The death of Petey.
As a child of the sixties the dinner table was often filled with conversation about current events. Any observer of that time knows those issues can provide for volatile and opinionated views. My table was no different. However, when the conversation turned abrasive-- or too difficult for the mind of a child to comprehend, I would often retreat under the table and visit my best friend "Petey". Petey was a very good companion to an only child, but there was something else about Petey-- he was invisible and could only be seen by me. He was my first "Bestie".
One year, Petey visited at Thanksgiving. I emerged from our secret place beneath the table with Petey perched on my finger so everyone could meet my best friend. Instead, my extended family looked at me oddly and my uncle proclaimed that I might need to be evaluated by a competent pyscho-therapist. Of course, I had no idea what that meant and wasn't concerned in the least that no one could see my feathered friend. I took Petey back to his home beneath the table and returned to my dinner.
A little later in life, around twelve, my father gave me a 20-gauge shotgun for my birthday and took me quail hunting to celebrate. I had hunted with my father many times before, but never with a loaded gun! I was there to pet the dogs and walk the fields with my father. Now it was different. Now I was armed.
Let's just say that I'm not a natural born killer.... It took several hunts before I fired my gun, and when I did I missed badly. My father, a very observant man, picked up on that fact quickly. He never confronted me openly, only encouraging me to sight the flight of the bird and systematically squeeze the trigger.
When the dogs flushed the next covey of quail I followed his instructions and felled the bird. My best dog retrieved the fallen bird and dutifully dropped it at my feet. I picked the bird up and watched it die in my hands. I placed the warm bird in my jacket and noticed the crimson stains on my hands.
That night at dinner we ate the birds that had so beautifully flown to their death on that cool, gray November afternoon. I bit down into my dinner and felt the sharp crunch of a shot pellet that was deep inside the breast of the bird. Immediately, I realized something complex and frightening had occurred. I knelt beneath the table to find Petey (whom I hadn’t seen in years) to cleanse my guilty conscience, but he wasn't there. "Petey" was gone and he had taken my innocence with him.
Last week as I was writing this blog, I looked behind me and noticed the dead bird that is pictured above. He had evidently fallen victim and was pridefully placed at my feet by one of my adoring cats. I picked up this still-warm bird and tried to come to terms with the situation. The killing ritual had visited me again.
I remembered Petey and pined for the days of lost innocence. I carefully placed the bird on the scanner and memorialized the moment. Why this? Why now? Perhaps the right to bear arms is even more complicated than I first imagined....
Thought provoking Charlie. Biting into a birdshot pellet draws all sorts of imagery in my mind. Scary. Having been quail hunting, at about that same age, I remember my dad's friend finishing off one of the birds that the shotgun spared. I won't go into details, but the stigma that left wasn't dissimilar to your "loss of innocence."
ReplyDeleteWow. This is incredibly moving Charlie. So crazy how beautiful your photograph is with such death of a creature. It's hard thinking about these things, they must be important.
ReplyDeleteWhat a moving story and what a beautiful image to accompany it! It always surprises me how beautiful images of death can be-- twice now I've also found dead birds by my house and my first instinct was to photograph them. My family and friends thought I was so morbid for doing this, so I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who can appreciate this dark beauty.
ReplyDeleteLindsey- I can't remember if I've showed you these: https://www.lensculture.com/forest-mcmullin?modal=true&modal_type=project&modal_project_id=6032 I, too have had an interest in the intersection of art and death.
DeleteLindsey- Yes! Death is fascinating. I was traveling through India when Rajiv Gandi was killed. I was fascinated by his spiritual guru who facilitated the releasing of his spirit into the ether. It was actually a process! It's natural to be curious-- I don't think it's morbid.
DeleteThe image of the pistol with the giant scope…and, is that a laser pointer underneath the barrel?…is really thought provoking for me. The apparatus of accuracy, of aiming truly and hitting your target, is much bigger than the gun part itself. Seeing clearly, the owner/gangster/target-shooter/assassin/self-defender, or whomever, seemed to understand, is the hard and important part. The image is lovely because it enters that realm of art that is self-aware, of art that metaphorizes understanding, communication, and discernment. How do we shoot straight in life? What if you shoot straight, but you make a mistake in choosing your target? Is shooting straight a virtue by itself, regardless of what the bullet finds? The scope increases your accuracy in one place by obscuring everything else. You can only see one thing…a devil’s bargain!
ReplyDeleteMy loss of innocence also came with the death of beloved animals. They were very real, but also gatekeepers to my imaginary world, where only they and I were capable of understanding the language. My first animal was a cat, who I’d been allowed to choose from her litter, and named Sparky. She was abducted from our yard, along with her daughter Snow, mutilated, and then returned to my front yard, for me to find upon returning from a weekend away with my family. I was eight years old.
Sadness and rage quickly gave way to profound guilt, a guilt, irrational as it might be in one sense, similar to the kind of guilt conjured-up by the images of the guns. It evokes my own failings with regard to obligation…failures to protect. The gun innervates so many moral axes. Protection is noble, so is feeding your family, so are the core attributes of our American myths of the land, and our connection with it. And, guns are an engineering feat that resonates with our mythology of scientific progress, and our noble warrior WWII hero thing. But, how is it sport if the animals we shoot have no chance? Where is the risk for us; the risk that makes it eschatologically fair? And, for all our prattle about self-defense, the statistics are incontrovertible…it’s much more dangerous to own a gun, than not to.
Probably, it’s all about power. Guns are instruments of power, and some people like to have power over others.
Opponents want to protect us from guns. Proponents want to protect themselves with guns. My daughter is reading a book for school. It’s interviews of Israeli and Palestinian kids. What amazes me is that every single kid over there says that all they want is peace, and that’s why they’re fighting a war, to get peace. Not a single one of them ever thinks that they could just choose non-violence.
As usual-- your words definitely hit the mark. The questions you ask are mostly un-aswerable-- sometimes the mark moves while the bullet is in flight and sometimes your target is acquired and destroyed, all in the same moment. The devil's bargain is never benevolent.
ReplyDeleteAs for Sparky and Snow- I'm sorry. No child should ever be saddled with a memory like that- even though we all have them. Why is it that innocence is fractured so permanently? My first cat, Tiger (it's obvious that we improved our pet-naming skills later in life), was a gift of diversion when my Mother and Grandmother were in a bad car wreck. I remember being a five year old child when my uncle tore me away from playing with a new litter of kittens to go to the scene of the accident. I still remember the sights, smells, moans and groans as I looked inside the car that day. My mother told me to go back with my uncle and choose one of the kittens to take home with me. It was probably the first complex emotion I ever experienced.
A few months later Tiger was hit by a car as he was coming when I called him. I understand the guilt. I picked him up and put a band aid on his head, and held him for a long time before we buried him in the back yard. My father took a photo of me holding Tiger earlier that day and it still reminds me of what I felt and could not understand. Photography can do that. Sometimes we hit the mark and sometimes the target hits us--
And, yes, I think you are right-- it is all about power, posturing and accomplishment (hitting your target). That is, of course, as long as you shoot straight...