I was six years old when I wet my pants for the first time at school. Because the orphanage had always forbidden us to use the bathroom, except for when “they” thought it was necessary, I had become afraid to ask my first grade teacher to allow me to go and use the little boy’s room. So I would just sit at my desk shaking my little legs, back and forth,
hoping that I could hold it until the bell rang. But this time I was not so lucky because the pain was so severe, and my stomach hurt so badly. I tried to release just a little bit at a time so that I would not start crying or become embarrassed in front of the entire class. But once it started coming out I could not stop it and the pain just got worse and worse.
Several of the boys who were sitting behind me started laughing rather loudly and then the entire classroom, realizing what had happened, also started laughing at me. The teacher motioned for me to come up in front of the classroom and handed me some newspaper and told me to get down on my hands and knees and wipe up the water, which had ran under several of the desks. I tried to laugh along with the other children but I was so ashamed that I did not know what to do, say or how to act. So I just got onto my knees and wiped real slow hoping that the bell would ring so that I would not have to look any of the other kids in the face.
Finally the bell rang and the kids ran out for recess and called me names as they went by my desk. The teacher stood over me and told me that I should be very ashamed of myself and that when the class resumed that I was to stand with my face in the corner for the remainder of the day. After I had cleaned up after myself I walked out into the hallway and just stood there, to embarrassed to go out onto the school yard with the other children. When the school bell rang again, all the children started to file back into the classroom. I quickly ducked into the bathroom and hid in one of the stalls, with my feet up on the toilet seat, until everything became quiet.
Then I ran out of the bathroom and down the long hallway and left the school building. I knew the teacher would call the orphanage and that I would be beaten or switched when I returned to the orphanage that afternoon. So I decided I was going to run away and never come back. As I walked around in different neighborhoods I happened upon this one house which had left their garage door open. Laying against the wall was a large rifle. I walked very slowly up to the building, looked around, then grabbed the rifle and ran as fast as I could back down Spring Park Road back towards the school building.
As I stood crouched behind a large bush I could see the children moving around in my classroom. I opened the rifle to make sure there was ammunition and found it to be completely loaded. At that point I did not know what to do or where to go. I only knew that I could never return to school or to the orphanage and that I wanted to get even with everyone for laughing at me.
I stood there for five minutes or so just listening to the sounds of the cars passing and the birds singing in the large bush. Slowly I raised the rifle and looked down the barrel and I pointed the gun towards the school window where I scoped from child to child and then directed my aim at several of the passing cars.
Then I made my decision, pointed the rifle and I slowly placed my finger on the trigger, holding my breath. Then I closed my eyes tightly, and slowly without moving I pulled the trigger until the rifle jerked and fired with a bang. I just stood there for a moment, then let the rifle fall to the ground.
I felt something wet so I took off my undershirt and wiped my face and eyes. I felt rather sick to my stomach as I picked myself up off the ground. After a minute or so I pulled myself together and walked, very slowly, back towards the large bush where I had been standing when I fired the weapon. I just stood there motionless looking at what I had done. I looked at all the blood and I could not believe that this had really happened or that I had done something this terrible.
I reached out and touched the blood with my finger. I dropped to my knees then fell onto my face and stomach into the dirt and I just laid there crying. I looked upward at the beautiful blue sky and all the puffy white clouds and then I slowly lowered my head back down into the dirt. I was there for the longest time, just looking at the most beautiful orange and black colors laying next to my head. It was still very warm when I finally managed to get up enough nerve to touch the injured area. I shall never forget that limp, lifeless broken neck and the warm motionless body of the only thing (a red-winged black bird) that I ever killed in my whole life.
I returned the BB gun to the house where I had taken it and, yes, I did receive a terrible beating when I returned to the orphanage later that day. But it was a beating that this six year old killer did not mind taking. I just stood in the sewing-room the entire time of the beating with my head hung in shame. As a child in the orphanage I had always thought that there was nothing worse than being a orphan without anyone to love you. Second to that would be having other children laugh at you because you had big ears, and third, having all the children laugh at you when you wet your pants, because you were to afraid to ask to go to the bathroom.
When I returned to school the next day, where the children were still laughing at me, I had already learned a very important lesson about life itself. I now knew in my heart that there was a terrible, even more horrible, feeling far worse than not being loved as a little boy — and that was to hold something warm, dead and lifeless in the palm of my hand that I had killed with a gun.
Something that had only come by to sing to me because I was sad and all alone.
Now as a man I look back and wonder if that red-winged black bird gave it’s own life to save the lives of others.
I shall not write, say or think anymore about this subject.
Roger Dean Kiser, Sr. Trampolineone@webtv.net
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