HENRY

We were living on Cedar Street, Pueblo, Colorado, in a house with a little rental in back. By the rental house a tall apple tree rested, growing small, sour apples mom baked into pies. When I was little, six or seven, I liked to climb up its trunk, into its branches, climbing higher and higher, until I was in the loftiest of the tallest limbs, and could look down on the whole neighborhood. Nellie, a heavy set black women lived in the small house. Part of her rent was watching my sister Myra, and I when my mother worked, and she was the one who had to coxed me out of the top of the apple tree I had scaled, and to scared to climb down. My legs shaking she would say, “Now, honey, put yer foot on that limb an’ let yerself down to it. Now put yer other foot on…” Twenty minutes later I would be on the ground getting into some other mischief. Nellie’d stomp off, look over her shoulder, and remark, “Chile‘, if’n ya climb tha’ tree one more time ya’all ken stay up thar.”

I believe it was at the Whitman Hotel my mother, Annabel, met Henry, and married him on May 2, 1953. Mom had me and Myra to raise, and I think she needed the money for security, as Henry was making 500 a month, when 300 dollars was a good wage. We were just getting by on her pay as a night nursing attendant at St. Mary’s hospital, and the 87 dollars in social security from dad dying.

Shortly after mom and Henry married he brought home an Emerson 12” T.V. incased in a large, purple console. Now, I didn’t have to go to a neighbors house to watch Captain Video. He brought ten live frying hens home in a wooden crate, and with a one handed swing snapped their heads off. Our back yard was full of bloody chicken heads and their counterparts flopping all over the place. A galvanized tub was filled with boiling hot water, and it was Myra’s and my job to dunk the chickens, and holding them by the legs, pluck feathers. With Henry around we had more food in the house. I was nine at the time, and it seemed we were moving up in the world.

Henry was a beer-a-holic, an alcoholic who only drinks beer, because whiskey makes him go mad, nasty, and want to fight. He was vastly over weight, had short, black wavy hair, and round, fat face. It was discovered later he had spent time in San Quentin Prison. There he had learned his trade as a Chef. At the Whitman Hotel, Henry received a tip of fifty dollars for his pork tenderloin with a special lemon sauce, from Gene Autry, who was performing at the state fair. (Autry also liked to drink the spirits and while 2000 spectators watched, could not mount his horse in the middle of the arena). Henry’s drinking was put up with at the Whitman, as no one could put a meal together more economical and delicious than Henry. The management would fire him for being drunk, and hire him back later.

Henry staggered in one evening, while we watched Snooker Lansing sing an Irish tune on Lawrence Welk, mom’s favorite program. Henry slithered through the front door drunker than a skunk. His personal joke; how do you order lima beans, was a sheep bleat and the implied blowing of wind. “Hellooh,” he slobbered. “Mhaha, Mhaha, thpppththth!” Henry plopped into his easy chair. You could have lit his breath with a match. Mom didn’t say anything, just folded her arms, and gave him a dirty look. This would not be the last time he came home late wobbly smashed, as it became a weekly feature.

One day I arrived home to find mom in the bathroom bending over the bath tub wringing out something. The bath tub was all the way to the faucets in bright, red bloodied water. There was a shirt floating in the redness, and mom was dunking a pair of blood soaked pants.

“What’s happened, mom?”

“Henry was stabbed!” she said drying her hands. She seemed calm, not hysterical.

“Where is he?”

“In the hospital,” she declared, “ and I have to get down there. Leave the tub alone, and shut the bathroom door I don’t want your sister to see it.”

Henry had been fired from the Whitman and was working at the Steel Center Club restaurant. He was to deposit the days receipts, and carried the money in a bank bag. A man stabbed Henry in the side, and tried to snatch the money. Henry held on to the robber with one arm and money with the other. The police were called and Henry hung onto the thief, who continued stabbing him. The police arrived, cuffed the bad guy, and called for an ambulance for Henry who was stuck six or seven times. He was lucky, the blade was short, and couldn’t penetrate through his fat. He was in the hospital a few days. When he came home he was fresh faced and healthy looking. He went back to work, and that night came home drunk.

I was sleeping in our dining room on a roll-away. I was awakened by the slamming of the front door. Henry stumbling in and went into their bedroom located just off the front room. Through the wall I could hear arguing. I laid in bed, eyes wide , scared, holding my breath. On the other side of the wall shrill voices, and a loud bump against the wall. Mom come rushing into my room, right hand covering her face, and into the bathroom she closed the door and switched on the light. A shaft of light escaped out from under the door, and I watched her shadow dancing in the beam as she moved about. When she came out I could see her upper lip was bruised and swollen.

“What happened, Mom?”

“Nothing! You lay down and go back to sleep,” she said walking past me and back into their room.

The stillness was deafening…I got up,… my whole body shook. I walked into the kitchen, opened the utensil drawer, and looked down at the variety of knives. I picked a long bladed butcher knife, turned, walking to their bed room. I went in, knife blade pointing downward, raised it over my head. Henry sat up a surprised, a quizzical look on his face. My hand was trembling. I blurted out, “D-Don’t y-you ever hit my mom again ‘cuz I’ll, I’ll, I’ll kill ya.” and swiftly walked out. Back in my bed, through the walls I heard Henry sobbing.

On Halloween, I went trick-or-treating, came home to find Henry passed out on his back in front of the door reeking of beer, Myra on the couch; mom in the easy chair.

“He fell there and we can’t pick him up.” Myra said with a loathsome look and her arms folded.

Henry was breathing heavy, and with each breath would emanate a loud raspy groan, sucking air in, and loud grown out. There was a knock on the door, I opened it. Three little kids dressed in costumes yelled “Trick or Treat” and stood mesmerized ,staring at Henry lying there. The candy bowl was next to the door. I grabbed some candy, threw it into their paper sacks and quickly shut the door.

“Don’t open that door again, and turn off the porch light!” Mom screamed.

“What about the little kids?”

“I said, turn off the light!”, Mom said, “do you want them to see that stinkin’ drunk lying there?” I turned the light off. Myra reached over and shut the table lamp off, putting us in the dark. ”We’ll go in the kitchen and sit.” mom said. We followed her into the kitchen, sat around the table, and listened to Henry’s bellowing breathing in the living room.
Mom had had her fill…Henry moved out.

Henry was fired from the Whitman for the last time after coming in drunk and slobbering over a kittle of green beans, picking them out with his fingers and slurping them down. He then proceeded to pass out during the busy lunch hour. After being kicked out of the house by mom, and burning bridges at other restaurants in town, he landed a job in Estes Park at the Stanley Hotel. (The hotel was used in the 70’s for the movie “The Shinning”.) Located above Loveland, Colorado in the Rockies, it’s the gateway to the wondrously beautiful, Rocky Mountain Park. In August Henry came back to Pueblo trying to get back in the good graces, but mom had had it, and told him in no way could he ever come back to live with us.
He asked if I wanted to go back with him for a month before school started. Henry said I could ride horses at the hotel, and there was lots to do there. Horses? Mountains? Mom said take off if I wanted, and I wanted to go.

It was getting late in the evening as we started our climb up the two lane, serpentine road to Estes Park in his 1948 Plymouth coup. As the sun started to set, Henry speeded up, screeching rubber as we rounded turns in a flash. I could see over the edges of the road into the canyon that I was sure any minute we would be flying off, as the car zigzagged on both sides of the road. I hung onto the armrest, squeezing so tight my knuckles turned white and I had the sickening, queasy feeling my stomach was about to erupt. “Slow down, Henry, why are you going so fast?”

“The headlights are out. We need to get there before dark… I didn’t realize how late it was getting…” Henry said, both hands holding tightly to the steering wheel as we traversed each turn.

The sun disappeared on the horizon leaving us in darkness. There was no moon to help guild us, and he slowed down to a much lower speed, slowly creeping round turns, hoping to heaven not to see a flash of headlights. “We have parking lights, but that’s it. It’s only another mile or two. We’ll make it.” He said with the hint of a doubt.

After driving blindly for the longest ten minutes of my 11 years I saw the lights of a town ahead and we were soon driving into the hotel entrance. Henry parked the car in a back area designated for workers. He placed both arms to the elbows on the steering wheel, lowered his head, resting it on his hands, took a deep sigh, looked over at me and said, “Well, here we are, safe and sound.”

I spent three weeks there, no supervision. I could go anytime to the stables, have a horse saddled, and ride anywhere for a couple hours. I played tennis with a young women, who after finding out I couldn’t hit the hairy ball worth a dang, said she forgot something in her room and would return soon. I waited an hour before I realized she wasn’t coming back. If I got bored there was a movie in the village. The only movie playing was an Ethel Merman musical and beyond belief I enjoyed the movie, even though Ethel’s voice reminded me of a rusty hinge. I had the run of the hotel until management asked who is the unkempt kid running lose. Henry told me to stop and desist running through the halls and causing problems.

I never saw Henry take a drink for the time I was there. He kept questioning me about mom. “Is momma seeing anyone?” I kept saying no, though I knew she had.“Do you think momma will ever let me come home?” He’d ask, and I would shrug my shoulders.

When it was time to leave. Henry said his friends would take us to Denver where Henry would put me on a bus home. There were three men, Henry and I packed into a 1951 grey Dodge. I sat in the back seat between Henry and this man smelling of whisky and cigars. We drove down the mountain and a few miles out of Loveland a loud BANG!, made me jump. The car was shaking badly as the driver pulled over. We all climbed out and milled around looking at the flat. All the men nervously looked up and down the highway. The drive said, “Everyone, back in the car,” and I thought there must not be a spare. He drove slow, bumping along on the flat until we reached a Texaco station. The trunk was opened, there sat a spare and the station attendant changed the tire. Soon after Henry put me on the bus home telling me to tell mommie he loved her. Mom found out later when Henry phoned, the car was stolen, and the why the driver wouldn’t stop to fix the flat They were worried the Highway Patrol, driving by, would stop to check. Henry said he didn’t know; Mom said, likely story.

Six months passed, Henry began drinking heavily again, and was fired from the Stanley. He moved to Cheyenne Wyoming to look for work. One evening Henry went with two men he met in a bar, to an apartment to play poker. Henry brought a six pack of Coors Beer. A bottle of whiskey was handed around and the three slugged it down. The stakes were high. Henry was losing. Around nine o’clock there was only one can of Coors left in it’s cardboard container. The man picked it up and attempted to open it with a church key.

“Thas my beer, “ Henry slobbered and reached for it.

“Mine now!,” the guy said jerking it away.

Henry stood up, “ I bought it an’ I’m drinkin’ it”

The man stood facing Henry. “They’s ony one way you’ll get this beer, an’ thas threw me, mister!” He took a step back and raised his fists.
Henry reached around pulling a 22 pistol from his back waistband. Pointing it at the guy, “Gemmie my beer…”

“Ya think I’m scared, Henry?… You think that scares me?… You ain’t got the guts..”

BLAME!

Henry shot him in the shoulder…the man fell over the table, dead. The bullet entered his right shoulder, hit bone, and tumbles end over end downward to his heart. Henry fled to a relatives house. The gun was in his trembling hand as he begged for money. “I just shot a guy. I got to get out of town.” He pleaded, showing the expended shell casings in his other hand.

“I don’t have any money, Henry!”

“I ain’t goin’ back to the joint…Tell momma good-by,” Henry put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

Mom wondered where Henry got the gun. I knew, I was there, but didn’t say. Before leaving for Estes Park we drove to a butcher shop on the North side. He said he had to pick up something, and I fallowed him into the market. He asked the butcher behind the counter if he had “it“. The man went in the back, coming out with an apron wrapped around something heavy. Henry told him he’d get it back to him and we left. In the car he unwrapped the apron revealing a silver, 22 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol, with a short barrel. “Wow!,” I said eyes wide. “Can I hold it?”
“Sure, here.” he said and handed it to me

There was just five or six people at his funeral. My mom and I were the only ones from our family. The butcher sat in the front row with us. He knew that I knew, but nothing was said. There was three people at the grave site ceremony, mom, me, and the preacher. I couldn’t blame Henry for not wanting to go back to prison. I felt sorry for him in a way, and in another, thought, ‘I guess ya had it coming to ya, ya drunkin’ bum!’