Monday, December 01, 2008

Dodging Bullets or Diamonds in the rougfh

I was reading over at Ellison's about dodging bullets. Now, I'm not religious. (If I were, it would be nice to be Jewish, because it's such a beautiful religion) I'm a scientist at heart, and really only believe in what I see and can prove. Mostly, anyway.

His post got me thinking about some of the events life. You could say I've dodged a few bullets.

Bullet #1
When I was ten, a man, John-Paul, pushed me out of the path of a bullet. Had he not, the bullet would have likely hit me in the head. Instead, the bullet struck him in his exposed side, traveling to his spine, killing him. My sister and I had seen several events leading up to that event and even told people about it, but no one would take us seriously. After all, it was late on a Saturday night, in an Ice House (bar) called Kelley's. No shit. The police kept having my sister and I repeat our stories, telling us the typewriter was botched up and could we please do it again. Meanwhile, Kelly, the owner of said bar, would buy a coke out of the machine on the stairwell, go outside to the car parked at the curb, pour half the coke out, and re-fill it with booze. And then walk back into the police station and drink it. This was Father's Day weekend 1977. John Paul was my best friend's uncle.

Bullet #2
The following February, the 8th, was a very cold night. We were living illegally in an apartment down the road from the University of Houston. There were a lot of Iranians living there. I remember we weren't supposed to like them. I thought they smelled funny. My dog didn't like them, but we just thou ht that was funny. My father was a handyman for the apartments, doing mostly painting. When that job ran out, we were supposed to move out, but had no where to go. So the other handyman, Bobby (This guy really gave me the creeps. My sister was just barely 13 and he would flirt with her, even though is was in his late 20's), let us stay in one of the unrented apartments. Like I said, it was cold, so my sister and I were sharing blankets. A man woke me up in the middle of the night and told me if I said a word, he would blow my effing head off. He grabbed my sister and dragged her into my parent's room. I remember thinking he would make my dad angry if he woke him up. Heh. My father did not dodge the bullet(s) but ended up walking around for another 20 years with 2 of them in his body. Plus Hepatitis and brain damage that affected his anger management and reasoning skills. I have two lasting thoughts about that- my mother was one helluva strong woman to deal with him, and I wish I'd known the connection between his brain injury and his behavior long before he died. I think I would have understood him a lot better.

There were several other bullets, some I had no control over, others I helped load the gun and put myself in harm's way (figuratively, of course).

I can't say it's a miracle I'm here, since I don't believe in them. But I can say it's been an unlikely string of events that have happened that ended with my still being here, much like the bizarre set of circumstances necessary to make a diamond.

So maybe I'm just a diamond in the rough.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

.... wow.... those are some serious bullets to have dodged.....

Eric

kerrcarto said...

I put the only real one in me myself. On accident of course. 13 year olds, .357 Blackhawks and quickdraw practice don't mix well.

Elisson said...

Good Gawd.

Sometimes I wonder how any of us survive to adulthood...

Mrs. Who said...

Wow. Amazing and miraculous.