. Can you bring me and her there tomorrow, before school?” Dally was just picking up a glass to wash it and he stops, quietly standing there for a minute. He then sets the glass down, his hands shaking and sayes, “what happened? She get bucked off?” “Uh. No. She got beat up. Pretty bad, by some 9th grader boys at school. She has some broken ribs. She got punched and kicked all over.” “Damn. Is that why she was so quiet at dinner? Sure. We can go to the hospital before school. I'll skip work tomorrow and bring you to school after the hospital, but I want Julia to stay home from school for now.” “Ok. I'm gonna go check on her, bring her a slab of frozen meat. G’night. Oh hey. Can you not talk to Julia about the fight? She's a little bit shaken by it.” “Yeah, no problem. Goodnight, Uriah.” 

I grab a thing of meat and head upstairs to check on Julia. I knock on her door, but she doesn’t answer, so I just walk in. She’s laying down in her bed, staring up at her ceiling. “Hey. How you doin? I brought you a slab of meat, for your face, not to eat” “Thanks. Did you talk to Dally?” “Yeah. We're going to the hospital tomorrow. He wants you to stay home from school.” “Ok. Uriah, it hurts. All over.” “I know. Just try to go to sleep.” “Ok. G’night, Uriah.”

In the morning we all go to the hospital and we figure out that Julia has 4 broken ribs and a very minor concussion, (probably got kicked in the head.) 

When Dally drops me off at school he looks my right in the eye and says, “Uriah. Dont do anything stupid.” I don't listen. I know that my grade pasess the 9th graders right after my PE class, which is first period. I love working out and I'm 5’9” and pretty fit. I run twice as many laps as my classmates to warm up than we play floor hockey. I bodyslam one person and trip another. After class, I wait in the hallway for Conner, Dillen and Jacob. When I see them, I walk over to them and grab the caller of Conner's shirt and slam him as hard as I can against the wall. His eyes get really big. I punch him as hard as I can (which is really hard) in the face and then shove his head down so that I can easily knee him in the stomach. Next I grab a fistfull of his hair and slam his head into the wall.

Done with him.

Next is Jacob. He comes at me but I'm ready. I trip him and when he falls I make it so that his face collides with my knee. He covers his head with his arms wich is dumb because I can easaly get his torso. I kick him in the ribs a few times. His face was bleeding a lot, so I move on to Dillen.

He tries to leave, but im not about to let one of the people who beat my sister up leave without a little bit of blood on them. I shove him against the wall and punch him in the face a few times then I knee him in the ribs. Next I pull him away from the wall and then slam him, as hard as I can back against it, and elbow him in the jaw with my left elbow and then punch him as hard as I can right under his ear. He passes out. Before I leave for math class, I quietly tell the three boys, (even though one of them is unconscious) “Don't mess with my sister EVER again. If you do, I'll pull my knife out on you and you won't be happy. You hear me?” 

When I walk into math class and sit down I get a lot of looks because I'm like ten minutes late. I'm really smart and I understand my math. I'm even good at it. I just don't care for it, so I never answer the questions in class. It's the same in all my classes. I just get through the day, do my homework and don't get all that streast about it. And that's what I did today. When I get home I walk into the house, throw my bag on the floor and go look for Julia. I find her in her room napping. I sit next to her and hope she will wake up soon. She wont wake up. Even if I stare at her for an entire minute. I lie down next to her and end up falling asleep. 

I wake up and Julia is gone. I notice that my knuckles are still all bloody, so I head into the bathroom to wash them off. I find Julia in there examining her bruised jaw. “Nice bruise. How you feeling?” “Good. I still hurt all over. How was scho- what did you do? Why are your hands all bloody?” “Let's just say that those little scum bags should not be bothering you any time soon.” “Really? How bad did you get them?” “Dillen unconscious, the other two on the ground in a lot of pain.” “Wow. Thanks!”

Suddenly we hear loud stomping up the stairs and, “URIAH?!?! WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXPLAIN TO ME WHY I GOT A CALL FROM YOUR PRINCIPAL SAYING THAT 3 BOYS CAME INTO HER OFFICE SAYING YOU ALMOST KILLED THEM?! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO ANYTHING STUPED!” “Sorry. I had to do it. For Julie. Now she won't be getting bullied any more.” “You have a week-long suspension. Your principal wants to talk to you so I will bring you in tomorrow and then bring you home before I go to work. Also, Julia, I want you to stay home for at least a week. Since Uriah is suspended, I can go to work. Oh. My punishment to you is no riding for a week. No riding for you either, Julie. Also, both of you have to make supper tonight. I'll go do horse chores. Get going on supper. I'm hungry.”

Julia tells me to wash my hands because she doesn't want blood in her food, so I turn the water and shove my hands in the hot stream. Julia grabs the soap and squirts some on my knuckles and it stings pretty bad so I cup my hands and fill them with water and splash it all over her face. She screeches and runs down stairs. I finish washing my hands, dry them off then head down stairs. When I get down, Julia is sprawled out on the floor, right at the base of the stairwell. “Julie! What happened? Are you ok?” “Uriah. I Can't. breathe. Very well.” “Hey hey hey it's ok it's ok. I'm going to get you into a chair. Hold on.” I pick her up, one arm under her knees and the other arm around her shoulders, and carry her to a chair and set her down. Then I run as fast as I can to the door and scream, “Dally! It's Julia! She is having a hard time breathing!” He runs up to the house and we go over to Julia. She's having a little bit of an easier time breathing. Dally grabs his asthma inhaler, and helps Julia use it. (Oh yeah. Dally has asthma.) All of that helps and Julia is breathing a lot better now. We ask her what happened and she says, “I fell halfway down the stairs and knocked the wind out of me. Then, it hurt my ribs too much to breathe. I'm ok now.” Dally says, “Julia, I want you to stay sitting for a while. Uriah, you're going to have to make supper by yourself.” We both answer “Ok.” and then I head into the kitchen to start supper. When I open the fridge, I can only find some baloney, mustard, bread and lettuce. I make a few sandwiches with all that and put them on the table. After supper Dally cleans up and I go out to say hi to Reckless. He knickers to me and I run over to him and feed him a treat, saying “sorry, bud. I'm not allowed to ride you for a week. I can do ground stuff with you though. Oh, I know you don't like ground work, but it's good for you.”

The next morning dally brings me to school so I can talk to Miss. Johnson, the principal. When I walk into her office, she looks very disappointed in me. I sit down in front of her desk and she says, “Uriah, you know you're not allowed to fight in school. Especially when you're a 10th grader going on some 9th graders.” “Ummm. Did those boys tell you the whole story? I know that I was in the wrong, but do you seriously think that I would go beat some boys up just because I was bored?” “They just told me that you jumped them randomly.” Chuckling, I say, “oh, ok, heh. Wow. those little scumbags. Ha. Do you want me to tell you the entire story?” “I guess.” “Ok well, my little sister Julia came home two days ago with her left jaw bruised, her entire back bruised and cut, 4 broken ribs and a minor concussion. Those three boys beat her up a lot worse than what I did to them. Also, they are 9th graders and Julia is an 8th grader. 3 BIGGER boys against my LITTLE sister!! THAT is why I beat them up. My sister did NOTHING to them. I think they should get suspended, or worse, but that's not for me to decide.” Miss. Johnson is staring at me with her mouth wide open and a look of pure shock on her face. “Wait, what? Those boys beat your sister up, 3 bigger ones against one smaller one? For no reason? What the-... here, just a sec.” She picks up the phone thing that must be for making announcements and calling kids into her office, and in a very ofishal voice, says, “I would like Conner, Dillen and Jacob, 9th graders, to come to my office immediately.” she grins at me and says, “I think you might want to watch this.” About five to seven minutes later, the three boys come in. They already look anxious, but when they see me, I would not be surprised if they wet themselves. Conner’s face is beautiful. A paint pallet of black, blue, purple and red. His nose is very swollen and he has some medical tape across it. Jacob's nose is hilariously swollen. He looks like a blobfish. Dillen’s face is bruised all the way to under his ear that I elbowed and he has a black eye. Miss. Johnson says, “hello boys. Uriah sure did a good job on you. Would you like to try to tell me the entire story again?” And they do.