Some people are lucky and have good role models around them growing up. Others grow up
with walking, talking illustrations of what kind of human not to be when you grow up.
I had the latter kind for parents, and don't get me wrong. I loved them. They were my
mom and dad, but the truth is, they just weren't good parents.
When I was 14, we lived in a mobile home park a couple miles outside of the center of
Calcutta, Ohio. Given my parents' preference to drink and use other substances, I was
usually left unsupervised, which believed me as a teenager I was okay with. I had become
rather resourceful and self-sufficient in my time as their son, so it suited me just
fine. Now, whereas most teens would probably use that unsupervised time to get into some
trouble, I didn't. I spent my time wandering the wooded land behind the mobile home park,
or walking through it and on down to little beaver creek to do a little fishing. With
all the chaos inside my home, I found I much preferred being anywhere but there, and
having no money and no friends, well, that meant that I tended to spend my time in the great
outdoors whenever I could.
I had gotten pretty comfortable with the wooded area behind us in the time since we'd
moved there. Now, as an adult, I am certain I was probably trespassing on someone's land,
but I had no notion of that at the age of 14. I had a few particular favorite spots
deep in those woods, but my favorite was the improvised tree stands someone had built.
It was primitive and built from lots of mismatched scrap wood. The latter up to the platform
consisted of two vertical boards with horizontal slats nailed to them. Now, the platform itself
was roughly two feet square, really just enough to sit or stand on, and it was strengthened
with bracing pieces of wood underneath connecting to the tree. And there was something that was
supposed to resemble a railing that ran around the edges.
As an adult who has now learned to hunt, I now know that the tree stand was much lower
than was probably useful. I would guess it was maybe twelve feet off the ground, and
maybe that's why it had been abandoned. Anyway, it was toward the end of June, and the
fighting at home was heating up. It usually did by the third week or so of the month when
the money they got from the beginning of the month started to run out. They were like
animals that turned on each other when resources got low. They would start bickering over who
drank up all the beer or who smoked up all the cigarettes. I had come to understand
the correlation between the calendar and their fights when I was still pretty young,
and I had begun to prepare for them the best that I could, and I kept a small backpack
with a few things rolled away in it for day trips out of the house ready to go at any time.
Well, as much as I could with my limited means anyway.
So when the fighting did begin that afternoon, I quietly picked up my backpack and headed
out the back door, leaving the chaos behind and headed out into the woods and my little
perch. Climbing up and sitting on the small platform, I relaxed and watched the colors
in the sky change as the sun began to sing low. It was peaceful and quiet. I got a can of
ravioli, my can opener, my spoon, and a bag of fritos out of my backpack and had my dinner
with just the quiet of the forest around me and the brilliant colors above the trees. It
was wonderful. After eating, I put the bag of fritos in the empty can of ravioli back in
a little white grocery sack, tied up the ends, and put all of that back in my backpack,
which I then fastened around the makeshift wood railing so it wouldn't fall.
The sun had now been down for hours and I knew it was getting late, and while experience
had also taught me that my parents had probably found a way to get some more booze in cigarettes,
or were probably already passed out, but I wasn't ready to go home yet. I had leaned back
against the tree and my legs and feet were dangling over the edge of the wooden platform as
I watched the starry sky above me. It was beautiful and again I was peaceful and I felt so relaxed
and I didn't mean to, but I fell asleep.
Now the next thing I know, my dad was tugging on my foot to get me up for school and I kind
of came to a half-wakeful state. I think I mumbled to him that I was already awake, go away,
leave me alone. The tugging stopped.
For a fraction of a second I felt myself falling back to sleep when my subconscious mind began
ringing loud, clocks and alerts screaming at me that I wasn't at home in my bed and
that it was not my dad tugging on my foot. My eyes popped open to inky-blackness all around
me.
Now fully wide awake, I reflexively jerked my legs back up onto the platform, pulling
my knees close to my chest. I tried to calm my hard breathing so I could listen, and unmistakably,
I did hear movement directly under me.
I replayed the moment in my head of something tugging on my foot, and I thought maybe it
was a bear that had reached up and was swatting my foot.
But no, it was a hand wrapped around my foot tugging. It was on a slap, and I hadn't felt
any claws, and black bears can't reach this high, can they?
I was thinking about all of that as my eyes were adjusting to the darkness.
I couldn't see clearly, but I couldn't make out movement in the darkness below.
Chancing it, I reached into my still half unzipped backpack hanging on the rail, and felt around
until I found the small flashlight.
I shifted up to a kneeling position, took a deep breath, and cautiously leaned over, peering
off the edge of the platform, and flipped on my flashlight.
Now I didn't understand what I was seeing for maybe a half second or so.
Below me illuminated in the small spread of the weak yellow light from my small flashlight
was something large and covered in fur and very tall.
At first I did think it was a bear standing on its back legs maybe.
Maybe because that's what I was expecting to see.
I was looking down directly on top of its head, which was only a few feet below the platform.
The fur was dark and brown in the light.
Quickly it looked up at me, and then I knew it was not a bear.
There were no ears, no snout, but it had a wide face with dark eyes that glinted in my
flashlight.
It made a grunting noise and looked away from the light quickly.
I scrambled backwards, bewildered, and then suddenly I felt a thump on the right side of
the platform.
I turned my flashlight in that direction, and I saw a long arm reaching up, trying to
go over the thin railing on that side of the platform.
Terrified I shamed up to a standing position and tried to make myself flatter against the
tree as I shrank to the far edge as much as I could safely go.
Which wasn't far.
Watching the arm reaching up to feel around in the air, I had a ridiculous image of my head
of myself reaching blindly over the shelf in the top of my closet, not too long ago.
Looking for the shoe box I had hidden some things from my parents in.
Now I couldn't see up there with no light in the closet.
I was just blindly groping around in the darkness, searching by feel.
That.
That's what it looked like with that arm in the air reaching up.
Anyway, that's the thought that came into my head.
And you know, even as frightened as I was, I realized there wasn't any force in the arm.
And by that I mean something that size could have easily broken the small pieces of the
wood railing like tiny matchsticks, but it didn't.
It was searching.
And I realized suddenly that there was a harsh, barking noise in my ears.
And then I realized it was me making that noise.
I couldn't stay quiet.
My breathing was combining with some noise that I was making, I guess, out of fear.
I remember slapping a hand over my mouth, trying to stay quiet.
But even then, I could still hear my own muffled sound under my hand.
I kept thinking, "If I'm quiet, it won't hear me, right?
It will go away."
And briefly it did.
It went away.
I saw the arm disappear from that side of the tree stand.
I was shining my light all around in the darkness.
When I felt a tug on the railing that I was leaning against.
Quickly I pressed back against the tree and pointed my flashlight in that direction, just
in time to see the little thin railing give way and my backpack that had been hanging on
it disappear below.
I was almost hyperventilating at this point, I think.
I expected to feel the entire platform give way any second, or see a hand reach out and
grab my foot and pull me down.
The seconds went by and that didn't happen.
I waited.
And I tried to listen, but all I could hear at first was my own erratic heartbeat and rough
breathing.
And then, then I heard something that I recognized.
I heard what sounded like fabric ripping, and then I heard the sound of things smacking leaves.
And then, I heard the sound of plastic crinkling.
Tentatively I leaned forward and flashed my light below.
A few feet to the side of the tree stood the creature.
My backpack lay at its feet like a deflated football, and I caught sight of a few of my
items thrown about.
I watched as the creature turned the grocery shopping bag over and over in its hands.
A few times it brought it close to its face and I think it was sniffing it.
But it seemed puzzled how to get into the bag, which seemed odd to me since it had
no problem ripping the backpack apart.
Out.
I watched as it put the tight ends of the grocery bag in its mouth, maybe giving one or two
tentative chews and then pulled it right back out.
In a few moments though, it did figure out how to tear into the slippery plastic bag.
And I watched as it figured out how to unroll the top of the fritos bag, and then dump them
on the ground.
It then squatted and began picking up the fritos and eating them, dirt and all.
Now once before the weak batteries gave out in my flashlight, it looked back up at me as
I peered over from the side of the wood platform.
It looked at me for a half second or so before returning to picking up fritos from the dirt
and eating them.
I would like to add so that everyone knows that Bigfoot has really bad manners and eats
with his mouth open.
Now satisfied he had gotten whatever there was to eat, I watched as he threw everything
down and after me andering about for a bit slowly moved away and out of sight of my light.
All of this experience had only taken a few minutes, but to me it felt like an eternity.
Many ten minutes or so after the Bigfoot had walked out of my sight, the batteries in my
flashlight finally gave out, leaving me in darkness with only the stars above.
I sat on the platform with my knees drawn up tight, waiting for dawn.
Now I had plenty of time to think during those dark hours until dawn about what had happened,
and I knew a few things for certain.
It's notably being that if it had wanted me out of that stand, it could have done so easily
and quickly.
I also thought about how it didn't seem very interested in me and that the real interest
had only been in my fritos.
With the sun now coming up strong, I surveyed the area as much as I could and then slowly
made my descent onto the forest floor.
I left the torn backpack and all my things lying around before cautiously making my way home.
Now when I walked in, I saw that my parents were passed out in the living room.
Nearby were fresh bottles and full ash trays.
I stood there and realized they hadn't even noticed that I had been gone all night.
Later, while taking a shower, I had another realization that broke my heart.
That if something had happened to me out there, no one would have known and no one would
have came looking for me because they hadn't even known I was gone.
Now I made myself two promises right there as I stood crying and naked in the shower that
was covered in soaps gum and mildew.
First, from that point forward, I was going to be much more careful about the circumstances
in which I put myself into in the future.
And secondly, that I would be a better parent than my parents were when I had children.
I'm 39 now and I know that I have kept the first promise.
And according to my children, I have kept the second one too.
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