Leave it to Freddie to destroy anybody else’s good time. Momma comforted me, making sure to clean out the gash on my leg and put a bandage on it. When it started to scab over, the irritation was so bad that I picked at it and the scab was soon infected. Momma applied another bandage that happened to fall off one day when she was at work.

After washing it off again, I looked for a big bandage to put over it and found what looked like a soft, fluffy, clean white bandage in that package from Sy’s store. I placed it carefully over the scabbing area by tying it around my leg. Then, pretty proud of my precocious medical abilities, I thought I’d take a stroll through the neighborhood and show off my cool-looking bandage.

Who should I run into on the street but my cousin Terry? I strutted up, only to watch his horrified face looking me up and down.

“What is that on your leg, Chrissy?” he exclaimed. Before I could answer, he went on, “What you doing wearing a Kotex? You crazy?”

For the life of me, I didn’t know why he was so angry and embarrassed.

Terry wagged his finger at me. “Don’t you ever let me catch you wearing a woman’s Kotex! Take it off! Right now! And don’t you ever let me see you wearing those things again!”

Although the scar caused by the ax incident never went away, I did outgrow the delayed humiliation that hit me when I found out why Kotex weren’t supposed to be used as bandages.

It was yet one more reminder of how much I hated Freddie, how badly I wanted him gone from our lives. But coming up with a way to get rid of him felt like one of those impossible quests given to young inexperienced knights to go off and slay unslayable, fire-breathing dragons.

How could I do it? With a gun? The prospect was terrifying. For Freddie, with his hunting and fishing country upbringing, gunplay was a natural prevalent thing, something he’d been doing all his life. It was also a form of addiction, like drinking, the only way he knew how to express himself when things didn’t go his way, to placate that inner rage, to settle differences when kicking somebody’s ass didn’t do the job.

At age eight, my track record with a loaded weapon was dismal. A couple of years before, one of my friends and I had been playing in an alley near the Thunderbird Inn and found a .22 in an abandoned stove. Without knowing if it was real, we decided to test it out by aiming at somebody—a true nightmare scenario. We missed, miraculously, but the girl we aimed the gun toward could have been killed. When Freddie got that phone call, which may have come from Momma for all I know, he barreled for me. I knew what I’d done was terrible, stupid, and wrong, but I didn’t want to get whupped, so I raced into my bedroom, slid under the bed, and held my breath. Before I had a moment to exhale, Freddie had lifted up the entire bed, exposing me there, shaking like prey. The belt lashing was bad, but the sense that he was omnipotent was worse.