COLLATERAL DAMAGE

My Grandpa and I walk home from Uncle Frank's house. We step from shadow to light and back again. The setting sun is a red spill on the horizon that causes the sugar sand ridge we walk to blaze with the untold trillions of tiny glass bead, bloody reflections. The summer evening is strong with the smell of pine resin running down cat faces cut into pine bark. It gathers in buckets waiting to become home remedies, water proofing and fire starters for the wettest wood.

Silently, my Grandpa's giant paw of a hand reaches down to lay flat against my chest, halting forward motion. The last rays of the sun shine like a spot light on a turkey hen gone to roost in an oak tree. One more step forward and she would be invisible.

His hand creeps from my chest to the Sears and Roebuck bolt action .22 that raises as slow as the sun sets. Even now, I can hear the breathe ease from my Grandpa's lungs and see him wait till the point sight moves with the next heartbeat. In the last light of day a sharp CRACK sounds and two turkeys fall. One dead and one wounded enough for me to catch and kill with a quick wring of the neck. I was always so proud my Grandpa never took a "maybe" shot. He never wounded. He would always kill as humanely as possible. While this second turkey hen didn't suffer long, it bothered us both.

Neither of us saw that second turkey hen. It was an unbelievable lucky shot, never to be repeated. He was so focused. Solid as stone and unmovable as he took that patient and planned shot.

Now in prison, telling the story of this lucky shot takes on a whole new light.

From the abundance of the heart my pen speaks, and from the absence of the soul man wounds.

They call it collateral damage or the ripple effect.

The truth is when we focus so hard on what we want, we often don't see who else will be hurt.

In my selfishness and greed, I was so focused.

I didn't begin to see the hurt I would cause my family, the ones I love the most.

Solid as stone and unmovable, I took an unrushed and planned shot to get what I wanted.

Never once thinking, I would fall wounded and dying too.

I'm just waiting for someone to wring my neck.