Trust Your Gut Episode 1: Come on In

(i'm dead set on getting a series of something going on here. i swear i'll succeed)

You hear from all sorts of random sources, "Always trust your gut instinct!" If you're like me, a lot of times your gut tells you something, you ignore it and pass it off to paranoia, but then something happens after all.

This is a story about one time I listened to my gut and I'm not even a little doubtful that, by doing so, I prevented a very traumatic situation from happening to me. I was probably 11 or 12 at the time.

I've been hunting with my dad since I was just a little Stillie. It wasn't about trophies; it was about putting meat in the freezer and food on our table. Plus, it was a good time to bond with him.

Usually, we would lease land along with some other people as a group, and there was always a mobile home or ancient single-wide trailer there for us all to use. It was good for the ranch owner and good for us. A symbiotic relationship, if you will. There was always an aerial map of the land inside the trailer and each day, the hunters would choose which area they wanted to hunt in, mark it, and then bs around until it was time to go out.

Usually all the people in the group were good friends but, sometimes, it was a friend-of-a-friend situation, as it was this year. There were two guys - father and adult son - we didn't know very well. And the son...he gave me the creeps. It wasn't just the way he looked at me. It was his smile, his body language, the way he asked me so many questions. I just knew something was off.

On this day, one of our group, Tony, had borrowed a friend's tow camper and brought it up. He said he was tired of fighting people for the one shower in the mobile home. Dad and I were checking it out but then I had to pee, so I went inside the home to go to the bathroom. 

I turned the handle a couple of times (it frequently got stuck) and it popped open a little. Then I heard some splashing and thumping, so I apologized to the occupant - it was obvious they were in the tub - and turned to walk off. The voice from inside the bathroom, I'll call him Danny, called out and said, "You don't need to go." I heard some more splashing. "If you need to use the bathroom, come on in, it's okay. I just shut the curtain." More splashing came from within.

I panicked. I really had to pee. On one hand, I'd always been treated as 'one of the guys' and it's mostly because I really did behave like one. Normally, I'd have just said, "Yeah, ok," and gone on in, knowing full well I could trust them. Not only was I an obnoxious little tell-it-like-it-is no-filtered fuck, but our friends all knew my dad well enough, and what would happen if they messed with me at all.

But this was different. There was that immediate feeling in the pit of my stomach that was rising up towards my throat. Not a 'vomit' kind of rising, just a physical response telling me to pay attention. It wasn't just that I didn't know Danny that well; I know very well how to pee in front of people and keep everything covered so nobody can see a thing. (sometimes situations are unavoidable, you know?) But...I didn't want to piss off Danny by saying something rude. I mean, we were stuck with him for at least one season so there was no need to make waves. But then an idea hit me, immediately.

"That's okay. I can wait. Take your time," I said. I ran, and I mean RAN, on my tip-toes so I didn't make a lot of noise on the elevated, cheap plywood trailer floor, and didn't EVEN care that the screen door slammed behind me. I didn't want to let Danny know that he'd triggered my alarm because, as always, I was a calculating, revenge-hungry girl.

I went outside, walked out into the woods a bit, and peed. Then I went back to my dad and he said, "I thought you were going inside to pee." "I was going to, but Danny was in there." I didn't tell my father or Tony what things Danny had said. All I said was, "That guy's weird." I was just going to show them, later.

The group always had dinner together. Sometime after dinner, while we were sitting in the living room exchanging hunting stories, Danny got up to go to the bathroom. I counted to 10, then leaned over and whispered for my dad to follow me and to be quiet, and motioned to Tony to follow. We walked down the hall to the bathroom. He was mid-pee.

Instead of pushing on the handle, I knocked. "Occupied," Danny said. "Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to do this to you again!" but I just stood there and held out my hand to tell my dad and Tony to wait. "Nah, Stillie. No problem. Come on in. You don't have to hold it like last time." Pee stopped, but no flush. We waited for a second longer. "Coming?"

My dad damned-near kicked the door off its hinges. He crossed the 8-foot length of the bathroom faster than I'd ever seen anyone move. Tony followed and I just walked back out to all the chairs and sat down, staring at Danny's father. I didn't want to see anything. A second later, there was a little yelp.

I have to say, looking back on it now and realizing my age, I was a ballsy little shit.

Dad and Tony literally dragged Danny by the neck and one arm, totally pantsless, through the trailer and out the door, not very concerned about the fact that there was metal and then concrete stairs leading to the ground. Or that it was about 30 degrees outside.

Danny's dad stood up and started towards the door. Another hunter said, "Man, you might just wanna keep your old ass outta this mess. You're a little dense but you'd better listen to me on this one. I don't know what just happened, but it doesn't involve you." Two other hunters nodded in agreement. The father sat back down, craning his neck to look towards the door. (Good time to add that, with this being a hunting camp, all the windows were covered with plywood screwed to the wall. Too long to explain why.) I maintained my smirk while staring at the father. The other guys just slowly sipped their hot chocolate in silence.

The dragging noises and grunting continued until they finally trailed off.

It seemed like an eternity and the batteries in the clock over the space heater (white trash fireplace?) had been dead for a couple of years. I knew my father wouldn't kill the guy...probably. Tony probably wouldn't let him, anyway.

An eternity later, Danny came stumbling back in the trailer, scraped up and a little bloody all over, dirty, and holding his shredded shirt. At least his shoes were still on. As was the garish cross on a chain around his neck.

"Dad, we need to go. Right now. We need to get packed up," he choked out, as he lurched down the hall to the back bedroom he was sharing with his father. The old man wouldn't take his eyes off my dad and Tony when they came in a few seconds later, their jeans a little dirty with dead grass caked on the knees. The old man got out of the recliner and followed Danny into the room.

I'm not sure how much time had passed, but it was only long enough for my dad to step outside and brush off his jeans. Just about the time he sat down in a chair, Danny and his father were carrying bags and gun cases and pillows through the living room and out the door.

"We're going to tell EVERYONE about this," Danny's father said. My dad laughed. "Don't worry; I'm going to do the same, I promise you that one."

When my dad heard Danny's truck crunching over leaves as they drove away, Dad said, "Let's follow them out." Tony got up and they went out to my dad's truck. 

It was mostly silent in the living room with the other three guys while they were gone. One asked, "I guess you're okay?" "Yeah. He scared me pretty bad, though. He's not a good guy." One of the men looked at the floor and absentmindedly fiddled with his earlobe. He was the man who had vouched for Danny's dad and, by proxy, Danny. "Mike, I'm not mad at you. I don't think Dad will be, either."

My father is a very well-respected man. Likeable. Smart. Knows a little about everything and everything about some things. As a little kid would be, I think Mike was more afraid of losing my dad's trust and for disappointing him.

Dad and Tony finally came back. "We followed them out the gate and then changed the lock codes. It's too late tonight, but we'll call the rancher tomorrow and give him the new codes."

My dad motioned for Mike to follow him to the back bedroom. He looked worried. I knew he had no reason to be; my father was a reasonable man. If he weren't, Danny wouldn't have been able to walk back into the trailer.

The rest of us could kind of hear some muffled talking but couldn't make out any words. Mike and my dad came out smiling and chuckling a little bit, and my dad had his hand resting on Mike's shoulder. When they sat down, Mike wasn't looking anybody in the eye, but he was smiling a little. 

Dad stood up and walked over to the wall-mounted map and removed two of the push pins. "So, let's figure out who's going to be where in the morning, huh? It's getting about time to get some shut-eye, right?" The guys stood up and started planning out the next morning. Dad called me over and pointed to one pin and said, "This is where I'm going to put you in the morning. Does that sound okay to you?" "Sure. Wherever you want me is fine with me." He shoved a pink pushpin into the map.

Neither of us got a deer that weekend.

On the long drive back home...oh Jesus. My dad let me have it for about 100 miles. He went on and on about how I should have told him at the very beginning that Danny made me uncomfortable and how I should have told him after the first bathroom incident. I defended myself by telling him that so many times, nobody believes kids when they tell on people like that. I tried to appeal to his common sense by reminding him that nothing had happened. I tried to explain how my amazing plan worked much better because they got to see it firsthand.

He sighed. All he said before the next 100 miles in silence was, "Well, I guess nobody can doubt whether or not I'm your dad."

A few months later, after the season was over, one of our hunting buddies mailed my dad a newspaper clipping from the city where he and Danny both lived. Danny had gotten arrested for "allegedly" sexually assaulting two preteen girls - cousins - who were neighbors. They'd stopped at his house to try to sell chocolate for a school fundraiser and he got them inside. And then raped them both. They were brave and ended up telling their aunt about it. He was out on bail and awaiting trial.

Dad decided to pull this clipping out right after dinner but before we cleared the table. Of course, he'd told Mom but she never said anything to me about it. At that point, she spoke up and said, "I hope they put him under the jail. Those poor little girls." I could tell Mom was trying not to get blubbery so I stood up and started clearing dishes.

That was pretty much the end of it ever being mentioned. I still have no idea if he was ever convicted or whatever. I've never had any nightmares, I never developed any weird mistrust of men. I still think men who leave a couple of shirt buttons undone to reveal their dark, hairy chests so as to show off their garish cross necklace are douchebags.

And...I ALWAYS trust my gut.

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