Stories from the Past: Dot's Gun

Today, I had to go into town to make some phone calls (don't ask...), go by the bank, and drop off a letter at the post office. Of that, I only accomplished making one of the two phone calls I needed to make. It wasn't that I got busy, necessarily. I mean, yesterday I watched the last 14 episodes of Buffy Season 5 (a fantastic way to spend a stormy Sunday if I do say so myself). I was talking to my mother...and then to my father when my mom went to rehearsal. And they were both in the mood to tell me stories about my family. Naturally, I probed the deep dark past. I got answers to a lot of questions that had been puzzling me for a while...but I promised my mother that the stories wouldn't end up on this blog...well, most of them.

Okay, some of them.

Anyway, here's a snippet of a story from this afternoon:

My Grandma Dot shot her husband in the leg.

Okay, not exactly. See, the thing is, my G'ma Dot (my mom's mom) has been married eight times, and the man she was married to at the time, DeWitt, was husband number two. My mom was sixteen and she and her younger brother David were the only two of her four siblings who were still at home. G'ma Dot and DeWitt met, got married, and things seemed to be okay. And then, things started to go bad. DeWitt started drinking and acting crazy. And my grandmother, back in her firecracker days, wasn't going to have any of that.

DeWitt was standing out on the front porch, drunk and banging on the door, demanding to be let in. He was a big man...250 pounds...over six feet...and redneck as hell. Mixing his upbringing with his liquid courage, he pounded on the door, promising that he would beat the hell out of Dot the moment he got inside. My grandmother knew that he wasn't lying. So, she went back to her bedroom, pulled out her pistol, ran to the front door, and shot through the door.

DeWitt immediately began cussing her for all that she was worth and started limping back to his car. Dottie (my mom) screamed "Shoot him again!" Dot barely nicked the man...the bullet when clean through his pants and only grazed his legs (Tis merely a flesh wound). DeWitt drove off, but he swore that he'd be back and get his revenge.

Dot believed that he would be back and that he'd do exactly what he said. She was effectively now a single woman who had two children to look after and protect. So, she pulled a disappearing act. In the course of that single night, she moved all of her stuff out of the house that she shared with DeWitt. She quit her job so that he couldn't follow her to her new house from work and got a new job. She moved on and considered divorcing DeWitt to protect herself and her children.

Well, DeWitt got off the sauce. And Dot came back to him. By this time, DeWitt's daughter (from a previous marriage, as all of Dot's kids were from her first marriage as well) had gotten pregnant and, because she was...white trash-y...she gave the baby to Dot and DeWitt to raise. Well, DeWitt started drinking again. And Dot wasn't going to stand it. So, she pulled another disappearing act. This time, she got her mother Eula involved, and they disappeared with David to Panama City Beach...but not before dropping that baby off at DeWitt's parents house. It was hard to lose that baby, but it was easier to lose that baby than lose her life...and that's how the Panama City chapter of my mother's life began.