Matt Gable - Daddy Knows Best: A Raw, Uncut True Story

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means whatsoever without prior written permission, except where permitted by law or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, please e-mail: mattgable1768@gmail.com

Daddy Knows Best

by Matt Gable

Digital Edition

Copyright 2011

All rights reserved

• Scarface
• Home
• The Rooster
• The Messed Up Camp
• The Bullies
• School
• Isolation
• Misdiagnosed
• The County Hospital
• Life without Pain
• The Ghost on the Roof
• The Breakup
• Back to Wisconsin
• The Projects
• Gramma
• A -B -Cs
• Not So "Thanksgiving"
• A Quick Way to Break Up
• Ricky
• The Tunnels
• Returns, Pawns And Cons
• Watermelons
• Ricky's Jealousy
• Cookie
• Cookie's Revenge
• Ricky Cracked
• Pranks
• Marsha
• The Exchange
• Riding The "Dog"
• Gary
• My New Life
• The Chip on My Shoulder
• The Mysterious House
• The Woman That Skipped
• Old Acres
• No Doors, No Windows, No Nothing
• Alone
• Treated Like Shit
• The Rats
• The Preacher
• She Came Back

My brothers and I had six weeks before school started. We felt like we was on vacation. Gary and I will be going to the same school together. It made me feel a whole lot better. We made new friends as well as enemies. We had BB-gun shootouts with some of the boys in the neighborhood. A couple of times, they overtook us and ran us into our house. My dad would take over and holler at them, and they would run off.

One of them was a guy we used to call Scarface, because he had a scar that covered the right side of his face. He was a real menace, always lying and fighting someone. Even I fought him once, but after the fight, we became friends. Once, I accidentally called him Scarface, and I apologized. He said, Thats okay. I like that name, Im used to it. People always call me this. From then on, we called him Scarface. We hung out with him for a while. I asked him how he got that big scar on his face. He always said he was born with it, but I never did believe him. I just slipped one day and asked him again. Scarface was quiet, as if he was not sure he should tell us. He said, Can you guys keep a secret? Sure. He told us that his mother got mad at him and took a hot iron and pressed it against his face. It stuck to it and burned it. When she pulled the iron from his face, it peeled away his skin, too. We all got very quiet after hearing this. I told my brothers later, His mother seems like the type that would do something like that. I saw her at the store. She looks like a mean old witch, and the other lady, who hangs out with her, looked even worse. They lived next door to each other on a trashy dead end street, which we called bums street. That street was behind our house. Scarface mothers friend walked dragging her right foot. Her foot was turned sideways. Wherever she walked, it would leave a long sliding trail, and she made a scraping sound as she took each step. She looked a lot like Scarfaces mother, as if they was sisters. They was both in their fifties and wore their hair up, and both had glasses. Scarfaces mother had black hair and the other woman had long red hair and a big mole on her face. They both was skinny and they both talked with whiskey voices. They gave me the creeps.

Once we saw the woman who dragged her leg in the back of our yard, staring at us. When she noticed that we saw her, she hurried away, leaving in the woods a trail from her dragging foot. It was a six-inch wide scrape on the ground from her right shoe. We looked around and found her trails all over the place. What really bothered me was that we found a trail leading to my brothers and my bedroom windows outside of the house.

What she was doing here? Why was she watching us at night in our bedrooms? I was scared of her, really scared. I told my dad about her and the next weekend, he put up a fence in the back of our yard. I should have put a fence there a long time ago, he said. A couple days later, I saw the woman who dragged her foot. She was cutting into the side of the yard and then jumped the fence. This woman really was giving me the creeps.

One night, I was asleep in my bedroom and heard the dogs barking in the back of our yard. I got up and took my trusty old knife in my hand. My bedroom was in the back of the house. I could tell the dogs were barking at a human: their barks were serious. I peeked out of my window through an opening in the curtains. I saw her standing there and staring at me. I tried to scream, but I couldnt. I closed the curtain, ran out of my room and opened my parents door without knocking first, as I was told many times before. My dad jumped out of bed, Whats wrong?

I was scared, That woman who dragged her foot was looking through my window, and I saw her! Dad put his pants on real quick, and grabbed his pistol. Mike, I want you to follow me and stay right behind me, all right? Yes, I told him. We went outside and looked for her, but she was not there. Then, we looked to the back. There she was: we saw her two hundred feet away. All we could see was her back; she was dragging her limping foot as fast as she could. My dad aimed his gun up in the air and shot it three times. She looked back very quickly; I could see the moon's light reflecting from her thick glasses. She turned away, swung herself over the fence and disappeared.

The next day I was out in the yard and looked around my back window. This side of the house did not have any grass. There was too much shade for any grass to grow. I looked down and saw her tracks six inches wide in a long line. One footprint pointed to my window while the other pointed in the opposite direction. Why is this woman bothering me? I thought about it. That morning, I walked to the shed that was partially in woods behind our yard to get my bike. When I got to the shed, I heard a high-pitched scream. I hurried and pushed my bike out and saw the woman behind the fence. I dropped my bike. She pointed at me and said in her dry whiskey voice, I am going to get you, you little bastard!

I ran into the house and told my mother what had just happened. Thats it, she said, I am calling the police on her. It took a lot for her to call the police because most of the time when you call the police, they never show up, and if they do show up, it is usually hours later. The people around here sometimes take the law into their own hands to a certain extent, because of this. When she called, they told her it would be a while before somebody comes. My mother hung up the phone and told us to stay inside the house. My dad was at work at the time. Therefore, there was not much she could do, but wait and wait. Finally, it became dark, and still is no police, as usual with Old Acres. They don't show up unless it is something very serious. They never did show up. A couple of days had passed, and we didnt see any more footprints or lines in our yard.

One morning Gary came in the house excitedly and said, The lady that drags her foot is parked outside blocking our driveway. We looked out of the window; she had her van parked crossways. She came out of the van and started to scream at my mother with her dry whiskey voice, Your sons shot out my windshield with their BB-guns! She had her husband with her. He was creepy, too. He was very skinny and had a big nose, wide ears, and a large Adam's apple on his skinny neck. He was bald on the top and had long hair on the back of his head. He didnt say a word. My dad was at home this time and went outside. He told them to move their van. Were not moving it until the police get here, the woman said. She took a drag on her cigarette; her whole face shrunk up as she took each hit. She stared at me and pointed her long finger at the same time. She hated me. I could see it in her eyes.