vincentclark dot com

^{brain leak
needs to be trimmed down, focused, however, will preserve original edit.}
A while back I set a standard for myself, and I admit it isn’t always achieved, but it is something that I try really hard at. That is taking responsibility for what I know I did wrong. My father always told me that he would back me 100% to the police, to my teachers, to anyone I might have got in trouble with. He then told me, “you will wish I hadn’t.” I knew that my father was a far worse person to cross than anyone. I am not quite sure the magnitude of what the fear was. I want to be clear, my father knocked me around a few times, sometimes I don’t think i deserved it, other times I know I did. There are some sore spots I have around my father  about this, but in the end, my father was fair.

I did not live in fear of what the police might do to me, but what my father would do to me. I had seen my father so rarely violent. I knew what he could do, but I never saw that could be unleashed on me, but on the person he was protecting me from. My father always made it clear to me that he would rain hell fire down on the person that hurt his boy. It wasn’t the fear of the harm my father could do to me that kept me in line and out of trouble, it was so much more than that.

(parable of the barrel)

When I was nine years old I was with my father hunting in Willows Ca. I was a crappy hunter, terrible shot, crapped my pants, and  the stories can go on and on about the worst hunter in the Clark family. My father was among the best. Aside from being notoriously bad shot I was also left handed. If you have ever used a shotgun that ejected the shells out of the side of the gun it was most likely coming from the right side. If you haven’t, imagine a place that is in a confined space lights gunpowder hot in off and quick enough to shoot scores of beebees out the barrell. Now you cannot just explode gunpowder in a tight sapce like that with just anything, you need something storng enough to hold the gunpower before it exploded. This is made from metal that doesn’t melt when it gets really hot really fast, it just absorbs it, making the metal really hot. Since the hot shells are ejecting from the right side of the gun, the burning hot metal shot away from the right handed shooter and the shells didn’t have to shoot over the other arm in order to stay clear from any part of a right handers body because the metal was really really hot.

This is an important part of the story. For the hunting story I am going to tell it from one of my grandfather’s hunting buddies, I think the one that used to hunt with Tito.

Now right handed guns are for right handed people, it is why so many right handers like hunting. However if you were like Tom’s boy who was a south paw, lefty, or as everyone else saw it, not right handed. Most the time Tom’s boy had a jacket on, so when the shells hit his arm he didn’t notice. Only a few times did the shells hit skin, the boy dropped the gun in the mud and Tommy spent the rest of the day cleaning it as the rest of his family went hunting.

Most the time it was just my Tom and his boy out there. The family would always split into groups of two, three or four. Almost all the time rest of the family came back with their limit, Tom would always have one bird, and the south paw would be the one carring it. Most of them saw Tom give the bird to his son right before they got to the trucks. That kid was always dirty, no kills, eyes swollen from the brush, he reminded me of a kid in movies, the scronny one with the inhaler. But this kid didn’t have an inhaler, instead he was holding a shot gun. Tom had it specially made for him. It only had one shot but the shell didn’t eject and burn his arm. The kid was already a bad shot, this gun didn’t help. He looked so proud holding it with the barrel up.

As he approuched the group he gently pointed the gun down, in the oppisite directon from everyone else. Pulled the trigger back to unlock it. Now this trigger was different than the others, and really, not as safe, but nobody seemed to give it as second thought. Tom’s boy never pointed the gun at anyone. He put the gun down, cocked back the trigger to unlock it, flipped the barrel open, held the gun steady with one hand, removed the lone shotgun shell, looked down the barrel of the gun to be sure that one didn’t sneak in when nobody was looking. I will never forget how he looked down the barrel, he knew exactly what steps to take to make a dagerous wepon in to a harmless paper weight. He didn’t exactly as he was tought, though some of it may seem silly to anyone outside of the group that was hunting. The family would boast over their kills but they were most proud that everyone made it back, as they always done before.

I think Tom’s boy shot two Pheseants in his life. One was a join kill with his cousin. Tom flushed the bird out, Tom’s nephew was around eleven years old. The bird flew up in front of Tom, inbetween Tom and two boys nine and eleven with loaded shotguns was the bird they were out to hunt.

This is a small foot note in Clark family stories. Most would think it would have been told more, that is if the story went something like,

“Tom’s boy and nephew, bird flies up and pow, both shot at the same time. What sane man would take to kids out with loaded wepons? Poor bastard.”

But that isn’t how the story is told. The bird flew up between the two boys and Tom. Tom could have swat the bird out of the air it was that close to him. The two boys were about 15 feet away, their barrels pointed at the ground. They were always told, you do not point at something you do not intend to shoot. Tom saw the bird, the boys didn’t, they saw Tom and were not about to point their guns at him. The two moved their guns along the path of the bird and the barrels pointed harmlessly to the ground. They followed that bird with thier barrels pointed to the ground until they turn almost 180 degrees and both of then fired their guns at the same time and the bird fell to the ground.

Tom told his brother in law what happend. Bill laughed patting Tom on the back and said, “if it were me, I would have hit ground.” One might think Tom merly froze in the face of two children with loaded wepons wanting nothing more than to shoot the very thing that is flying in front of him. I wondered if Tom’s life flashed before his eyes. But I know it didn’t, and if he though it was appropriate he would have been face down in the ground the moment the bird took off. Tom was confident that the boys knew what to do and if he wasn’t then he would have been there. With so much to be embarassed about Tom knew his boy knew what mattered and that is why he was so proud to bring him back to the group, even if they were empty handed.

I, Vince, did make a mistake once. I dropped my gun near the mud. One can never shoot a gun if there is mud in it and that was a day killer right there. I wasn’t sure if mud even got in there. I paniced and acted like a nine year old, the gun was not cocked, and the chances of it going off without devine intervention was none. The gun was still loaded and I put my face in front of it. I was not thinking. My father swiped the gun from me and I will never forget the stair. I cannot say what it said, anger, disappointment, failure, I could guess but it was a look I had never saw before and it terrified me. Then he said the most terrifing thing I have ever heard in my life. “What would your grandmother say if she saw you do that?” It was beyond comprhension. He gave me back my gun. I pointed it down, with one hand held the gun, with the other I removed the bullet. I put the bullet in my pocket and looked down the barrel, this time from the oppisite end. I did exactly what I was taught. There was a small piece of dirt. I knew not to put anything I do not intend to shoot in front of the barrel of the gun. I knew that I could not shoot the gun if there was dirt there. I could have easily removed it when my father wasn’t looking, but this was not allowed I had not intention of shooting my hand off so I was not going to put it in front of the unloaded gun.

So I did what any nine year old kid that wanted to walk around with guns, hunting with his father and cousin would do, I told my father what had happened. I knew the day was ruined, the gun was dirty, I had to stay back at the truck. My father took the gun, walked around the truck, came back and handed it back to me. I checked to see if it was loaded and the barrel was clear and it was. I pointed the gun down opened it, held it with one arm and put the bullent in. I closed the gun and kept the barrel down. That was a really fun day.

In the end, what does this have to do with how I feared my father. With so much unpredictibility he taught me that there were always constants. He taught me to do right and then taught me what right was. I did not fear a beating, I feared doing something wrong. Now that my father is dead and there is a complete absense of fear that he could ever harm me, but I still follow what he taught me, not for fear of him, but the fear of being wrong. I am not always right, and I mess up, I try to admit when I am to blame, but I do not accept it when it isn’t mind.

Things will always be tough, but I draw on the fact that I do do good, I am better than I think, and I can always do better. I have a far higher standerd to compare myself to than I can expect anyone to hold for me.

That is how I am Tom Clark’s son.