Maximillian's Rocks

another r.wilde story - throwing rocks at babies

June 8, 2007 - Friday

Maximillian's Rocks

Chapter III

My father Maximillian Wilde collected rocks. He used the rocks he stockpiled to kill animals using a sling shot. He terrorized mostly turkeys. I hated his rock collection. What did those turkeys ever do to him I wondered. What if he hit a person and accidentally killed them. I was very uncomfortable with how consumed he was for rocks.

Some people have pocket knives on their person, but Max always had a pocket full of rocks. He felt superior to others and he always had a way to defend himself if need be.

Max had been close friends with Jimmy Carter as a youngster. They grew up together. There wasn't much to do in rural Georgia in the 1950's. Left to their own devices they determined to collect all the rocks in the world and change the global economy to one that was based on rocks. When that harebrained idea didn't float, they began using the rocks to hunt for sport. It started with bunnies, the neighborhood cats and escalated to big game in South Africa.

Max's consumption of all things rock left me wanting. I never knew my father very well, but I knew he loved rocks.

Jimmy Carter moved on and became the 39th President of the United States of America. It has often been rumored that Arafat and his Palestinian thugs didn't start chunking rocks at the Jews until old Jimmy and Arafat met to draw out a peace accord at Camp David (for the record, I am part Jew).

Chapters IV – VII have been skipped as to they were not relevant to catching the reader up to the crux of this particular story.

Chapter VIII

The neighbors that reside on both sides of my homestead have pools, granted above the ground, but pools none the less. The decks surrounding their pools are where they spend most of their free time.

Mister Baryshnikov, my neighbor on the left and his wife have between them at least seven kids and a brand new baby. This child was adorable, but he still had jaundice so they tried to keep him out side a good bit to get some sun. I see them outside and wave.

I was working ever so diligently to build a privacy fence. I have had the privilege to dig all over God's country but have yet to encounter an area with more rocks than my very own backyard. Rocks!

"My goodness at the rocks", I would constantly utter. I became very good at throwing these rocks. I picked up and threw rocks for what seemed like days on end. Max would have been particularly frazzled upon finding out how many rocks that I removed from the property.

On this particular day, my lovely wife's father, Mister K. came by to give a helping hand. You know it's bad, rockwise, when one has to borrow a TE 72 drill in a feeble attempt at breaking up these shallowly buried boulders.

Mister K. waltzed into the backyard and we decided that there was no better time to take a break than at that moment. It was hot. No. I would be incorrect to say it was hot. Hot doesn't even begin to describe the heat radiating from the sun as I watched my backyard turn slowly into a desert. I envisioned sand dunes. Sure Jack Jack could build a sand castle but what would I do with all the kitty droppings (cats are known to scratch in sand)? You tell me.

I had a hand full of rocks when I started the trek back to my patio to meet my paw in law. "What am I carrying these rocks for?", so I chunk the four stones in my hand toward the vicinity of the woods boarding my lot. One, two, three, I counted as I watched them glide into oblivion. "BAM!" I heard a thud as I looked for the fourth rock. I never saw it land.

My neighbors who were melting as they collected these sun rays on their skin like stickers sat up from their slumber and began to look around. Mister Baryshnikov walked to the corner of his deck next to his new born child lying in his baby seat and picked up a rock. He scratched his head. They all began to scratch their heads. I began to scratch my head. I was hiding in my patio dying of embarrassment.

You see, I tossed those four rocks underhanded. Yeah, that does seem girlish now that I have had time to think on throwing rocks, but jeez, I was tired and just kind of flung them. To be really transparent with you my dear reader, I sometimes pitched the rocks underhanded like a softball pitcher. A good softball pitcher hurls that cowhide upwards of 65 miles per hour, don't ya know…

Anyway, that fourth stone didn't release until I had reached the top of my throwing motion. In other words, it went backwards sailing toward this lovely family and their newborn.

I became panicked. You don't just throw rocks at babies and act like you are still a stud. You see if you throw rocks at babies, you are a bad person. Does it matter if it was an accident or not? No, I will go ahead and answer this one for you, nay, one million times, no!

As I hid in the patio, my father in law quickly hid too. "Rob, what are we hiding for?" he asked. Before Mister K. arrived at our house, he had passed a State Trooper. Mister K. might have been going a few miles per hour over the state regulated speed limit and for all he knew the fuzz had followed him to our house. We were hiding.

"I think that one of those rocks I just threw almost hit that kid." "What should I do?" We hem hawed back and forth for a few minutes and decided democratically that the only option I had was to walk over there and fess up.

I felt like throwing up buckets. That deck was full of people and I almost hit a baby with a rock. Now I am always going to be known in my neighborhood as the guy who throws rocks at babies.

"Hey y'all" I said sheepishly. They smiled back; you see they were still scratching their heads. They didn't want to believe that they lived next door to a rock thrower. Who was I, Earnest T. Bass? They wanted to believe that rock fell from the sky. I could have let them keep believing that, but in our heart of hearts, we all knew the truth.

I explained the situation and apologized relentlessly. We took over baby shower gifts and killed them with kindness. It's a year later and the incident appears to gone the way of water under a bridge, but I still have to live with this awful feeling in my gut and the guilt that never leaves every time I look in the mirror and see myself for who I really am….a guy who throws rocks at babies.

It is quite interesting how my father's obsession almost became my demise. I pronounced last year as the death of innocence. My father wished he could carry the burden of my self punishment.

I concluded that the best thing for me and for those around me was to want nothing, to be enthusiastic about nothing, to be unmotivated as possible, in fact, so that I would never again almost hurt anyone.

Thus ends Chapter VIII and the story of Rob Wilde and His father Maximillian.