The Killing Fields
2003-09-13 | 11:21 a.m.

This morning I was thinking about Troy and the time I thought he was going to kill me. We were out on a ranch in the middle of nowhere in West Texas. It was 2 or 3 in the morning, and we had gone out there under the premise that he was going to work. He was a pumper in the oil fields(which means he looked after oil wells). So we went out there, and he did something to a pump jack (that's the thing that pulls oil out of the ground), and then we were headed back home. You may recall from a previous entry that Troy never really sleeps, so the late hour wasn't disconcerting. I'd been out working with him before, so that wasn't the problem. And he always carried a hand gun, so that wasn't really frightening either. What was really scary was the fact that suddenly all these things came together. We were in the middle of nowhere (where you could easily dump a body and let it be forgotten forever), in the middle of the night, and he had his gun. Then there was also the night's conversation. Our conversations were always really really creepy;you've read my likening them to psychological torture before. Well, this was no different. So the gun was next to him, and I could feel this weird tension building. It was like he was thinking about it, but he was hesitating. I could see it. I remember being terrified. I remember holding back the tears, because I knew if I let on that I knew, he would do it. So I grabbed the gun. I acted like I just wanted to know about it, since I'd never really held one before. I think I was probably 13 when all this happened. Anyway, he wanted it back. I was holding it, and I was going to unload it. I told him I wanted to see the bullets or something dumb like that. I just needed to unload it. So he told me to give it to him...he'd unload it. And he seemed mad. I wouldn't give it to him. I managed to get it unloaded and then I put the gun down and held the bullets in my hand. That night was so horrific.

So today I was thinking that i could have killed him and gotten away with it. My entire family would have backed me. He had, after all, threatened to kill everyone at one time or another. It would have been self defense. I wouldn't have been punished. Everyone would have understood...but what would it do to you to know that you had killed your own dad?

I can't believe he's still alive.

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